Apple Executives Meet with Turkish President to Discuss $4.5 Billion iPad Education Initiative

[MacRumors]

As reported [Google translation] by Turkish blog Elma Dergisi, Apple executives including vice president for education John Couch met with Turkish president Abdullah Gül today to discuss several issues. The office of the Turkish president has also posted a photo and a brief video from the meeting.

Turkish president Abdullah Gül at far left, Apple VP John Couch at far right​

Among the primary topics addressed during the meeting was Turkey's tablet initiative, a $4.5 billion program to provide as many as 15 million tablets to Turkish schoolchildren. Apple has reportedly been pushing for the contract, but negotiations are said to still be underway.

Also discussed was the layout of the older Turkish "F-keyboard" on iOS devices, which has several keys located in the wrong positions.

Apple has been making a significant push in Turkey, launching the iTunes Store for music and movies there in December and hiring for future retail stores in the country. Gül had visited Apple headquarters last May and discussed many of the same issues included in today's meeting with Couch and other executives.

Article Link: Apple Executives Meet with Turkish President to Discuss $4.5 Billion iPad Education Initiative

 

[charlieegan3]

'Big push' but didn't think to double check the keyboard layouts?

15 million is a lot of learning (or getting just distracted...)

 

[ghost187]

Woot woot, for my nation of origin

 

[JaySoul]

That would be a delight.

 

[ConCat]

Crony capitalism.

 

[Baklava]

Woot woot, for my nation of origin

Same here!

Very nice move.

 

[Whaditis]

Definitely good news, greetings from your friendly Greek neighbor.


Good move on Turkeys part. Wish it was the same for Ellas.

 

[jonnysods]

That's a lot of money, especially in future app sales.

 

[92jlee]

What a massive waste of public funds. They did a test in a British school and so many ipads were damaged, they are far too brittle and expensive to be used for education. Whats the point anyway? Its not like they will move on and get jobs in any area that will require use of an iPad!

 

[shartypants]

Regardless of who they pick, smart move for the country.

 

[GoPro]

Thats $300 per ipad, which is a decent price for a low end model, but I can't help but feel $4.5b could be better spent elsewhere in education.
To those who say they will break, Turkey have actually already implemented tablets (Samsung galaxy tablets) with great success (they have large cases on them) and they had custom software installed which would not allow students to use the internet unless the teacher allowed via remote link, and the tablet would also cease to work if not connected to the schools wifi system for longer than a few days.

It would be interesting to know if these features will be incorporated into the iPads.

 

[mrsir2009]

What a massive waste of public funds. They did a test in a British school and so many ipads were damaged, they are far too brittle and expensive to be used for education. Whats the point anyway? Its not like they will move on and get jobs in any area that will require use of an iPad!

I don’t think the point is to teach kids how to use an iPad. It’s more like teaching kids the tradditional stuff THROUGH the iPad.

Oh, and about the damaging problem, they could just stick the iPads in heavy duty cases.

 

[macs4nw]

That would be a delight.

Clever, did everyone get that?

That's a lot of money, especially in future app sales.

Not to mention the overall ecosystem benefits. If APPLE can be successful with this 'Education Initiative', that would be sensational, not only for the immediate economic windfall to the company, but also as an example to education ministries in other countries, who would no doubt keep a close eye on this 'experiment', and who might follow suit. The overall long term benefits of this to APPLE, would be almost incalculable! A brilliant move!

 

[Unggoy Murderer]

What a massive waste of public funds. They did a test in a British school and so many ipads were damaged, they are far too brittle and expensive to be used for education. Whats the point anyway? Its not like they will move on and get jobs in any area that will require use of an iPad!

British kids are ungrateful little swines, though. So it's not a good measurement of success. When I was on holiday in Turkey a few years back (had an awesome time by the way, wonderful country!) Turkish kids in the same resort all seemed to be very well behaved, in contrast to the British kids which were rowdy to say the least.

iPads in education are brilliant, I really hope that one day they become the standard.

 

[gnasher729]

What a massive waste of public funds. They did a test in a British school and so many ipads were damaged, they are far too brittle and expensive to be used for education. Whats the point anyway? Its not like they will move on and get jobs in any area that will require use of an iPad!

There are countries where kids are taught to look after their stuff.

And it's quite daft to assume they would buy iPads to teach kids to use iPads. You use iPads to teach them maths, physics, languages, history, chemistry and so on and so on.

 

[thekev]

There are countries where kids are taught to look after their stuff.

And it's quite daft to assume they would buy iPads to teach kids to use iPads. You use iPads to teach them maths, physics, languages, history, chemistry and so on and so on.

You always have some kind of breakage rate that must be assumed. After 3 years not all of those purchased will still be in service. They would need to test many things as well as determine the cost of educational content. It's not a whimsical purchase, but I would imagine they've already investigated much of this.

 

[charlituna]

What a massive waste of public funds. They did a test in a British school and so many ipads were damaged, they are far too brittle and expensive to be used for education. Whats the point anyway? Its not like they will move on and get jobs in any area that will require use of an iPad!

One school is hardly proof of anything.i can probably find 20 British schools where they love the iPad, where they don't get damaged etc

As for your last comment, actually yes they could move on and get a job that requires them to use an iPad. Many businesses and more and more each month are adopting or at least researching adoption of iPads. By the time these kids ad out of school it could be even more likely. And even if they don't there is more to such programs than just teaching them to use the iPad. its about electronic textbooks, international communication etc

 

[Paulio]

It's not the tool it's the method. It's great to see a government putting serious money into education, I just hope that they put just as much into other areas.
The general consensus where I'm from is that school is lame and boring, education is a vital part of our existence and its frustrating to see how terrible our system is, how badly it works and how little our Australian government cares about these issues.
I wish the Turkish people success, and hope that from it, others also see the importance of radically changing what needs to be changed.

 

[a0me]

Also discussed was the layout of the older Turkish "F-keyboard" on iOS devices, which has several keys located in the wrong positions.

Really, Apple?

 

[Azathoth]

A massive waste of funds, and the world's resources. Books are great: renewable, re-usable, don't use rare minerals (which we extract / exploit from African countries), don't become obsolete after a few years, don't get stolen, don't have screens to crack.

Hey, I'm a technology user, comp. sci. graduate, and currently an engineer working for a medical devices startup - but people, this insanity with making everything "digital" is costing us the world - literally and figuratively.

Turkey, nor any other country, needs iPads or much tablets in schools.

Of course Turkey is getting USD 1.14Billion in aid this year from the EU, so I guess they can use some of that money to buy iPads from Apple.

http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/instruments/funding-by-country/turkey/index_en.htm

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The general consensus where I'm from is that school is lame and boring, education is a vital part of our existence and its frustrating to see how terrible our system is, how badly it works and how little our Australian government cares about these issues.
I wish the Turkish people success, and hope that from it, others also see the importance of radically changing what needs to be changed.

So giving kids a new toy is going to make them behave?

Day one with iPad at school: "Cool we have an iPad"
Day forty with iPad at school: "Meh, school still sucks"

What needs to change is kid's perception and thereby parenting, not *giving* them more crap to fill up their lives.

 

[Xikum]

I'd be furious if my country spent $4.5 billion on giving iPads to children. What a waste of money. I refuse to believe that giving kids iPads will somehow result in an improvement to their education.

Physical books, jotters and other learning materials are far cheaper, more reliable, and proper.

 

[Paulio]

What needs to change is kid's perception and thereby parenting, not *giving* them more crap to fill up their lives.

I initially read this article as $4.5 million, not billion. That's just absurd. So perhaps this is exactly as retarded as you say.

Anyway, that's kind of what I was getting at. It's not the tools, but the method. Education, where I come from, is not something that is going in good directions. At least in Turkey they are trying to do something, regardless of how pointless and irrational you think it is, it has potential if they follow through in the right manner. But they probably won't.
You also bring some interesting and worrying points to attention. In general, it seems every avenue we humans venture into is in the wrong direction and with the wrong intentions. The next 100 years will be very interesting.

 

[sanalalemci]

Unfortunately one can simply claim that there are so many political reasons behind this move on Turkey's side. But let's think positive.

 

[gnasher729]

You always have some kind of breakage rate that must be assumed.

Seems you don't know kids in the UK.

 

[SoldOnApple]

It's a great investment. It instantly gets the majority of the most productive people up to speed and comfortable with technology. And also if you traveled into the present from the 18th century, you'd kind of want to see people carrying these wondrous glass and light metal multi tools with them.