While we geeks all too-easily get wrapped up techno-lusting after the laptop part of One Laptop Per Child, every so often Nicholas Negroponte reminds us:This project is about learning, not about laptops. And that is perhaps the hardest thing I have whe…

After thinking more about last week’s announcement by Thailand’s Caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra that the OLPC laptop will replace books in Thailand’s schools, I have to question those that believe Prime Minister Thaksin’s quote”Each …

But to John Gilmore, laptops cannot replace books, they cannot replace teachers.

Both my parents are head-teachers in government run schools and I know the ground realities. My parents have to teach in classes of more than 100 students – all sitting down on the ground. But some Indian schools have it worse – there is not even a blackboard, or not even a teacher.

It is impossible to “empower” the teachers or “motivate” the students out of this absolute drudgery. We also have social problems to tackle – poverty, hunger, early marriage, child labour and so on.

It is not surprising that many students drop out after a few years. Even the students who pass the examinations – they know absolutely nothing.

In contrast to Atanu Dey, I do think high-tech will help. But OLPC is too cost prohibitive.

We need a very efficient network of social and education interaction between the various schools in the world. A simpler way to accomplish that would be to rely on pre-existing technology (such as telephone, television, DVDs and a couple of computers equipped with massive hard drives)

Awareness is only achieved through exposure. And I bet that going by the classical models of teachers+blackboards is not sufficient by itself. I have seen too many live examples.

If we are serious about educating our kids we need to empower our teachers. What is the “real” (with all the angles around that word) cost of empowering teachers? Other than the obvious edu policy and “quality” training program that will sharpen their intellects as shiv points out above?

There is a study I read about in The Hindu I think that said that the “cost of happiness” is around $10,000 per year irrespective of the worlds – 1st,2nd,3rd whatever, irrespective of the “social status”. Sure happiness is a subjective measure and something the scientist runs away from but it is an indication. Back of the envelope.

Biswajit said something about using “enforcement” techniques. This suggests that teachers are reluctant to teach. Teaching can’t be forced. All of us have had both good and bad teachers. But I’ve never met a bad teacher who is teaching because he/she wanted to teach. They get into teaching because they couldn’t get higher paying jobs. That’s the kind of teachers $1000 per year will attract.

The opportunity cost idea (for OBPS) is already dead in the water without teacher empowerment.

It requires at a minimum decent wages (autonomy from vicissitudes of low income blues), a rounded edu policy that focuses on the whole child and an environment that nourishes “teaching teachers”.

Have been trying to comment on these right from post 1 on OLPC, but … well. My comments are more intuitive than systematic. The OLPC “solution”, IMHO, is incorrect also because in the first place, our society as a whole is not at all ready for computers. These are machines that extend the mind. Unless the mind is trained, it will not be able to use these machines effectively anyway. That this prerequisite is not satisfied, i.e. education levels are not upto the requirements, is then a sufficient to point out the ineffectiveness of the OLPC approach. While the basis of the argument may appear rather erudite, it reflects in the real world where the local market does not have enough demand for computation for enterprise to pitch in and create industry that responds to local needs.

Rather than the OLPC, I wonder if the OLPRT (One Laptop per Rural Teacher) could probably be a more attractive idea given the basics like blackboard, chalk and books. I, of course, then do suffer from the same delusions as the OLPC folks, but on a smaller scale. Just that the OLPRT is less likely to cause a “selective denial of opportunity”

Your current article makes a point that the three O* schemes come before OLPC and hence OLPC should not qualify for any government funds till O* goals are met. By adding conspiracy or marketing theories on OLPC push one gets distracted from this point (even if those arguments are true). In the comments one does not know if the commentator is arguing the sequence or arguing against the peripheral argument on OLPC.

We often hear about ‘adopt a child’ NGO schemes. I guess there could be ‘adopt a school’ NGO schemes. Do you know of any and their track record? Could something like this be scaled up to fill the void?

I have a fundamental question on economy. I would put your O* schemes in intervention category where you are trying and hoping to influence the babudom of prioritization and higher allocation to primary education. What are other large scale successes of such economic inteventions either in India or elsewhere?

One may argue the workings of economy is so complex that we can only know the outcome (like fate) but not influence them. Our current state of education (as much as our current rise in world reckoning) could be arising from issues at quite another level and can be addressed only by recognizing those issues. Tinkering at any other level will not scale up.

As an example, we do have many NGOs addressing the primary education issue and doing a very good job. Scaled up, they could solve part of the problem. But forces unseen seem to limit those initiatives from scaling up leaving the problem to grow faster than it is being addressed.

I have a similar fundamental question about democracy. We all agree that democracy is better than any other model for collective governance (even that of benevolent dictator). But most of us are sad at what the democracy delivers in the form of parties and elected leaders. Many developed countries too are no better.

I would like to see classification of democracies to place India in one such category and know what other category we could aspire to. We hear that institutions should be established and empowered but do not know which among them precisely will help us to a better form of democracy. Currently we are putting enormous faith in RTI. We need analysis to know what in addition to RTI will be needed to move to a better democracy and administration.

Sharad

1) Why is there teacher absenteeism?
2) Why has the blackboard/school not been achieved yet?

I’m not convinced that higher salaries will be enough to entice enough dedicated teachers to go to rural areas. Even if they do, in the absence of an effective enforcement system, we’ll still see teacher absenteeism.

The same thing will be true for blackboards. The money will probably be diverted to purposes other than chalk and blackboard without enforcement. Remember that we already are supposed to have paid for those amenities (as far as I know).

In my opinion, just pure regulation will never be enough. We will need a cultural change for any of these great ideas to be effective.

Incidentally, I find that a similar gadget, the cellphone, is touted as a testimony to the giant steps that India is taking in terms of development. I do not understand how the cellphone has “revolutionized” the life of a laborer whose wife has to walk miles to get water! All these gizmos are okay, but we need to get pur priorities correct.

You have looked at the opportunity cost of the OLPC project to make an effective argument against it. Analysing it the other way around, I reached the same conclusion. To explain further, read on-

If one looks at the contraints to provision of education, laptops are hardly the limiting constraint. A minimal infrastrucutre and a few dedicated teachers is all we need in the first place. Access to books, teaching aids, labs, followed by exposure to other cultures, environments for learning by watching/ doing come next. Laptops are an aid to access information and also enable learning of certain skills that come after these constraints have been eliminated, at least IMHO.

There is a natural hierarchy of constraints. Failure to recognize this and address these is partially responsible for schemes like the OLPC. Commercial motivations even if not evil, are the other drivers.

Quite simply, our inability to provide education is the biggest threat to our development. Since the positive effects of education do not translate into satisfied voters quickly enough for politicians to invest in this activity, progress is slow. The challenge quite cearly is to find incentives to influence public policy in the right direction to find appropriate solutions to the poverty of education that afflicts our nation.

Today Atanu Dey proposes several alternatives schemes for India now that its dropped the OLPC $100 dollar laptop is his well written OLPC – Rest in Peace – Part 3 post. Namely the very innovative “One Blackboard Per School”…