26 March 2002, KL Issue 1

TAKING COMPUTERS TO SCHOOL: Thai tales...

IT ALL STARTED IN about 1995, initially just a piggyback on a university network. "In the beginning, we just called in leading schools where they understood that having access to the Internet would be beneficial. So, we called 50 of these schools to a training, that would allow them to start off with an Internet server," recalls Dr Thaweesak Koanantakool of Thailand.

Dr. Thaweesak Koanantakool of National Electronics and Computer Technology.

Dr Koanantakool, director of the Bangkok-based National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre, says most of the schools initially chosen were in his country's capital.

Later, Thai computer scientists developed an easy-to-administer web-controlled Linux schools Internet server.

"When news spread out, schools outside Bangakok said they wanted to use it. But they could not afford even a week's cost of the telephone line. So we asked them to work with a university close to their school. But that's not convenient. In 1998, we introduced (the King's) Golden Jubiliee Network, for the citizen to access Intranet within Thailand for a year, without charge," he adds

By 2000, this was enlarged to allow nationwide access. "We allowed every school to use this nationwide network. We pay for Internet connection and internal badnwidth. We managed to provide for a capacity of 1500 schools. It's a sort of free ISP, but limited to schools," says Dr Koanantakool.

What has their experience been?

It varies a great deal. Some 10 to 15 schools proved to be really good, having great teachers, who created content and activity for students. Soon, the teachers were awarded at SchoolNet Day functions, to act as role-models for teachers. Really good

A couple of years back, the project got a budget to expand to 5000 schools. Each school has 400 hours of connect-time. Some small schools have just a single machine, while others have 400 to 500.

Old PCs that "barely run Windows" but allow for TCPIP connects are fine. "Even an old 486 could do as a server, because the line-speed is slower than the CPU anyway. Many schools, which have a greater number of computers, run really great data centres," says Dr Koanantakool.

Earlier, in 1999, another campaign was run, because the project authorities were "not happy with the way teachers and children made limited use of their computers". So, they decided to run another campaign, to introduce more Thai content in the schools.

Around the same time, Thailand created a digital-library toolkit. It allows teachers to get on with short training -- for, say, two hours -- and they can put their own website or teaching material on the web.

"Once its on the web, anyone can access it. Teachers can mark themselves as the author, and we will protect the content for them, so they always own it. But the content can be used and reused by anyone," says he. Today, there are hundreds of teachers using this, resulting in thousands of web-pages.

Some teachers remain "afraid" of computers. But, good schools know how to put a couple of computers in the library, bookmark examples of good sites, and let students use the PC to search for information for their projects.

In between, a 'Thai Junior Encyclopedia' was also brought out -- on both CD-rom and the Net.

One of the schools -- Sri Wittaya Paknam -- has a site drawing a hit rate higher than the tourism authority of Thailand, says Koanantakool, with a laugh. The teacher uses the site to teach English through the web.

More details: http://school.net.th/library (ENDS)