Ministry launches tender process for tablets at Turkish schools

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

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The Turkish Education Ministry has begun a tender process to purchase at least 10.6 million tablet PCs as part of its Fatih project to distribute the devices in schools.

The government plans to replace traditional blackboards and textbooks in schools with electronic boards and tablet PCs as a part of the Fatih project in order to merge education with innovative information technologies and radically transform the perception of education.

The ministry announced yesterday the conditions required for participation in the tender, which will be conducted on April 29.

As part of the project, the government will purchase approximately 10.6 million tablets for students, administrative employees and teachers.

The bidders have to guarantee that they will have service stations in all seven regions of Turkey.

“The production of tablets should be in Turkey and the producing company should establish a research and development center in Turkey,” Industry and Technology Minister Nihat Ergün said in February, adding that the government also deemed it important for applications to be developed with open source software so that the codes could be made available to the public.

Microsoft and Apple are reportedly the frontrunners in the tender. “As part of Fatih, we’re working on establishing the first research and development laboratory in Turkey,” Microsoft Turkey General Manager Tamer Özmen said March 31.