The government has changed the future procurement method for tablet computers for Prathom 1 (Grade 1) and Mathayom 1 (Grade 7) students.
A meeting of the tablet management committee was held yesterday at the Education Ministry to discuss their approach to procurement.
The government plans to buy 550,000 more tablets for Prathom 1 students under the Office of the Basic Education Commission (Obec) in the next academic year.
They will also buy 637,000 more for Mathayom 1 students in the second semester of the current academic year.
However, procurement will now be done by e-auctions rather than by government-to-government (G-to-G) agreements.
The government earlier procured more than 800,000 tablet computers for Prathom 1 pupils from Chinese supplier Shenzhen Scope Scientific Development Co, which successfully won the bid under a Thai-Chinese G-to-G deal.
"In the e-auctions, suppliers in this country and overseas will be allowed to compete equally," Education Minister Suchart Thada-Thamrongvech said.
Mr Suchart said the committee planned to set a reference price for the tablets and then choose the suppliers who offered the best prices and specifications.
ICT Minister Anudith Nakornthap yesterday said there would be several e-auction rounds.
He added that about 30,000 schools countrywide would have access to 100Mbps high-speed internet connections by next year in order to further support education using tablet computers.
Obec secretary-general Chinnapat Bhumirat said problems were found in only 0.05% of the first batch of around 400,000 tablets that have already been distributed to students.
Most of these problems, he said, arose from incorrect usage such as overcharging batteries.