One Laptop Per Child: But What About the Teacher?

It's quite a few years now since someone came up with the idea of giving a cheap laptop to every child in developing countries. The price mentioned was $100 and the laptop would have a device for winding it up for when there was no power, it would be robust against harsh treatment, dust, heat, humidity, etc. It would be simple but attractive and have everything that a child could want in a computer.

Well, such a laptop has been available for some time, but those who came up with the idea have not been able to persuade funders or governments of developing countries to order the things. They were hoping for orders of about one million at a time but they haven't even offloaded 2 million of them yet. The laptops come with Linux and Windows preloaded but they are selling for over $200. I'm not sure how much more than $200.

Some will remember, it's only a few months ago, that both Britain and the US governments decided to withold funding earmarked for education in Kenya. It was a paltry amount, less than $40 million in all. But many people here are having problems paying for school fees and costs because the so called free primary and subsidized secondary education still cost more than a lot of people earn.

There are about 9 million school children in Kenya at the moment. The figure should be a lot higher because some are not attending, though how many is anyone's guess. The money being witheld sounds like only a few dollars a head. But most schools are underequipped and understaffed. Infrastructures that the schools need are crumbling or non-existent, for example, electricity, water and sanitation. Even roads are appalling and transport to and from school is one of the biggest hurdles children have to face, to say nothing of the costs to their parents.

But the one laptop per child scheme, OLPC, that's a substantial amount of money. And they are hoping to raise the money for 30 million of them for the whole of the East African Community. Two hundred and something dollars could pay all the costs that are levied but not considered to be school fees, along with quite a number of other items. Books, for example, are in very short supply. Kids often come to school without having done their homework because they have no book (or because there is no lighting at home).

It's not that I don't think children (or adults) in developing countries should not have such a valuable tool as a laptop, it would be great if everyone had one. But I wonder if it's such a priority. So many infants and under fives are dying of preventable and curable diseases because of conditions such as poor sanitation. Malnutrition is rife and causes growth stunting and retarded intellectual development. And the list is endless.

Not only are there many things children need that would put laptops quite low on the list of priorities, but a lot of the things they need are quite cheap. For the sort of billions that are being proposed for OLPC, a lot of childhood health conditions could be prevented or cured. Children could go to school with things like books and other tools. Girls wouldn't have to stay at home several days a month because they are having their period. And pupils could have enough food to prevent them from falling asleep during classes or just not going to school at all.

Children have a lot of things to grasp when they are young, reading, writing, languages, mathematics, sciences, etc. It's easy enough to see how laptops could be used to help with this. But I have a suggestion: give free laptops to teachers in teacher training schools (who also lack the books they need, sometimes); teach them how to use laptops and how to teach with them. Then roll them out that way. Instead of spending the $6 billion dollars or more on giving tens of millions of children laptops, make sure the educational system is ready for the laptops.

There is no point in just spilling out a few more million to give a laptop to teachers as well. They have to be taughted how to use them and how to teach with them. When I was doing an MA at a London University college just a few years ago, an institute of education, no less, some of the academic staff there had no idea how to use computers to teach, so why should people who have never had the opportunity to even use them? In fact, teaching with computers comes with some huge pedagogical hurdles.

Frankly, I think the project stinks. But it could be turned around, it hasn't even started yet, to make African countries among the first in the world to use a laptop as their main teaching tool in primary and secondary education. Ok, training the teachers may not iron out all the problems of trying to do without books and other everyday teaching materials. But it sure as hell won't work if the teachers get no training (and no laptop). If you can raise that much money, OLPC, don't blow it on the laptops alone. It's not as if the laptops can be recycled if the project goes pear shaped.

Free Education, For Those Who Can Afford It

If you follow the official literature and commentaries on Kenyan education, you may think that all primary school age children get free schooling. If you go into it in a little more depth, you will find that there are many hidden costs such as 'extra' tuition, which the children have to attend, shoes and uniforms, which have to be worn, exams, materials and various other items.

Therefore, many poorer children fall through the loop. Having no school fees is irrelevant for the parents who are unable to meet the additional costs. Unknown numbers of children don't go to school or don't go to school very much because their families are too poor. The Kenyan government is not too keen to admit to the existence of these children, of course. They enjoy the praise they receive from the press and from foreign donors.

Added to these children of poor families, there are orphans and other children who have been abandoned or who don't have people to provide everything they need. There are well over one million, perhaps as many as two million. There are street children, children who start school so late that they will never catch up and will drop out early, there are children who are sent out to work for much or all of the time they are supposed to be at school.

All in all, the Kenyan government is quite shy about anything that could be called bad news. The recent census may not even account for all the children in this country. It may remain difficult to know how many children are not at school or who don't receive much schooling before they become too old to attend school.

Yesterday, we were in Rhonda again, this time to visit a children's home. There are 120 children being schooled there, 20 of whom live there all the time. Because this children's home is not a public school, they receive nothing towards the children's schooling. There are many such homes around the country. No one has any idea how many, exactly. And the government will not be so keen to talk about these either.

So, for all the money that is said to be spent on 'free' primary education, if would be interesting to know how many really benefit, how many don't get anything and if it's true, as it appears to be, that only the better off get to go to school. It appears that those with least and those who are under the most pressure are also least likely to be able to afford the costs of 'free' education.