[DDN] Questions about the Hundred Dollar Laptop / One Laptop Per Child / X0-1 Project

[ProjectEDUCATE]

Arthur,

I run a tiny non-profit www.project-educate.org and  having been born  
and raised in Africa, I could not agree with you more Arthur. I find  
it hard to believe that people are pushing for this. In Zambia where  
I come from, the average family survives on less than a dollar a day.  
Now I know we hear this everyday and tend to deal with it in abstract  
but what this means is on a daily basis families have to make the  
decision whether to buy food or medication for one, whether to send a  
child to school or provide basic necessities this is the harsh  
reality of life not just in Zambia but the entire African continent.
The idea that families or governments will have the resources to  
invest in this is beyond me. The one way I see this happening is if  
African governments are bullied into agreements that will force them  
to spend resources on this for the benefit of venture capitalists.
Another thing, even if we were to get this equipment into the hands  
of our children, I am yet to hear of training for educators. Which is  
critical to the successful implementation of any project. It is  
almost as if it is being taken for granted that the technical skill  
on the continent is as advanced as it is in the Western world.  
Consider this, not too long ago we sent computers to Zambia and out  
of 6 schools with about 200 teachers not a single one of them had  
ever used a computer.(mind you this was in an urban area) Point being  
made is before we can talk of ICT's in education or whatever, serious  
thought and resources must be poured into training the educators. (I  
get a kick out of envisioning African children running around with  
these things) Then there is the issue of infrastructure, where will  
these things be housed? Are children taking them home or leaving them  
at school? If so, are these people willing to invest in building and/ 
strengthening infrastructure?(most unlikely from my experience)

Mbao.

On May 11, 2007, at 11:18 PM, arthur richards wrote:

> On the surface it the so-called OLPC has been dressed as beneficial  
> to third world children and families, but have the proponents of  
> the initiative spared a thought for the following:
>
>   a) that the children being targeted for the initiative are mostly  
> going to be unable to pay school fees and hence do not and cannot  
> gain education. why would a sensible family spend $100 for a laptop  
> instead of using the funds to pay school fees and educate the child?
>   b) Suppose 200 million african children could be provided with  
> these laptops. Who coughs up this $20 billion for the laptops? The  
> african continent cannot sustain $20 billion being etracted out of  
> the continent since none of the laptops are built in the continent  
> to provide employment. Indeed this amount represents hard earned  
> foreign currency which is being sucked out of the continent. The  
> economic disadvantages of buying the laptops makes them grossly  
> unsuitable for a poor continent like africa.
>   c) Who is going to be responsible for maintaining the laptops?  
> How much will the bill for spare parts or replacements amount to?
>
>   In my view from the African perspective, what the african child  
> needs first is ability to be educated normally like every other  
> child in the West. They need those who can pay their school fees  
> and $100 will support this for more than a couple of years.
>
>   I think the OLPC is a business strategy and a new front for  
> globalisation - aimed at increasing the sale of computers,  
> software, network devices and foreign content to third world  
> countries and at the same time impoverishing them beyond where they  
> are now.
>
>   How will the proponents of the OLPC initiative address these issues?
>
>   Arthur
>
> Deborah Elizabeth Finn <deborah_elizabeth_finn at post.harvard.edu>  
> wrote:
>   Dear Digital Divide Network Colleagues,
>
> The Ethos Roundtable (of which I am a co-convener) is hosting a
> presentation on the One Laptop Per Child project on May 15th.
>
> More details can be found here:
>
> "One Laptop Per Child: How is this going to work?"
>
>
> As you will see from my blog article, I'm collecting questions about
> the project from members of the nonprofit technology community, which
> I will then bring to the Ethos Roundtable discussion. You are welcome
> to add your questions by posting them as comments to the blog article.
>
> Many thanks and best regards from Deborah
>
> P.S. If you'd like to know more about the Ethos Roundtable, please go
> to .
>
> Deborah Elizabeth Finn
> Boston, Massachusetts, USA
> deborah_elizabeth_finn at post.harvard.edu
> www.cyber-yenta.org
>
> Recommended reading:
> "Universal Declaration of Human Rights"
>
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