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Previous post: « OLPC — Rest in Peace — Part 2

07. Aug ‘06 3 [...]

Well first of all it is irrational to compare the outcome returns vis-a-vis the costs. More over educational facilities should attain paramount importance concurrent with health facilities. Providing laptops to children who cant read even at the age of 10 will only prove to be futile. Instead the government must improve the teaching standards by improving the institutes that cater to teaching and also my increasing their remuneration. In India school teachers are paid less when compared to college teachers.

And if at all the plan is implemented, the local self governments must be fully involved too.

I would, however, comment on your requiem for the OLPC, and your idea of “opportunity cost”, which I thank you for articulating so well. My comments fall into two parts.

First, I wonder if you are perhaps a little hasty in dismissing the Education Ministry’s statement that the OLPC may harm children’s creative facilities. As you point out, that cannot nor should be the only argument for rejecting the project. However, some caution is called for before moving to what is essentially a new paradigm in teaching – one that has not been tested and its impact understood elsewhere, even in the developing world.

Second, and to extend my argument, you may add “risk” into your calculation of opportunity cost. It is a fair question to ask – what is the likelihood that the money spent on the OLPC would achieve the stated goals of better education?

Education, unfortunately, is not an easy science so it is difficult to measure the returns on investment. Still, even if the OLPC is not ‘pedagogically suspect’ (of which I am not convinced), one must factor in that the $100 million will not necessarily return an ‘educational dividend’ – or in any case one not significantly higher than the same amount spent on more traditional teaching methods which are better understood (and thus perhaps less risky).