Just to add to what Bernard and Francis have said, I think to have the kind of quality digital natives we need to sustain the "Silicon Savannah" in this digital era people need to adapt to this technology at a very young age. Most of the software greats started design thinking early due to exposure to the cutting edge technologies at that time. On Phares's point of *basics first,* this sounds to me like trickle down economics this country has been engaging itself in for the last 50 years since independence which only servers to widen the gap between developed regions and under developed regions. A countrywide digital initiative like this one could serve as a great equalizer (at least for knowledge) for most parts of the country. Where I agree with Phares with the query whether the government is the most suitable vehicle to deliver this project. Short answer is that this initiative seems to me like a Public-Private Partnership that can fall under the Vision 2030 Social Pillar and it should be widened in future to be a digitization initiative of all sectors not just education. Lastly I am now more inclined *Solar Powered Kindles* running Android and local apps will be a good start for while laptop technology and assembly is identified and set up in Kenya in the coming years. *Original Source: http://johnkaranja.com/2013/04/10/a-pre-analysis-of-jubilees-one-solar-lapto... * On Mon, May 6, 2013 at 12:40 PM, Edward Mayaka <emayaka@gmail.com> wrote:
@Bernard Owuor: I fully concur our education system needs to be revolutionalized.
Edward
On Mon, May 6, 2013 at 12:35 PM, Martin Chiteri <martin.chiteri@gmail.com>wrote:
Another interjection,
I think people here are over-estimating the ability of laptops to accelerate learning by kids. I had indicated earlier that children most importantly need to learn to count, read and write first using bottle tops / pieces of stone / marbles, abacii, etc and on "dead trees" (paper). Given their age, I hardly believe they are just ready for more sophisticated methods of acquiring knowledge. All they need first is toys. Most of the laptops are either going to be lost or damaged (dipped in water, stepped on, fought over, broken, thrown above the ground at reasonably fast speeds and so on). Someone please tell me how many e-books a class one pupil is going to read on average per month to justify the cost as compared to a good old text book?
What you need to remember is that some of us grew up at an age when most of these things were virtually non-existent in our sphere of the world or they were prohibitively expensive and complex. We had no major trouble picking up the skills required to operate them correctly when its time came. Some have gone ahead to become demonstrably adept at the use of such facilities. In my opinion, well equipped computing labs in schools are just as adequate for the purpose, together with a decent connection to the Internet and well trained tutors in all public schools. The government can surely fund this at a much lower cost. Classes should be well spread out with times for the pupils to engage in other activities like going to actual libraries and having sports / games time just like the rest of us "oldies" did.
I do not really see the urgency of having to put cheap laptops in the hands of children as a means of drastically improving their education process. This can be done from a different point altogether by changing some parts or all of the system of education in Kenya.
Martin.
On Mon, May 6, 2013 at 12:15 PM, Francis Njenga <korefn@gmail.com> wrote:
People and society is resistant to change. Like a mule or an obstinate horse, a carrot and a stick are the necessary tools to ensure work is done.
The laptops are carrots. The structures and changes that will have to take place in order to make the program a success, the work. The benefits are numerous.
The real question is not whether it will succeed but rather should be, what should be done to make it a success.
On Mon, May 6, 2013 at 12:02 PM, Bernard Owuor <b_owuor@yahoo.com>wrote:
@Svarrer, This experiment only makes sense (to me) if students are allowed to keep the laptops at home - and maybe take them to school once a week. An information society feeds off the ability to absorb and manipulate info, which is a product of good language and arithmetic skills.
Otherwise, most of the Kenyan schools lucky enough to have computer labs often lock them up - to keep the computers safe! While we all know that mastery derives from playing with computers over long periods.
We should change the way school is done - the current one was supposed to serve the industrial age. We need to develop self-learning curricula for mature students, and interactive educational content for the young ones.
------------------------------ *From:* Bwana Lawi <mail2lawi@gmail.com> *To:* Skunkworks Mailing List <skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke> *Sent:* Friday, May 3, 2013 1:49 PM
*Subject:* Re: [Skunkworks] A pre-analysis of Jubilee’s One Solar Laptop per Child Initiative
We need to redefine the meaning of free<http://www.nation.co.ke/News/politics/Treasury-unveils-Sh1-6trn-budget/-/1064/1839974/-/sduhsx/-/index.html>
On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 4:43 PM, Phares Kariuki < phares.kariuki@gmail.com> wrote:
I would buy that argument if it had actually worked. Look at what China (under Deng Xiaoping at the time) did after the failure of the communist experiment - the focused on the following:
[1] Agrarian reforms - they can now feed themselves and are one of the largest textile producers. [2] Commerce - They made it simpler to invest and do business - Currently, Kenya is a "spectacular position 121 globally". [3] They then focused on industry…
They are only now jumping onto the IT bandwagon. Look at the marshall plan implemented in South Korea and Japan post WW2. Focused on land reform. South Korea and Japan are now technological juggernauts which has a leading technology company that has quarterly revenues in excess of our GDP.
My point? Focus on the fundamentals - the rest will happen - people have initiative. Look at the US - people have iPads in school - why can the afford this? They have fed themselves, clothed themselves each individual earns enough money to afford an iPad for their toddler (per capita income is 45,000 USD thereabouts). Our per capita income is the value of a MacBook Pro. Where are our priorities? Isn't it better to have people alive as carpenters in 2030 then have a 'digital native' dead by 2020? On Thursday, May 2, 2013 at 11:26 AM, Peter Karunyu wrote:
Once upon a time, I remember reading that the agrarian revolution took off because of mechanization.
I would posture a theory that our agriculture has hit a glass ceiling, that, *as is,* it cannot get any better.
Why?
1. We are not mechanizing as fast as we should 2. We are going more towards small scale than towards large scale. A father/mother with several children will break up their farm as inheritance for each of the children.
So, maybe these laptops will cause one of two things: 1. Move away from agriculture and into services as the backbone of our economy 2. Mechanize (or should I say computerize) our agriculture
On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 11:02 AM, Phares Kariuki < 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> 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:
1. 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. 2. 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. 3. 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. 4. Run of a Wireless Network built on LTE technology or Whitespaces within 3 years so internet access is controlled and monitored. 5. 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. 6. 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. 7. 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>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" < ashok+skunkworks@parliaments.info> *To:* mauxdatabase@gmail.com; Skunkworks Mailing List < 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> 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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-- Regards,
Phares Kariuki
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