Thailand Government Cancels OLPC Participation 196
patiwat writes "Thailand's new junta-appointed Education Minister has cancelled Thailand's participation in the One Laptop Per Child project and scrapped a plan to give a 2B1 laptop to every primary school student. He has also cancelled plans to roll out computers and a broadband connection to every single school in Thailand. The cancellation of half a million scholarships for needy students is being studied. He cited the lack of readiness of teachers and the need to focus on basic education standards. "We will not focus too much on technology and materials. We will focus on substance," he said. This comes on the heels of the cancellation of the Thai government's open source policy."
More hardware = More infrastructure (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy needs to manage my Data Center. It is a well known thought (from a sysadmin point of view) that throwing hardware at an undefined problem may mask the issue for a time, but it does not 'usually' solve the problem.
High technology CAN be a liability if it isn't managed correctly.
Cancellation is extreme (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:More hardware = More infrastructure (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if the technology is managed perfectly, most of the kids are still going to look at these laptops as new toys and expensive nightlights...
Re:Teach a man to phish ... (Score:3, Insightful)
With respect, I disagree: I don't feel that children in developing nations need a chance to learn about computers nearly as much as they need encouragement to dream of and plan for ways to improve their society using their ideas and their heritage.
Perhaps the "Great White Hunter" metaphor isn't the best choice, but no matter how it's expressed, the fact remains that computers are a product of, and therefore cursed by, the legacy of an industrial economy that wants people to buy things whether they need them or not. I don't think that "we" (the all-knowing, tall, white guys like you see on TV) have any right to tell the rest of the world that an abacus isn't just as good as a computer for counting.
The Western nations might desire "cheap (computer literate) labor", but what we need is visionary talent willing to risk new and different ways of solving our problems. Genius doesn't come cheap, no matter where it's from, but it's always cheaper than trying to convince the rest of the world to copy us and our way of looking at the world.
FWIW. YMMV.
Bellhead
Re:not an Open Source failure - not a failure (Score:5, Insightful)
It hasn't even started yet. It may be a failure, but to declare it a failure is like declaring who has won the 2010 World Cup today.
The OLPC may go to more places than developing countries. There are a number of places that are doing a trial of the system.
With Libya's order going through they have enough to get serious volumes being made. Once they show that then other countries, including richer developed countries may be interested. OLPCs may work well as text book readers. How much does the average school system in a US spend on textbooks per student per year? Who can say now whether some of these uses will take off.
The OLPC may fail, but it hasn't failed yet and it is silly to describe it as having failed before it's even been tried.
Re:Steel ones (Score:5, Insightful)
More likely, he is canceling this because the last thing a military dictatorship wants is informed citizens.
Re:Steel ones (Score:5, Insightful)
It occurs to me that one of the stories told about widespread internet use is that people would be able to do things like "look up how to fix their irrigation systems on the web". Well, I've been using the web since Mosaic 2.0, and I'm much less able to fix a truck, repair an irrigation system, care for a garden, or do a whole bunch of other things that I know a lot of other people who aren't using the net know how to do. If I want to learn how to fix a truck, I might use my laptop to find a school or a place to do it - but then I'm just replacing the yellow pages. I'm more likely to find someone in my own personal social network who has the skills I want to acquire, and hang out with them.
The one practical thing that net connectivity has given me is access to recipes for cooking that I didn't have before. If the OLPC enables children in the developing world to cook eggplant parmigiana, I guess that's a good thing, but it's probably a lot less ambitious than what the creators had in mind.
The early zeal of the project isn't even a matter of "having a hammer and seeing every problem as a nail," it's more like "having a cantaloupe and thinking it's a hammer, and then throwing your cantaloupe at vaguely nail-shaped kittens."
Re:More hardware = More infrastructure (Score:3, Insightful)
So, after a military Coup a major education project under way is canceled along with a reform of the countries IT policies, and teachers in the south of the country start to spontaneously grow bullet holes.
Call me crazy, but somehow I don't really think this new regime is honestly out to create the best education they can.
Your experience does not translate. (Score:3, Insightful)
I didn't see my first computer until I was 11, didn't own a Pc until I was 13, and didn't own a PC with a GUI until I was 18. Yet here I am, a member of the "techno elite".
Your schools could afford textbooks and libraries. That's why most of your peers are literate. Those things don't work where you can't afford them. Today, you consider electronic publications cheaper and better than paper publications. It's the same way for schools and that's the point of the OLPC program.
Re:Steel ones (Score:5, Insightful)
It depends on the person.
Some people aren't into DIY, so they use the web to look for someone to buy from.
Some people are into DIY and use the web for things other than shopping.
In my case, some of the things I have used the web for are:
Probably not the things a person in a developing country might look for, but that is because I don't live in a developing country. It does demonstrate that the web is a useful reference library, and I contend that the web contains information that is useful to a person in a developing country, that they would otherwise miss out on.
For example I've heard of villagers using the web to monitor world prices for various crops they grow, placing them in a stronger bargaining position when the people they sell to try to understate prices.
I don't think there is any question that the developing world needs the Internet. The question is how to best get it to them. Many people seem to view the Internet as a luxury, which it is if used for entertainment or amusement. The flip side of the Internet is textbooks, meteorological reports, market prices and the like, which are necessities for anything but a subsistence life style. Maybe people in developed countries take these necessities for granted, so don't notice the Internet's role in providing them?
If not OLPC what then? Information can be distributed on paper but as the volume and timeliness of information picks up the Internet is cheaper. OLPC seems like a cute misnomer for "Internet without infrastructure".
Re:not an Open Source failure - not a failure (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't believe it? Go look for yourself. The OLPC FAQ page [laptop.org] brings us such disarmingly trite generalities as:
That's right! Little Juan, Choudary, and Byung-Sun need a "tool" with which to think -- and I thought it was called a "brain". No, they need a window into the world, and a way to learn learning through independent interaction and exploration! Never mind that all of that can be accomplished *without* a $100 laptop in the hands of each child. Want a window into the world? Get them a good library with a few current events publications, and a computer lab with a few internet connected computers. You can build a heck of a good public school library (or 2 or 3) for $50 million dollars
But wait -- there's more in the FAQ [laptop.org]!
Where to begin?? To compare a $100 dollar laptop with a pencil that literally costs pennies is ridiculous. And the final argument, that warm-fuzzy-hot-chocolate-lump-in-your-throat claim... "It's important that the kids OWN something to maintain through love... and care." Awwwww.... how can we say NO to that?! Once again, footballs, dolls, and books don't cost $100 per child.
Your final claim: Makes my mind boggle. By this same logic, anything that hasn't been tried, no matter how stupid, far-fetched, or wrong-headed, should be tried. After all, if it hasn't been tried, it's silly to predict that it will fail, right? Might as well just spend the 50 million dollars and see what happens!
50 million dollars (500,000 laptops * $100) is a LOT of money to gamble with in a developing nation. I'd much rather see them spend that money on projects that have been shown to have a significant positive impact on educational quality -- smaller class sizes; basic health care so that kids don't miss weeks of school; upgrading school facilities with good lights, good water, and a reasonable amount of climate control -- good roofs to keep the rain out, ventilation to keep things cooler in summer, heaters to keep things cooler in winter. Save the OLPC project until it's actually shown that a laptop in the hands of each child will benefit them, rather than wasting money, wasting time, and putting yet another cement block around the neck of developing countries.
Re:More hardware = More infrastructure (Score:4, Insightful)
You're being generous. A cynic might suggest that this guy is trading away the technological future of his country's children at the behest of a well heeled international corporation.
Re:More hardware = More infrastructure (Score:4, Insightful)
(Metaphorically) killing off great opportunities for better education, and trying to reach some stage of technological autarchy, all from a man with a military background... sounds like a mix of the Khmer Rouge agenda with the North Korean Juche system, without all the suppression and genocide, of course...
No, I don't think that his goals will do his country any good.
Re:More hardware = More infrastructure (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope you don't mean to suggest that communism is the opposite of democracy, communism is totalitarianism, or similar nonsense.
Re:More hardware = More infrastructure (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:More hardware = More infrastructure (Score:4, Insightful)
First of all, "communist government" is a funny phrase, because communism was originally defined as a state where everyone is equal and there is no government, making "communist government" a contradiction in terms. Secondly, the governments you refer to weren't communist. They may have been called that in the west, or in popular usage, but if you look at the official terminology, they would be called "people's republic", "soviet republic", etc. In practice, these governments may have been autocratic, aristocratic, sort of democratic, or totalitarian, but certainly not communist.
The larger point is that communism is not a system of government, but more an economic system. You can have a "communist" the-community-owns-everything-no-single-person-ow
Re:More hardware = More infrastructure (Score:4, Insightful)
The scary thing is the same is happening with "liberal", it's almost an insult to be called liberal these days.
As for NewSpeak, it's doubleplusgood!
Re:More hardware = More infrastructure (Score:3, Insightful)
What the GP is also saying is that other ideologies can be subjected to the same treatment as Communism. Orwell warned us against totalitarianism, and the current US administration is drawing the US closer to a totalitarian system, under the banner of being liberal democrats (liberal as in the European sense, and democrats in the supporting a government subject to the will of the people sense). It is pretty far away at the moment. But one way in which it is similar is in the treatment of Communists. Communists are dissidents, and the government inspired reflex like hatred of communism that many Americans display would be a good example of the very thing you talk about in your post, that is, a government totally unwilling to tolerate an opposing view, and inspiring the population to do the same. Fortunately in the US it is only one opposing view, Communism. But that does not make the animal farm/1984 reference any less valid.
Re:More hardware = More infrastructure (Score:3, Insightful)
Owning your own land and making your own living decentralizes power. These conditions usually lead to some kind of group decision making like a democracy. Having one entity control land and the means of production is centralization and there's no real incentive to go about and have a real democracy when you citizens are more or less powerless serfs.