As a grassroot observer, I would say that the so called Govt.Schools in cities too do not have any infrastructure or tiolets or drinking water. The teachers come as if on a job, say what they have to.. and become indifferent after some time.The environment in the Govt. schools in big cities is hardly conducive for education.
Many of the students are poor and mid-day meal is more important than studies. Universal primary education? who cares, so long as the govt. gets the statistics right!
The Bharatiya vidya Sena and pdf version of NCERT seems interesting. We can request all the IT companies, Financial Institutions, engg. and medical colleges to adopt Govt.Schools and bring up their standards!

Did you think that the One Laptop Per Child would sell laptops at the fanciful 100 dollars a pop? Might you not add that 1,000,000 multiplier, the minimum unit order, to get a $100 million total for a million…

This OLPC RIP thread has thrown up three ideas: your own opportunity cost basis for rejecting OLPC, Bhartiya Vidya Sena and pdf version of NCERT textbooks. I will skip the second since it is likely to be controversial. I hope the open source textbook idea goes into action.

In general, I buy into your argument against OLPC even though I am in the IT industry for over 30 years. The OLPC cost would be Rs 2,000 crore. By rejecting it, the money would be available to lengthen shorter staves. How much is needed for this latter development? Would 2,000 crore do it? Would 2,000 crore allocated transalate to 2,000 crore on the ground? I am sure there is far more than 2,000 crore that exists in the HRD budget which does not reach the intended audience! By pitching OLPC against the alternative use of that money we are setting up an internal fight which would only delight HRD ministry.

Knowing that OLPC run by government would be a sure disaster, I began to think what it could turn into in the private hands. Today we have rich (say Premji) who may not match Bill Gates but can certainly be charitable to fund this exercise without a great dent in personal fortune or even world rankings.

Next, we will need a management in place. That will ensure that the production is not all with few vendors (can be mostly in India), the logistics is transparent and accounted for. There will be management overheads which should be capped at 10%.

The inventory, maintenance etc. can be managed at the local level by developing a cadre of small vendors as happened with STD booths. This will generate employment while meeting real market needs.

I would elminate cities and large towns from the purveiw of OLPC except for slums. The target should be mostly small towns that have the RISC potential.

I would not give the ownership to individuals but to edu-cybercafes (possibly without net connection). It is here that children can come and use the OLPC. Even after eliminating some children from the scope, we will still have a large ration of 2 million OLPC to a much larger audience to cater to. There is no need for the laptop to be sitting idle with one child. The laptop is better used by sharing it with others.

The edu-cybercafes should also be accessible to adults on a limited basis.

I would give OLPC the analogy of TVs. I think for all the bad content the TV dishes out, the rural India does get a vast exposure through it. It also benefits the industry by creating wants (at the cost of what would otherwise be savings and investments). Given the preponderance of PC in our lives, exposing the rural India to this medium from now will help India in the long run.

Industry and investors are turning to infrastructure because now they see good returns there. The long term real returns (but not to the investor) on primary/secondary education can be even larger. But in the absense of an economic incentive we have to fall back on government funding.

Sharad

OLPC is certainly a great idea for countries like India and the African states. A computer with the right educational software can be great tool for students in the rural areas. The deficits in infrastructure can be circumvented by just the presence of this tool in a childs hand. The possibilities of one laptop for every child are immense and should have been pursued by India.

I agree with Rajiv. The killing of this idea would cost India dear. I hope, if not the present govt, some non-state agency realizes that India is missing out on a once in a lifetime opportunity to combat illiteracy that plagues this nation and do something about it. Maybe the Tatas and the Ambanis can step in to do something about this project as its success depends upon large-scale orders and it is in the interest of the Indian Nation State that OLPC succeeds.

The present HRD ministry is run by a group of worst charlatans one wont find anywhere. There is the dreadful singh along with his assistant, a rapist on the loose named MAA Fatmi. This govt.,
rather the entire political class of India, has great stakes in keeping much of India illiterate and backward, for there own political survival. Its no wonder that when an idea like OLPC comes along,
the charlatans recongnize the threat and move in to kill it before it consumes them. The arguments to kill it, as put forward by the babu, is meant for retards.

Best Regards.

http://www.infochangeindia.org/EducationItop.jsp?section_idv=5

Negroponte is after glory, and the rest of corporate world are going along so that they have another market to cater to.

Damn, this culture is so screwed up that one year old kids are now targeted by advertising companies. Such a sorry ass state brainwashing has been elevated to .

Did you really read this post and the other comments?

Its ridiculous that people are talking about how computers harm children. Its nothing but FUD. Children learn technology themselves. They figure it out for themselves and find out ways to make it work. Just look at a kid playing with a video game. Do they ever bother to read the manuals to learn it? The learn by expermineting.

Mankind has been grappling with Poverty for ages. The answer everyone knows is in Education. And OLPC is a innovative new idea to bring education to those deprived children. How many innovations have tried to tackle a grass root problem like this? Negroponte is a hero just because he has been able to build and market this machine. By the looks of it a large part of Africa and Asia will get these machines. The results will not be evident for at least two decades. But when that does happen we’ll see a new generation emerging out of it.

That will be the Open Source Generation.

Countries have forced conscription aka military draft on their citizens, just because they have had a militant past (Turkey) or because they know the value of citizens who can handle arms (Switzerland, Finland, many Balkan states).

We also favor conscription when we grant MBBS in India. We force candidates to serve as interns in different places, so there is clear precedent for this use case.

So is this a no-brainer or what?

I am almost instinctively opposed to the handout of freebies by the government, however important the cause. And if I was in India’s education ministry and asked to implement the OLPC scheme, I’d use vouchers and co-payment. The co-payment will deter freeloaders, and vouchers will ensure that the whole contract is not sealed by one manufacturer. And bundle it with some kind of an insurance scheme to cover running costs. But I’d do all this only if a loaded gun were pointed to my head.

But it was good to see some interesting ideas thrown up by commenters: the idea of a Bharatiya Vidya Sena (or Education Cadet Corps) can increase the number of hands helping at primary and secondary school level. Many a challenge to be crossed, but a good idea nevertheless. Important for the volunteers to have sufficient incentives to do this seriously.

Srinivas,

Your suggestion of putting the text-books online for free download is excellent. There is absolutely no reason why a taxpayer funded resource should be copyrighted/controlled by the government. I wish someone on this forum can take this up. Why, worst case, we can just scan them and put them up without government assistance…and let NCERT sue and make a fool of itself. Private publications based on NCERT syllabus should of course be left out.

In short giving importance to short term goals over long term ones.

I again repeat I could be wrong.

Those things will happen because of the OLPC. My concern is with things that will not happen because of OLPC.

From last 50 years govt is trying to do those things but no great response.

So why not try this and put it in hands of children who are getting education but dont have access to laptops.
May be we can get a next spark of innovation from there.

I see it more as a jump from no-internet to wireless internet, rather than as a net loss when the opportunity cost is factored in. You’re right… there is a lack of will if this is a reason given:

“any sustained use of computers may lead to a disembodied brain and bring about isolationist tendencies in social behaviour” and that the “pedagogic effectiveness of this initiative is not known.”

Great post, I don’t disagree with your opportunity cost analysis. I’m just too much of a technologist and Raj’s comment has left me very shameful. 25% of 60 is 15!

In US, the states are encouraging children to leave their computers and go out to play.

Plus, how many children with laptops, you know can tell 25% of 60.

The opposite is true with respect to my village and town. Once the connectivity to the town was established (0.5 hr bus ride) the children came to the town. The parents moved out of the village when the kids reach class x for board exams, tuitions etc. The old village with its “absentee” teacher is still there. No one attends it beyond k.g. This is one of the reasons I was interested in RISC.

If the attention and money can be spent on these schools in small towns then it will make a difference. But lot of them do have teachers. What they lack is quality teachers. They do have the basic infrastructure like boards. They lack the second level infrastructure. (say, limited availability of salts for chemistry lab, so you will see that salt only once before board exam). Ofcourse, then there are lot of villages which lack the connectivity itself which requires the attention and funds.

But that is a good call on OLPC itself.

My friend Atanu Dey has a requiem for the One Laptop Per Child project in India that’s as critical of the Indian government [...]

I had previously suggested that one way could be forming a bhartiya vidya sena.
The idea here is that every one after high school is required to teach for 9 months.
Without having done this they can not
get emigration clearance, a government job,
attend college…
Its forced labor, conscription, and will cost in terms of “lost” productivity of all those people. but i think the end result is that it will increase the size of available teachers/teaching assistant.
I would say its not lost productivity but
redirected labor…

Most college freshmen can teach/grade primary level stuff.
A few better ones can teach high school level…