Office of Education that distributed free laptops… Only foreign companies have called

◆ Lax education finance ⑤ ◆

As the Gyeongnam Provincial Office of Education expanded its ‘smart device supply project’ to one per student in December last year, a large number of Taiwanese Asus laptops were selected, causing controversy. The purchase of a Taiwanese laptop by the Gyeongnam Provincial Office of Education turned the game around in the domestic laptop market. Some even point out that the local financial education subsidy funded by the people’s blood tax only paid foreign companies’ ships.

According to IDC Korea, a market research company on the 18th, Samsung Electronics ranked first with 277,912 units in notebook shipments in the second quarter, Asus ranked second with 186,901 units, and LG Electronics ranked third with 133,128 units. Last year, Asus had a market share of 7.4%, which was only in the fifth place, but as supply to the Gyeongnam Provincial Office of Education was digested in the first and second quarters of this year, it surpassed LG Electronics and climbed to second place at once.

The Gyeongnam Provincial Office of Education has supplied a total of 294,000 Taiwanese Asus laptops to elementary, middle and high school students in the province with a budget of 157.8 billion won by August of this year. There are five types: general laptops, flip-type laptops (two-in-one multifunction devices), and tablet PCs. Of these, more than 90% were distributed as flip-type laptops.

The Gyeongnam Provincial Office of Education gave the highest score to the ‘lowest price’ standard of product specifications in the then-procedures bidding. However, it was difficult for domestic notebook makers to keep up with local education authorities in terms of price competitiveness compared to foreign companies including Asus. In other points such as technical specifications and maintenance, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics will have an overwhelming advantage over products made by Taiwanese and Chinese companies. It has to be a playground.

A low-spec Taiwan Asus flip-type laptop supplied by the Gyeongnam Office of Education to students. [사진 제공 = 독자]

An official from the domestic home appliance industry pointed out, “The biggest competitive difference between domestic and foreign companies is maintenance.”

The complaints from parents and students are also continuing over the laptop specifications distributed by the Gyeongnam Provincial Office of Education. Tongyeong citizen Jang Mo, who has a child in middle school, said, “The 14-inch laptop is heavy and too slow for children to use. It is much faster to just connect to the Internet with a mobile phone.” “I feel like the budget is too much,” he said. As local offices of education compete to provide free laptops to students, these complaints may arise.

Regarding this, an official from the Gyeongnam Provincial Office of Education said, “It is for learning only, so high specifications are not required, and the specifications suggested by our Office of Education are similar to those suggested by the Ministry of Education and the National Intelligence Service (NIA). “The selection of a company is the sole authority of the Public Procurement Service, so the Office of Education cannot be involved.”

The Gyeongnam Provincial Assembly also recently criticized the term ‘desk administration’. At the regular meeting of the provincial council held on the 15th, Provincial Councilor Park Chun-deok pointed out that the provincial office of education’s smart terminal distribution project lacks systematic management and efficiency.

Rep. Park said, “Due to the poor beta version management program installed during the trial operation, children were exposed defenselessly to harmful sites such as games.” The MDM construction was not completed until the end of September, so it is a typical back-north administration.”

[창원 = 최승균 기자 / 서울 = 이재철 기자]
[ⓒ 매일경제 & mk.co.kr, 무단전재 및 재배포 금지]