Prog that will give one laptop to each student
Mumbai: The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) programme is set to take off in the country with a pilot project being planned in a few schools at Nashik, Palghar, Goa, Karnataka and some institutions in Kerala. The Centre had termed OLPC pedagogically suspect about two years ago.
The American project, pioneered by Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is four years old and has taken off in countries like Uruguay, Peru, Brazil, Mexico, Haiti, Ethopia. These governments have provided a laptop to every student in their schools. As part of OLPC, a small project is currently on in Khairat, Maharashtra.
Negroponte, who is now working with the Digital Bridge Foundation (DBF), a non-profit firm of Reliance Communications, the Indian partner for distribution and support for the OLPC, is in talks with several state governments to invest in the programme. India and China are large and though we have been talking to several people, the discussion is rather complex, said Negroponte.
Sumit Chowdhury from the DBF said his organisation was convincing the Centre to purchase a million laptops for the 2011 census and then pass the machines on to students.
There has been tremendous amount of back and forth talking in India about this laptop which has a fiveyear life and is priced at US $195. Some say India should adopt a wait-and-watch policy till IISC-Bangalore and IITMadras, which are developing a $100 laptop, ready their product. Besides, in a country where textbooks need to be returned at the end of the academic year in most government schools, experts question the feasibility of this programme, which requires students to own the laptop.
When asked, Negroponte said, To balance between building schools and paying teachers higher salaries or investing in laptops, is complex. But this is a good investment. He feels that the cost of the laptop could drop to $100 by the end of 2009 and to about $75 by 2020. Now, Negropontes team is working on an electronic book.
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