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Published on February 26, 2008

Patama Chantaruck, managing director of Microsoft (Thailand), said the firm was negotiating with the Education Minister to offer the Microsoft Student Innovation Suite which includes Microsoft Office Suite, Match and Microsoft literacy programs to students at a cheap price.

"Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft, announced the $3 initiative in China last year to offer opportunities to students to enter the digital world. We will therefore take advantage of the programme to support students in Thailand, promoting their information and communication technology skills and enabling them with better access to the Internet," said Patama.

The firm has proposed the programme to the Education Minister and the approval is expected in the near future.

The firm last month also started a pilot project to offer students three Microsoft Office Home edition licenses for Bt3,500. Students who want to purchase a Microsoft office licence just show their student identity card at an IT retail shop.

"We will conduct the pilot project for around three months before evaluating and adjusting the programme to support students in the Thai market. The project might be expanded to other countries if it is successful in Thailand," said Patama.

Microsoft is also working with the Education Ministry to provide the ICT Accessibility programme, which aims to give ICT skills to disabled students.

The programme will provide ICT accessibility courses for children with physical disabilities, children with visual or auditory disabilities and children with intellectual disabilities or autism, by using Microsoft Windows XP which comes with ICT accessibility to support disabled people.

Charuaypon Torranin, permanent secretary of the Education Ministry said that Thailand has around 100,000 disabled students nationwide. The ministry expects that the programme will teach information technology to students who study in 4,000 schools.

Jirapan Boonnoon

The Nation