September 11, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
Has a charity effort to get low-cost computers to children in developing countries failed?
Alanna Shaikh, a veteran aid worker, says the work of One Laptop per Child has not achieved its educational goals.
On UN Dispatch, a blog about the United Nations, which has assisted the laptop project, she writes that the program was hampered because the charity did not provide adequate tech support and did not train teachers on how to integrate the devices into their classes.
“It’s time to call a spade a spade,” she writes. “OLPC was a failure.”
Nicholas Negroponte, founder of One Laptop per Child, disagrees.
The group has distributed 1 million computers to children in 31 countries, he says in a response to Ms. Shaikh. While the program has run into obstacles, he attributes them to “commercial interests” and the news media publishing “stories like yours.”
“In spite of all that, the change is huge. I no longer hear people arguing against ‘one laptop per child’ as a concept,” he argues.
What do you think? Has One Laptop per Child been a success?
