India backs away from OLPC
A variety of sources are reporting that India is no longer planning to implement the OLPC program in their country. Some quotes from The Hindu:
“The case for giving a computer to every single is paedagogically suspect. It may actually be detrimental to the growth of creative and analytical abilities of the child”, Education Secretary Sudeep Banerjee told the Planning Commission in a letter sent last month.
“…..We cannot visualize a situation for decades when we can go beyond the pilot stage. We need classrooms and teachers more urgently than fancy tools,” Banerjee said.
This certainly won’t stop the project, or even slow it down, but I think India’s concerns are valid, and represent a significant gap in the OLPC message. Us academics are used to saying “well, we think this might work so let’s try it,” but people outside the Academy are rightfully wary of this approach. It’s fine when you have tenure, but not necessarily when you have voters or shareholders to report to.
I’ve blogged before about the kinds of problems the OLPC might face, and I think the organization might have a stronger message if they had some context-sensitive research to back up their claims. In fact, maybe they do… I just haven’t seen it.
That said, I think Nicholos Negroponte and Seymour Papert believe in the concept strongly enough that they feel the first pilot test will answer most of the doubts, and prove the program’s value. And the part of me that believes strongly in the concept thinks they just might be right.
July 27th, 2006 at 8:00 pm
It’s a shame that the arguments are very basic, too. For example:
> We need classrooms and teachers more urgently than fancy tools,” Banerjee said.
In many cases in the third-world, the teachers barely know more than the kids, and there are always going to be kids who are smarter than their teachers but limited by the teacher; the educational content on the laptop will be a tool to help both the children *and* their teachers advance. The Government argues from the point of view of “laptops in classrooms aren’t even successful in America”, but the kids in America already have their basic education needs covered regardless of whether you put laptops in front of them; the OLPC would be a real tool to lift whole communities out of illiteracy (up to 60% of adults in India can’t read, depending on who you ask) and give them the means to improve themselves and their communities.
Anyway. Nigeria have placed an order the size of the one that India turned down, so this isn’t a huge blow. Also, your comments form appears not to work in Firefox. (1.5.0.4)
July 28th, 2006 at 7:42 am
It would be rather immature for a government to go in for large scale adoption of any program (including OLPC) without first conduction studies regarding its effectiveness. The effectiveness would vary from region to region. For a country like India where food and drinking water is at a premium to some, the OLPC program would get lesser attention than it should
– Prashanth
http://prashblog.be