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."
not an Open Source failure (Score:4, Interesting)
Hopefully, /.'ers and others won't look upon this as an
Open Source failure, it isn't. It's (in my opinion) more of a
triumph somewhere of sanity... Technology has it's place, but a
laptop for every child smacks of the program's hubris and less of
a sane approach to helping poor countries.
I think they show real insight when fearing little return on the effort because teachers are poorly trained. Heck, even in wealthy countries teachers consistently have no computer smarts (my sister is a teacher, she hasn't a clue!). Compound that with a techie-Linux platform (I love Linux, but for the mass public, with minimal background and training?) and this program was running off the rails from the beginning.
There are excellent examples of schools in the United States where huge investments in technology for schools showed no tangible gains in students' profieciencies and at the same time examples of poor schools shifting emphasis to basics, discipline, and community with strong academic results.
Technology for technology's sake is just that, but not much of a salve for third world economies, at least not by giving a laptop to every child. I think this is actually a positive development because it has (had) so many ways it could have gone wrong allowing companies like Microsoft down the road to point fingers at Open Source as the culprit, and if only Microsoft had been chosen to save the world.
(For the record, this whole OLPC effort would be just as much of a train wreck with Windows, just a whole heck of a lot more expensive.)
Re:More hardware = More infrastructure (Score:3, Interesting)
Glad to see that rationalism is not dead yet (Score:4, Interesting)
High levels of government corruption in participating countries is not a coincidence either. Someone will make a lot of money on this, and you can bet it won't be teachers.
Re:Makes sense (Score:2, Interesting)
The OLPC advances an idea (to me somewhat orthogonal to basic educational practice) that connecting laptops connects the students together in ways that gives rise to other beneficial effects. Since we're all sitting here reading Slashdot it's an easy analogy -- Slashdot creates a community with a shared common interest, but with diverse opinions on those interests, and at the end of the day it's that diversity that is of interest. We read to learn what others think. So OLPC (ought to) create a means for children to interact with other children with the same effect, but on many other topics besides "news for nerds." And that sounds like a fine idea to me.
Re:Why not use old equipment rather than melt down (Score:3, Interesting)
Not that it's an inherently bad idea to ship refurbished computers to some people. But the OLPC will be more useful in more situations than used kit.
What's stopping you from taking a year out to work with a programme where you will help the locals sort through the e-waste we're currently dumping in Africa [bbc.co.uk] to find any usable parts and assemble working computers (and probably other appliances) which could then be sold? All you'll need are a fine-tipped soldering iron, a digital storage oscilloscope, a known-working computer, a good set of tools, a generator and a few CDs of Open Source software. Be prepared to write the whole lot off if you don't make enough money to replace everything within the first year. You will also have to teach the locals how to do the work after you have gone home. It won't interfere too much with the OLPC project anyway, since OLPC's goals are different.
Re:More hardware = More infrastructure (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:More hardware = More infrastructure (Score:3, Interesting)