[Sur] [support-gang] Bad article in Economist on OLPC Peru

[Walter Bender]

On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 12:15 PM, Caryl Bigenho <caryl at laptop.org> wrote:
> Unfortunately, what they say is pretty valid. Lack of proper training of the
> teachers (spend some money on it, for heavens sake!) and community
> involvement (they turned down lots of offers when they were starting up)
> have pretty much doomed this to near failure.  Add to that the recent
> warehouse fire that destroyed 10s of thousands of brand new XOs slated to go
> to the rural children in Amazonas... a double tragedy.

Perhaps is it too much to ask people to read the report itself, and
not just the Economic summary. I recommend this alternative reading:

http://h30565.www3.hp.com/t5/Mobility-Matters/Is-OLPC-failing-Or-is-it-The-Economist/ba-p/2562

regards.

-walter
>
> Contrast that with Uruguay where there is strong teacher, parent and
> community involvement.  It is not OLPC's fault things are not going well, it
> is the politicians and top educational administrators who think they know
> everything. They don't.
>
> Caryl
>
>> Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2012 12:04:25 -0400
>> From: sj at laptop.org
>> To: support-gang at lists.laptop.org
>> CC: support-gang at laptop.org
>> Subject: Re: [support-gang] Bad article in Economist on OLPC Peru
>>
>> Yes, Rodrigo is writing one...
>>
>> On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 11:39 AM, Alan Claver <alc at psu.edu> wrote:
>> > Here's the article (I don't care to give them any page views so "Fair
>> > Use"). The limited comments in the article (as well as my original source
>> > for the link - http://www.economist.com/node/21552202) were all in
>> > agreement. No positive comments.
>> >
>> > Hope someone is planning on some sort of response.
>> >
>> > Here's the URL if you disagree: http://www.economist.com/node/21552202
>> >
>> >
>> > Education in Peru
>> >
>> > Error message
>> >
>> > A disappointing return from an investment in computing
>> >
>> > Apr 7th 2012 | LIMA | from the print edition
>> >
>> > GIVING a child a computer does not seem to turn him or her into a future
>> > Bill Gates—indeed it does not accomplish anything in particular. That is the
>> > conclusion from Peru, site of the largest single programme involving One
>> > Laptop per Child, an American charity with backers from the computer
>> > industry and which is active in more than 30 developing countries around the
>> > world.
>> >
>> > Peru is enjoying an economic boom, but has one of Latin America’s worst
>> > education systems. Flush with mining revenues, the previous government
>> > embraced the laptop initiative. It spent $225m to supply and support 850,000
>> > basic laptops to schools throughout the country. But Peruvians’ test scores
>> > remain dismal. Only 13% of seven-year-olds were at the required level in
>> > maths and only 30% in reading, the education ministry reported last month.
>> >
>> > An evaluation
>> > (http://www.iadb.org/en/research-and-data/publication-details,3169.html?pub_id=IDB-WP-304)
>> > of the laptop programme by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) found
>> > that the children receiving the computers did not show any improvement in
>> > maths or reading. Nor did it find evidence that access to a laptop increased
>> > motivation, or time devoted to homework or reading. The report applauded the
>> > government for providing much-needed hardware: less than a quarter of
>> > Peruvian households had a computer in 2010. But it now needs to improve
>> > teacher-training and the curriculum, said Julian Cristia of the IDB. Above
>> > all, the classroom environment needs to change.
>> >
>> > Part of the problem is that students learn faster than many of their
>> > teachers, according to Lily Miranda, who runs a computer lab at a state
>> > school in San Borja, a middle-class area of Lima. Sandro Marcone, who is in
>> > charge of educational technologies at the ministry, agrees. “If teachers are
>> > telling kids to turn on computers and copy what is being written on the
>> > blackboard, then we have invested in expensive notebooks,” he said. It
>> > certainly looks like that.
>> > _______________________________________________
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>> > support-gang at lists.laptop.org
>> > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/support-gang
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Samuel Klein          identi.ca:sj           w:user:sj          +1 617 529
>> 4266
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-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org