I’d like to end the year on an up-note. There are plenty of stories to cause concern — from the death of Benazir Bhutto to post-election riots in Kenya to more broken promises in North Korea to continued genocide in Darfur — but they get more coverage than more positive stories like one about how laptops are changing the lives of children in Peru [“In Peru, a Pint-Size Ticket to Learning,” by Frank Pajak, Washington Post, 30 December 2007]. The story focuses on 270,000 computers that have been provided to poor children in hopes of improving education in Peru.
“Doubts about whether poor, rural children really can benefit from quirky little computers evaporate as quickly as the morning dew in this hilltop Andean village [named Arahuay], where 50 primary school children got machines from the One Laptop Per Child project six months ago. These offspring of peasant families whose monthly earnings rarely exceed the cost of one of the $188 laptops — people who can ill afford pencil and paper much less books — can’t get enough of their XO devices. At breakfast, they’re already powering up the combination library/videocamera/audio recorder/ musicmaker/drawing kits. At night, they’re dozing off in front of them — if they’ve managed to keep older siblings from waylaying the coveted machines.”
I first wrote about the One Laptop Per Child project last December [Connecting the Poor]. In that post, I discussed some the criticism and opposition the project faced as the project was getting started. The results in Peru help allay some of that criticism. Pajak notes that original targets for price and distribution have been not met.
“Founded in 2005 by former MIT Media Lab director Nicholas Negroponte, the One Laptop program has retreated from early boasts that developing-world governments would snap up millions of the pint-size machines at $100 each. In a backhanded tribute, One Laptop now faces homegrown competitors everywhere from Brazil to India — and a full-court press from Intel’s more power-hungry Classmate. But no competitor approaches the XO in innovation. It is hard drive-free, runs on the Linux operating system and stretches wireless networks with ‘mesh’ technology that lets each computer in a village relay data to the others. Mass production began last month and Negroponte, brother of U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte, said he expects at least 1.5 million machines to be sold by next November. Even that would be far less than Negroponte originally envisioned. The price, higher than initially advertised, and the non-Windows operating system that is still being tested for the XO have dissuaded many potential government buyers.”
A year ago I reported that five countries — Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria and Thailand — had made tentative commitments to buy the XO, but Peru has become the poster child of the project.
“Peru placed the single biggest order to date — more than 272,000 machines — in its quest to turn around a primary education system that the World Economic Forum recently ranked last among 131 countries surveyed. Uruguay was the No. 2 buyers of the laptops, inking a contract for 100,000. Negroponte said 150,000 more laptops will be shipped to such countries as Rwanda, Mongolia, Haiti and Afghanistan in early 2008 through ‘Give One, Get One,’ a U.S.-based promotion ending Dec. 31 in which participants buy a pair of laptops for $399 and donate one or both. The children of Arahuay prove One Laptop’s transformative conceit: that you can revolutionize education and democratize the Internet by giving a simple, durable, power-stingy but feature-packed laptop to the world’s poorest kids. ‘Some tell me that they don’t want to be like their parents, working in the fields,’ first-grade teacher Erica Velasco said of her pupils. She had just sent them to the Internet to seek out photos of invertebrates — animals without backbones.”
One of the interesting results to watch for will be how improved education affects the villages in which the computers are deployed. Historically, once someone gets an education they go looking for work that matches their skills and they are seldom found in rural settings. Peruvian leaders are hoping this trend doesn’t continue. The key is providing education that matches the needs of the communities.
“Arahuay’s lone industry is agriculture. Surrounding fields yield avocados, mangoes, potatoes, corn, alfalfa and cherimoya. Many adults share only weekends with their children, spending the workweek in fields many hours’ walk from town and relying on charities to help keep their families nourished. When they finish school, young people tend to abandon the village. Peru’s head of educational technology, Oscar Becerra, is betting the One Laptop program can reverse this rural exodus to the squalor of Lima’s shantytowns four hours away. It’s the best answer yet to ‘a global crisis of education’ in which curriculums have no relevance, he said. ‘If we make education pertinent, something the student enjoys, then it won’t matter if the classroom’s walls are straw or the students are sitting on fruit boxes.’ Indeed, Arahuay’s elementary school population rose by 10 when families learned the laptop pilot was coming, said Guillermo Lazo, the school’s director.”
Although I have my doubts that urbanization will be stopped as a result of putting computers in the hands of rural students, such concerns should not prevent children from receiving an education. The program in Peru is widespread.
“The XOs that Peru is buying will be distributed to pupils in 9,000 elementary schools from the Pacific to the Amazon basin where a single teacher serves all grades, Becerra said. Although Peru boasts thousands of rural satellite downlinks that provide Internet access, only about 4,000 of the schools getting XOs will be connected, Becerra said. Negroponte says One Laptop is committed to helping Peru overcome that hurdle. Without Internet access, he said, the program is incomplete.”
One of the early criticisms of the program was its focus on getting equipment to students rather than issues like teacher training and curriculum. The training remains minimal.
“Teachers will get 2 1/2 days of training on the laptops, Becerra said. Each machine will initially be loaded with about 100 copyright-free books. Where applicable, texts in native languages will be included, he added. The machines will also have a chat function that will let youngsters make faraway friends over the Internet.”
There are still critics of the program.
“Critics of the rollout have two key concerns. The first is the ability of teachers — poorly trained and equipped to begin with — to cope with profoundly disruptive technology. Eduardo Villanueva, a communications professor at Lima’s Catholic University, fears ‘a general disruption of the educational system that will manifest itself in the students overwhelming the teachers.’ To counter that fear, Becerra said, the government is offering $150 grants to qualifying teachers toward the purchase of conventional laptops, for which it is also arranging low-interest loans. The second big concern is maintenance. For every 100 units it will distribute to students, Peru is buying one extra for parts. But there is no technical support program. Students and teachers will have to do it. ‘What you want is for the kids to do the repairs,’ said Negroponte, who believes such tinkering is itself a valuable lesson. ‘I think the kids can repair 95 percent of the laptops.’ Tech support is nevertheless a serious is
sue in many countries, Negroponte acknowledged in a telephone interview.”
One important aspect of the One Laptop Per Child project is that the laptops are given to the children not just loaned to them.
“The XO machines are water-resistant, rugged and designed to last five years. They have no fan, so they won’t suck up dust; are built to withstand drops from five feet; and can absorb power spikes typical of places with irregular electricity. [Maria Antonieta Mendoza, an Education Ministry psychologist], is overjoyed that the program stipulates that youngsters get ownership of the laptops.”
Another interesting thing is happening in homes where children use the XO, adults want to know how they can use the computer to improve their lives.
“Parents in Arahuay are asking Mendoza, the visiting psychologist, what the Internet can do for them. Among them is Charito Arrendondo, 39, who sheds brief tears of joy when a reporter asks what the laptop belonging to ruddy-cheeked Miluska — the youngest of her six children — has meant to her. Miluska’s father, it turns out, abandoned the family when she was 1. ‘We never imagined having a computer,’ said Arrendondo, a cook. Is she afraid to use the laptop, as is typical of many Arahuay parents, about half of whom are illiterate? ‘No, I like it. Sometimes when I’m alone and the kids are not around, I turn it on and poke around.’ Arrendondo likes to play checkers on the laptop. ‘It’s also got chess, which I sort of know,’ she said, pausing briefly. ‘I’m going to learn.'”
The project is really just getting started and I’m sure the lessons learned in Peru will be both numerous and surprising. I suspect that Negroponte believes that family lives will improve, not just the lives of children. I also suspect he will be right.
