Tech Shout!

The Indian government has decided to pull out its support from the ‘One Laptop Per Child’ (OLPC) program. The OLPC initiative is conceptualized to offer children and educators in developing nations with an easy-to-use computer costing a meager $100 (about £54) each. The Ministry of Human Resource Development reconsidered its earlier decision to execute the program offered by MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte, saying there are no proven benefits of providing all children with their own laptops.

In a letter to India’s Planning Commission, Education Secretary Sudeep Banerjee reportedly wrote, “The case for giving a computer to every single person is pedagogically suspect. It may actually be detrimental to the growth of creative and analytical abilities of the child”. He further mentioned that the education ministry should spend its money to strengthen secondary education in the country in terms of classrooms and teachers, rather than on “fancy tools”.

Negroponte will not begin assembling and shipping units until some 5 million to 10 million computers are ordered and paid for, therefore OLPC’s success depends largely on its adoption in large countries and India’s decision could represent a major blow to the initiative. The project is supported by AMD, Google and Red Hat and includes countries like China, Brazil, Egypt, Thailand and Nigeria, which have already placed an order for 1 million laptops.

India withdrawal from the OLPC project is the second time Negroponte is facing a set back in India. In 2003, MIT Media Laboratory pulled out of Media Laboratory Asia, set up in 2001 in alliance with the Indian government to take technology to India’s rural masses. The Indian government cited differences of opinion over the focus of the lab.

The OLPC project has been facing problems since quite some time. Initially it was Gates jesting at the initiative, criticizing it for its lack of features and now its India who has backed out from the project.