Yeah, right: textbooks for third-world kids

Yeah, right: textbooks for third-world kids

Posted Feb 3, 2006 11:07 UTC (Fri) by smurf (subscriber, #17840)
In reply to: $100 Laptop: Great for the world, great for Linux (ZDNet) by sbergman27
Parent article: $100 Laptop: Great for the world, great for Linux (ZDNet)

*You* may be able to run to B&N or whatever, but third-workd kids typically have problems getting a mid-day *meal* at school (or, quite commonly, at all). Books are a luxury item there.

Then there's the problem that book learning is just that -- you need some way to work with the material, i.e. solve problems, write essays... While you can write on dirt, with a stick, pen+paper is indispensable for anything longer, non-ephemeral (did you ever do multi-week projects at school?), or just if you want the teacher to examine the kids' homework. Ideally, you'd also need a library so that the pupils can see beyond the textbook's narrow focus on teaching. Etc.

The laptop replaces the logistics of physically distributing 100 different books with the logistics of distributing two -- a laptop, and a couple of USB sticks (one per school?) with all the course matter.

Consider: a typical textbook with a couple of b/w illustration eats only a MByte if you use a decent file format. One USB stick vs. 1000 books, for a large school's entire curriculum? If a government commits to high-standard education for their people, the $100 laptop may well end up being *cheaper* than book learning, even if you disregard all the other effects the project is going to have.

---

(Log in to post comments)