[OLPC India] OLPC Small Scale developments India

ravis ravisu at rediffmail.com
Tue Mar 16 19:44:46 EDT 2010


Thank you, Nagarjuna.

Yes, the proverb suggests you may fill an ocean drop by drop.. Just that it never really happened that way. Do appreciate that you believe you cannot bring the river. Most of us cannot. That seems to be the challenge. Unless we get a critical mass, we cannot help anyone with OLPC.

OLPC India presumably did sign up for providing a few hundred thousand XOs to children in various states. However, they have had challenges translating that to deployment as they do not have the people skilled in what businesses call "order to cash". The process has usually taken too long even for businesses. For those without such skills and no resources, its even tougher. Joining hands to make that happen can easily help people as passionate as you to reach out to more people than just 30 or 40 in a village school.

Its not about calling anyone ignorant. Its about accepting that ignorance is all around us. Just the other day I was traveling on a National Highway and stopped at a "Midway Motel". I asked the English speaking, "educated" owner of the hotel about the quality of water. His response was most interesting: I own this land, my water comes from the underground. Then it goes to the tank. There is no way bacteria can enter that." And of the hundred odd people working there, he was the most educated. By giving it the colour of calling an "Indian" ignorant we may suddenly make it an issue it is not. It has little to do with Indianness. Its just about ignorance that is all around us. All children who do not get an opportunity to learn in an engaging way remain ignorant of the world they live in. To a great extent each of us is ignorant of the most information on the world. But we hav an ability to find it. Our judgments may differ. but we may be able to find the facts even if we do not know them because we may have been privileged or fortunate enough to have had an opportunity to "educate" ourselves.

Retail distribution is expensive. It costs about 40% over the product cost to reach a child. That is the reason OLPC chose to stay away from retail.

Then again, that is the business of business. OLPC is NOT in business. If only there were enough passionate folks in each state of India who could go up to their education ministers and demand that it be tried to figure out if it works by letting a percent or few of the state's children use this new approach, may be India may had a greater traction in making most of this opportunity that can help us "Educate" our future generation.

On Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:15:32 +0530  wrote
>

On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 10:52 AM, ravis  wrote:

i would not engage in polemics as you have chosen.

Let me respond to your observations without anger that you expressed.



You may not be equipped with that capability from experience or training to judge about why scale helps. In the case of Khairat I hear that there is an issue of children passing out of the school not knowing where to go. Scale takes care of that. Of course schools are small. They typically have fewer than 50 children in an average village school in primary classes. Scale is about the whole environment.


I do not doubt the need for scaling.  I want to achieve that aim by different means.  All I am saying is it is possible to scale up an ocean by rain drops.  You ask me to bring a river, which I cannot. 

 


If we want to "educate" the millions, OLPC perhaps has the FIRST proven model of "EDUCATION" developed thus far in human history that is scalable in a reasonable time. India as a nation has no leg to stand on when it comes to education. It has failed to make its citizens even LITERATE, that is simply aware that letters and numbers exist and can be used by them. Forget about education. India does not know what "educating the underprivileged" is any more than how to give them potable water or roads or any of the basic amenities that the mankind came to accept as a given in the human evolution. Unless you have been there, hold your tongue or keyboard young man.




We are eradicating ignorance. Education is about eradicating ignorance.



The model has been proved in dozens of countries. There are countries that have scaled up in 19 months to cover every child. Uruguay, Peru, Rwanda and 35 other countries have gone way beyond India though they represent smaller child population relative to India. They have tested, tried and scaled up because they want to get over the curse of ignorance. India has not woken up as yet.



 Though our concerns may be similar, i do not want to call Indians ignorant.  They have knowledge, but that knowledge is not respected as knowledge since their knowledge does not support the market economy.  We have interviewed slum/street children, tribal children and realized they have certain skills that middle class children don't.  We have to build on what they already know, there is nothing to eradicate.  

 
You seemed to be for OLPC and against OLPC India. OLPC India follows OLPC principles. There is no centralization. Just that India has to wake up and learn to see a solution when it becomes available rather than let the whole world try it out before even experimenting with it.




I am for the constructionist philosophy behind the OLPC, and not OLPC in particular.  We implement constructionism with and without OLPC, such as building/design as a context of learning.  


I do not want to believe that India will be deprived without OLPC.  But I do believe that India as well as other kids all over the world would be deprived if they do not work in schools with constructionism. 
 

You seem to have personal issues that spring up in your anger. Pray you have an opportunity and capability to calm down and thing through before making observations that fly in the face of both logic and reality.


What we need to talk about is the problem of scaling up using logic and reality.   Since this problem has not been solved, it will remain a hurdle on the way to reaching the millions. 


I believe the solution to this lies in decentralized distribution model as followed by FOSS, and we have ample evidence that it works.   
 
--
Nagarjuna




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