The problem I have, that most are missing is that this is actually doing the children a disservice! As things stand, a primary school teacher earns 13,650 thereabouts per month - this means that anybody who is good at their craft either joins a private school or leaves the teaching profession. The age of the teachers is progressively aging. What's the best thing you can do? Pay teachers decent wages - train them. Ensure literacy. That goes a longer way than laptops. After all, students in the US did not receive laptops in their youth. They are leading the technology revolution. South Korea did not give their students laptops, we are falling over to pay for their tech innovations. So really, the argument that giving laptops results in technology innovation because a couple of kids hacked android is a classic post hoc ergo proper hoc logical fallacy. Giving 10,000 students laptops will not lead to Apple Inc in 2040. After all, kids hacked Android in Ethiopia - watched porn in lagos http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1020167/olpc-helps-nigerian-kids-su... Why do I care about agricultural reform? We have *finite* resources in Kenya - we should be looking at what gets the best results for the students - is it improving quality of teaching or giving the kids laptops? Improving agriculture will result in more money tomorrow! Fixing the rail will result in more money tomorrow! Proper education means that in 2030, we are not worried about the same issues that we worried about before. BTW - without a focus on agrarian and manufacturing reforms, we won't be able to soak most people into the job market leading to increased inequality - which consequently reduces quality of life for all (crime etc). On Thursday, May 2, 2013 at 11:38 AM, Mark Mwangi wrote:
I think dishing out laptops without a plan is also a bad idea.
I have however also seen what simply availing resources to kids can do. I remember reading about Attila the Hun and super-conductivity and the chemical properties of the surface of Io, one of Jupiter's moons when I was still in class 5. I found this fascinating and I thank the various primary schools for stocking these in their libraries. I was considered a genius back in school yet this was within anyone's reach at my school. The kids in underfunded schools with pitiful libraries with the same interest were obviously frustrated and with the same playing field would probably be brilliant scientists now.
I imagine with an affordable tablet loaded with hundreds of books, days spent idling about would have been used adding on to knowledge as a way to pass time and this is what I imagine such gadgets would achieve. Ignorance would fade in the general public and this would be a better investment than producing another Facebook.
Tablets would be better for kids. Laptops for older students.
Dismissing the idea however and turning attention towards the failings of Kenya power and the Agriculture based economy is however not dealing with the problem but shooing it away.
Yes our agricultural,power and manufacturing sectors need a serious jolt. I hope this is dealt with in other facets of the Jubilee manifesto but empowering children would be the best long-term strategy I have seen yet.
On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 11:02 AM, Phares Kariuki <phares.kariuki@gmail.com (mailto:phares.kariuki@gmail.com)> wrote:
:-). This fellow has vested interests. Yes. All these folks are going to be paid - who is going to foot the tax bill? My issue is not so much the project (which has noble beginnings) but the utility of the cash.
A kindle with WIFI is 7,000 KES. Buy students rugged kindles without WIFI with selected books from Project Gutenburg. You will laugh all the way to the bank.
The problem we have is assuming that all the knowledge a student needs to succeed in life is Information Technology - however, no knowledge exists in a silo. The reason we go through 12 years of primary and secondary education is because you call knowledge from various spheres of life in order to make decisions/products etc.
You cannot tell me that it makes sense to spend 7% of annual GDP (on a minimum) providing laptops to students and not all of them - just one stream. Do you have any idea what the remaining education budget will look like? We are giving birth at the rate of 1M per year. This cost will only increase. Significantly.
For context, we are an *AGRICULTURAL* economy. Agricultural. Tilling the land, herding goats, sheep, milking cows, wrestling with pigs etc employs 80% of our workforce. 80%. With a rate of 40% unemployment. We have other priorities.
We should really be addressing things like land reform, agricultural reform, making energy cheaper, strengthening our education system (Indeed, we need to invest more in critical thinking and reason to mitigate against such bad policy), infrastructure (rails etc) which will allow us to finance this ten years from now.
We are starving, unhealthy nation in the dark. Surely we have other priorities - like reducing infant mortality (currently 7.5% of all children born are dead by age 5), so that the students who we claim to be buying laptops for live long enough o use them!
On Thursday, May 2, 2013 at 10:25 AM, John Karanja wrote:
An interesting comment from the blog below... http://johnkaranja.com/2013/04/10/a-pre-analysis-of-jubilees-one-solar-lapto...
We are in Digital Age Institute already participating in this programme, in that we are educating Secondary School teachers in use of IT. Its our take, that the teachers are not having many problems adapting. It appears to me to be Nairobi Central City Thinking that teachers up country are not modern. Yes - indeed there are a few who need much more guidance - but they are few - and they are very motivated - playful - absorbing - I'm not in doubt that this will be an initiative working for a long time to come.
In regards to taking the laptops home? I don't think so.
One of the challenges is maintenance and repair. However - the polytechnics have already educated too many hardware competent repair guys - now the good news: Yoo Hooooo - there's a job for them !
Embracing this new technology will most probably do what it has done elsewhere - speed up all development, education, society development tremendously.
Now only missing that we all unite: Teachers / Students / Institutions - so that we can conquer this new world of Information Technology together.
Kindly David Svarrer CEO / Principal Digital Age Institute Ltd. 0786 936 145 / 0714 503 333
On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 1:14 PM, Phares Kariuki <phares.kariuki@gmail.com (mailto:phares.kariuki@gmail.com)> wrote:
A couple of things:
[1] Marginal utility of capital - Kenya has finite monetary resources. Is this the best way we can possibly spend this money to aid education? For example, the FPE initiated in 2003 did not increase the number of students who were in primary school, enrollment per capita is still the same, albeit with degraded quality - it increased access… [2] Support - What OS will the laptops run? Who will support this infrastructure - whats the total cost of ownership? Warranties? Replacement? What happens when a class one student lovingly pours his sugary juice or porridge onto the laptop? If the laptops are running windows, what happens when the laptop gets a virus? If they are running linux, who will handle basic user issues? [3] Government should in my opinion, focus on the basics, that have worked historically - making energy as cheap as possible (improve quality and quantity too), infrastructure (road/rail/pipeline), reduce regulation, buy books for schools (import used books)). The rest will take care of itself.
The IT sector will *not* be able to absorb the sort of unemployment we have in Kenya. That will be done by farming & manufacturing (btw, even with all the hype in Kenya, as of last year, Agriculture and related services employed 60% of Kenya's population)…
On Thursday, April 25, 2013 at 10:00 AM, John Karanja wrote:
I think I have seen from responses a lot of creative ways to mitigate against the concerns you have raised of this project on my blog post here http://bit.ly/YNnv0Q
To summarize: Downgrade from solar powered laptop to solar powered ink e-readers with keyboard input. This will cost max $85/piece and will primarily solve text book crisis. Require manufacturer to assemble the e-readers here in Kenya within 3 years of the program at Konza create local jobs and jump start Konza. Require e-reader to run open source OS to allow porting of local Kenyan applications, games and content e.g Through a local app store. Run of a Wireless Network built on LTE technology or Whitespaces within 3 years so internet access is controlled and monitored. Why start in class one digital literacy is arguably just as important as "play" hence the need to ingrain the same at the ideal age of learning. Think 15 years to see massive benefits. To mitigate against natural threats like theft/damage gadgets will be fitted with biometric id and software upgrades will only be possible remotely as the devices will have no external ports. Insuring each device at say $5 will mitigate against loss as well damage.
In 2010 I visited a cyber cafe in Kibera that had been subsequently been turned into a gaming place because of cost of maintaining the lab even as a business. Kids adapt to technology easily and quickly once they handle their own devices even for a few months is enough to get them interested in tech. See video of my visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap7b3DTehfg
I am more worried about the distribution logistics of it all!
John
On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 1:45 AM, Bernard Owuor <b_owuor@yahoo.com (mailto:b_owuor@yahoo.com)> wrote:
Ashok, Those laptops are not free. The govt will buy them (just like the Passats) from those companies at govt prices and terms... with your tax money. So, the companies will be selling 500K more computers than otherwise. And this will be sustained for 5 years....
I love Uhuruto and I'm rooting for them, so this is where we tell the king that their "transparent" clothes are no clothes at all. Of course, the courtiers will tell them how great looking their gowns are, how bold, handsome & digital they look etc etc.
There's a wide chasm between "getting man on the moon" and "sending money to China". If we're determined to throw precious foreign exchange at our Chinese, Korean & American friends, at least let's ensure that we carefully invest the peanuts we get in return, where we have the best return.
This is where politics is funny. If any of your managers made such decisions with your money - our treasury coffers are reading negative - they'd get the sack at the double. It's not a poverty mentality, it's just plain old frugality, diligence and good stewardship. As a national character, these qualities will guarantee our prosperity, and contrast with procrastination, wishful thinking & guesswork.
This is why I like this 'bold' promise. As Ndemo alludes, the better outcome is more than assured: a 50+-seat computer lab at EVERY secondary school, complete with a self-learning curriculum and material. This is what will transform our society within the next 5 years, and hugely positively impact the lives of the Std. 1 pupils, who, BTW, should be playing with each other, and sleeping as much as they can.
At the bottomline, Kenyans Cheers! From: "ashok+skunkworks@parliaments.info (mailto:ashok%2Bskunkworks@parliaments.info)" <ashok+skunkworks@parliaments.info (mailto:ashok%2Bskunkworks@parliaments.info)> To: mauxdatabase@gmail.com (mailto:mauxdatabase@gmail.com); Skunkworks Mailing List <skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke (mailto:skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke)> Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 5:21 PM Subject: Re: [Skunkworks] A pre-analysis of Jubilee’s One Solar Laptop per Child Initiative
On 24 April 2013 16:45, John Karanja <mauxdatabase@gmail.com (mailto:mauxdatabase@gmail.com)> wrote: > But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard… http://www.nation.co.ke/News/Stop-doubting-laptop-project-PS/-/1056/1757042/...
I am surprised no one has mentioned that this plan fructifies, it will create a gray-market for cheap laptops. Many students will end up selling their "free" laptops at rock bottom prices (for whatever reason ... poverty, ignorance, beer money ... ). This will end up undercutting the very same laptops sold by the companies which supply the free laptops to the government, who will then complain to the government about stopping the students from selling laptops. But its a demand / supply equation - if you provide something (with good resale value ) for free, there will be abuse, and it will be nearly impossible to control it.
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