[Localization] XOs for Cambodia (was Beth Kanter sent you a message on Facebook...)

[Javier SOLA]

Hi Sayamindu,

Sayamindu Dasgupta wrote
> Hola Javier,
>
> Nice to hear from you after a long time :-). Hope things are fine at your end.
> I'm a bit lost within this mail thread (not sure where exactly it
> began), so apologies in advance if this mail makes no sense at all
> ;-).
>
> I have tremendous respect for the work you, and the rest of the Khmer
> OS team have been doing in Cambodia, and many of the points you raise
> in your mail are indeed, valid. However, I believe that there is one
> significant basic misunderstanding/miscommunication here somewhere
> (apologies if I'm wrong).
>
> >From what I have gathered from this thread, the software the  Khmer OS
> initiative has been working on is targetted towards somewhat older
> kids, kids who will soon start "working", and aims at providing basic
> computer related skills (eg: Word Processing, using Spreadsheets, etc)
> to them (the kids).
> The OLPC software environment, on the other hand, is _primarily_ for
> much younger kids, and the aim is to make learning (not just
> computers) more meaningful and involving - as some people put it, it
> aims towards "learning by doing". The laptop is here, just a
> educational tool, like a slate, or a pencil, or a book.
>   
I think that I have understood this quite well.
> I do not see any reason, why the two cannot co-exist together. In
> fact, I think the two efforts complement each other quite nicely.
>   
They of course can, if they do not interfere with each other. The 
KhmerOS project has effectivelly accomplished its goals, and we have 
started working with the Ministry of Education, in something called the 
Open Schools Program, to  use ICT to improve the quality of education. 
The Ministry has first defined the target populations, and the learning 
goals for that target population. The top goal is to use computers to 
re-train primary  school teachers (through e-learning), so that they can 
have a high-school degree (most of them, 50.000, do not). Priority 
number two is to give high school students marketable skills, and at the 
same time give the country people who can work in a knowledge society.

Primary school students are the lowest in the priority to put any effort 
on ICT... because there is no strength left, even to reach the first 
goals. We have only 1.500 computers in our high schools, and a few 
hundred old machines in the teacher training centers. The first 
infrastructure goal of the Master plan is to have computers in those 
teacher training centers, and in all the high schools (260). We need 
15.00 to 20.000 desktop computers.

Next to that, for the 250.000 high school students, we have to train 
over 3.000 upper secondary ICT teachers, something that will cost 
several million dollars, and we will need to print large amounts of books.

There is no time that we can dedicate to non-priority population, if we 
want to reach these goals. Primary school students (the ones that reach 
high school) will learn the use of computers at their time, when they 
reach 10th grade.
> As for technical issues like fonts - I think we can sort them out -
> Sugar and the other activities are quite minimalistic when it comes to
> textual information on the UI. I have 0 knowledge about Khmer,
Indic, not too far from Bangla, with subjoint consonants.
>  but I
> can definitely try to help you guys out if you want sugar to handle
> your language properly. And what's more - if you want to run Sugar on
> a low cost desktop system that has already been deployed - yes,
> definitely you can run it, maybe with some tweaks.
>   
As I said, we do not have resources to work on the localization of 
software that is not prioritary for us (system, productivity, Internet, 
e-learning, high level graphic for printing industry), but you are free 
to use anything that we have done, from the rendering engines (Pango, 
Qt, ICU) to fonts and translations or wordlists. We are happy to give 
you all our translation memories and PO files... but this will not work 
if you do not have a group of translators in Cambodia, or much wider, a 
support group in Cambodia, which now does not exist. None of the major 
NGOs that are working on Education have resources for (or are interested 
on) the XO. As you now quite well, localization is not possible without 
this support.

And this is why the XOs that are now being brought into Cambodia are in 
English and through some unknown NGO, and therefore useless, even for 
its target population.

This lack of infrastructure also affects distribution, teaching and 
maintenance. Besides what it would cost, it is not possible to teach 
primary school teachers programs that are in English, they will not 
retain the information, nor will the students.

After spending five years changing Cambodia to work in Khmer, it is 
painful to see this computers that will not support any of the main 
educational goals, starting with the use of local language.
> Yes, the XO laptop might be one of the most valuable things that a
> family might have (as Jim often seems to mention in his presentations,
> in many situations, the XO is the first artificial light source for
> the kid's homes in many cases), and the idea of selling the laptop
> might be tempting for many parents. There are many ways in which this
> can be handled - search wiki.laptop.org for "theft" and "resale" for
> ideas/proposals and actual implementations. I would specially
> recommend http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Bitfrost#P_THEFT:_anti-theft_protection.
>
> In short - there are difficulties. No one ever claimed that this is
> going to be a smooth ride. There are numerous issues to be solved,
> numerous problems to be tackled. But I do believe that with everyone's
> help and support, we are going to reach our goal :).
>
> Hope I managed to address at least some of your concerns.
>   
The main problem is that there is no clear path to make it useful. 
Developing countries will not buy them because they do not solve any 
pressing real-life problems. You can help improve slightly primary 
education? At which cost? For Cambodia, two million of these means at 
least 40% of the government yearly budget, and the teacher training 
another 20%. To localize and distribute you need local support, which 
will not come from the Ministry of education, because this is not their 
priority, and they do not have resources to train teachers, distribute 
or maintain. If it is an NGO, it will need several million dollars to 
localize, to train teachers, to distribute and to maintain... and we do 
not know yet how useful it is.

The XO is in theory a good idea, and you can fill it with great 
educational software that might support improvement of education, but 
localization and deployment require deep understanding on the issues and 
costs, and this has not yet been considered.

Bringing 20.000 XOs in English into Cambodia now (without teacher 
training, and without maintenance) will only create problems for 
everybody, and will not help one single students, because they will not 
be able to learn how to use them.

Cheers,

Javier
> Thanks,
> Sayamindu
>
> Disclaimer: All of the opinion above represent my own personal views
> and thoughts.
>
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 8:48 PM, Javier SOLA <javier at khmeros.info> wrote:
>   
>> Gerard,
>>
>>  I know that this is the wrong forum, but here is how I see it.
>>
>>  There are number of technical problems that any computer for Khmer or
>>  Cambodia has to solve.
>>
>>  - The first one is the difference in size in letters. Some letter are
>>  five times smaller than others. In small text (for a small screem like
>>  the XO) you cannot see the small letters.
>>  - Spacing between lines in Khmer is double than in English (only half
>>  the entries fit in a given menu)
>>  - The second one is that these FOSS applications for which there are
>>  already books and training materials in Khmer... cannot run in the XO
>>  because of its specs (small screen, little memory and little storage).
>>  - The target public for teaching ICT in schools is upper secondary
>>  schools, not primary schools, because they will join the labor force
>>  soon, and the county needs them.
>>  - The only realistic way to teach is in the schools with a trained
>>  teacher. Training teachers, specially in remote areas is very very
>>  expensive.
>>  - Maintenance of laptops is an huge issue.
>>  - The price of a laptop is the money that a rural family needs for one
>>  year... at the minimal problem, the laptop will go (for $25, because
>>  nobody can pay more)
>>
>>     
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