News
Questions over moves to buy Chinese smart white boards for schools
View(s):- Cabinet sanctioned the purchase just six working days after the Elections Commission announced the Presidential poll
By Namini Wijedasa
Serious questions have been raised about Cabinet approval granted on August 5, 2024, to buy 1,000 smart boards from China’s Huawei Technologies at high prices–estimated to be at least Rs. 940,000 per board–when the average price of boards bought for the education sector over the last five years was around Rs. 340,000 each.
Cabinet sanctioned the purchase just six working days after the Elections Commission announced the Presidential poll. While the proposal had been in the pipeline for several months, it was one of several rushed approvals granted in the weeks preceding the ballot. And it was not included in the official list of Cabinet decisions released to the public.
The smart boards–which are interactive digital whiteboards that form part of a “smart classroom”–are to be bought using a percentage of the telecommunications development charge (TDC) collected by the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL).
The last joint Cabinet memorandum was titled “Improvement of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Education and Development of Telecommunication Industry through Digital Transformation of General Education-Awarding Bids.”
While the exact cost per board is not disclosed in Cabinet papers, The Sunday Times did a calculation based on the published total cost. Neither the former TRCSL Director General Madhushanka Dissanayake nor Education Ministry Secretary Thilaka Jayasundara was available for comment despite repeated attempts to contact them, including via text messaging.
smart boards are interactive digital whiteboards that form part of a “smart classroom”
No competitive bids
The memorandum states that the Sri Lanka State Trading Corporation (STC) was selected to buy the smart boards (quotations were not called from other suppliers). There will be no competitive tender. The price will be decided purely on the CIF (cost, insurance and freight) value cited by the same manufacturer, Huawei, who is tipped to supply smart boards under a separate official US$ 20mn Chinese grant project that aims to provide smart classes to 500 schools.
Information on the Chinese proposal is scant and there is no evidence in the public domain of any facilities having yet been provided. It is therefore not clear why the government would decide to purchase hundreds more Huawei boards based on a pledge by the Chinese to donate a significantly smaller number of smart boards. “They’ve locked the market to a single supplier,” another senior IT industry source said.
The memorandum reveals that, after bargaining with the Cabinet-appointed standing procurement committee, the CIF value of the 1,000 smart boards, as agreed by both parties, was US$ 3,135,392.50 to be purchased from Huawei. According to the Cabinet paper, this will cover distribution, installation, training and equipment maintenance at respective schools. When STC includes local purchase and supply of UPS devices, import and other charges as well as margins, the total bid value is Rs. 1.49bn (excluding VAT). The payment will be made by the TRCSL.
It is also clear from documentation that the STC had cited a price for installation and maintenance (to be done by a third party) without even obtaining quotations. It has now invited bids for the installation of 50 numbers of smart classrooms and maintenance of 1,000 smart boards. The closing date for bids is Tuesday.
Why only Huawei?
Former STC Chairman Asiri Walisundara justified the prices of the smart boards saying the Chinese had sent the specifications of the ones they were gifting, and that the TRCSL-funded boards had to “tally” with them. For further questions, he referred ‘The Sunday Times’ to the Ministry of Education saying it was their request.
Mr. Walisundara also said the total project was 2,500 schools and that all of them must have the same type of boards. “When they (Chinese) are supplying Huawei boards, we can’t buy any other board other than Huawei,” he insisted.
None of the Cabinet papers provide a detailed justification for sourcing the smart boards exclusively from Huawei. They only state that the 1,000 smart boards to be paid for by TRCSL must be “technically aligned” with the smart boards provided through Chinese aid. But there is no practical reason offered for buying and installing these high-priced Huawei smart boards, bought from local funds, even before the Chinese equipment arrives in Sri Lanka.
“If the TRCSL’s 1,000 smart boards are meant to work in coordination with smart boards being given under the Chinese aid project, there might be a need for them to be technically compatible,” an authoritative IT sector source, pointing to a worrying paucity of information. “The government has used this argument to justify buying Huawei smart boards, claiming that everything must be aligned with the Chinese aid project.”
“However, since the Chinese aid smart boards haven’t yet been delivered, there is a major flaw in this argument,” he continued. “If the TRCSL is purchasing 1,000 boards that depend on the Chinese boards for full functionality, then buying and installing them before the Chinese boards arrive makes no sense. Without these in place, the TRCSL-funded boards can’t operate as intended under the technical alignment argument although their functionality is being justified as part of a larger, interconnected system.”
“Why rush the purchase if those Chinese boards haven’t even arrived?” he reiterated. “This makes the early procurement both illogical and highly questionable, further underscoring the lack of transparency and planning in this entire process.”
A system that already works
Furthermore, the Education Ministry already has network access control system (NACS) and a multimedia conference system (MCS) which are fully operational with more than 500 smart boards across schools in Sri Lanka. This existing infrastructure was not provided through the Chinese grant but independently procured and installed by the Ministry. They currently meet the necessary technological requirements for managing and securing educational networks, multiple education sector sources said.
They said the prevailing NACS and MCS are the only technical requirements needed to integrate smart boards into schools. “There is no technical necessity to source new smart boards exclusively from Huawei, as the existing infrastructure can seamlessly support boards from other manufacturers,” they said.
The Cabinet papers state, however, that: “Devices must align technologically with already operational network systems, ensuring cyber security and high-definition distance education features.”
In the last five years, the majority of smart boards bought by several provincial departments of education, zonal education offices, ministry of education and district secretariats were 65-inch boards at prices ranging from Rs. 299,970 (lowest) to Rs. 401,900.
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