The Pigsty and the $100 Laptop

“Schools built on pigsties!” is the title of a lead article in the Mexican newspaper Reforma (March 22, 2010). According to reporter del Valle, 2 out of 10 schools in Mexico are “repurposed buildings”, and more than 30% do not have access to potable running water (del Valle, Reforma). Parents in the state of Guerrero pay to convert “pigsties” into schools, and “would like to have a concrete floor” but cannot afford it (Juarez, Reforma). Same day and newspaper, on page 26 runs an op-ed by Andrés Oppenheimer titled “The Avalanche of Laptops in Latin America.” Oppenheimer explains how the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program has taken root on many countries in Latin America, with Uruguay being the first country in the world to give every child one free laptop.

Mexico is not a big adopter of the OLPC program, but has had similar projects like Enciclomedia and Telecentros, both failures.  And indeed, why waste resources on equipment, when schools are pigsties and have no running water? Ought we not to give the children “breakfast first and then laptops” (Oppenheimer)? Should we not solve the problem that teachers remain untrained or absent first? Oppenheimer correctly points out that laptop programs are sometimes part of electoral calculations. Are the “one child, one laptop”-programs, despite criticism, aligned with development and human rights goals, or just pernicious image projects?  Do they do any good at all?

At the end of the Sixties, I attended public school in Costa Rica. We used dazzling Alianza para el Progreso books provided by the US Government. The teacher told us to copy 20 pages into our notebooks, and disappeared for the day without teaching. She alone was in charge of over one hundred children. Nevertheless, the Alianza program was a sensible development program, sponsored by the Organization of American States (OAE). In contrast, to many critics the OLPC is business disguised as not-for-profit. As Oppenheimer reports, the Brazilian government will buy 1.5 million OLPC laptops: somebody could be making a lot of money here.

The use of Information and Communications Technologies in development (ICT4D) is under debate, since apart from being an expensive kind of aid, it is clearly a business for the vendors involved, most of which are transnational corporations. Consider the discussion around the use of commercial software packages, as opposed to the free Linux based alternatives.  Some governments have gone to the extent of allowing only Open Source software.

Today ICT is an important part of education, but conditioned to the realization of the basic education rights. General Comment No. 13 (see GC13) includes the four “basic A-s” of education rights: “Acceptability, Availability, Accessibility and Adaptability.” (Marks) Availability is the entitlement to have “safe buildings, enough teachers, sanitation facilities.” (Marks)  Spending on ICTs may not be the best way to achieve the rights that in the view of many do have precedence over “electoral politics” (Oppenheimer) and laptops. The Acceptability right includes “quality of education” (Marks) but it would be a stretch to consider a tool mandatory for quality of content.

One of the critics of the OLPC program is the not-for-profit organization Room to Read. They have made the point that it has greater impact to provide a small rural school with a basic library. There is little adequate content online or offline for the laptops. Oppenheimer also mentions the problem of content from the demand side: children with a connection will have access to “bad” content like pornography or hate/radical sites. The teachers and parents, many of them absent, migrants, or simply illiterate, may not be able to educate the children on how to judge Internet content properly.

Further, untrained teachers, a recurrent problem in Latin America, will impede the use of laptops, in what may become a “gigantic laptop cemetery” (Oppenheimer). The high rates of teacher absenteeism may just make the problem worse. Other concerns are the children themselves. Many schools in Latin America have children with nutritional problems. How will children with learning impediments take advantage of laptops?  The counter-proposal is that governments should spend the funds bettering the education system, in preparation to incorporate an important investment like laptops.

Nicholas Negroponte, Chairman of the OLPC program, has pointed out that the advantage of the program lies in the appropriation of technology. His position is close to technological determinism or the idea that “technology, broadly construed, shape(s) society rather than the other way round” (Smith, p.13). Negroponte’s thinking is that the children, who own the device, will bring it home where the parents will also learn, thus spreading the usage and social change in a virtuous cycle. Governments should invest in ICT to promote change from the inside. These ideas frame the political dimension of the program, since “technological systems, with their inherent political qualities, are not value neutral.” (Smith, p.32) They influence future societies and polities.

Spending in technology for education and children, beyond its political and social utility, may not be wrong in terms of development.  Sens’ capabilities approach explains how investments in development projects and technology in particular, with a social focus, can increase Freedom. Freedom understood as the capacity of the person to realize its potential and achieve a full life with human rights asserted. (see Sen) The human rights situation is not isolated from economic aspects of development. Societies should not concentrate in pursuing basic human rights and ignore utilitarian development projects as inconsequential.

Access to ICT is one of the capabilities that Sen argues for, and its realization should support the necessary changes in human rights.  From this perspective, the investment in laptops for children is an important one to make. Negropontes’ view that the availability of technology in schools will enable change in society as a whole is in line with Sens’ capabilities theory.  The use of technology is part of the education system that will support better access to education in the future. Authorities should pay attention today to prevent the political and commercial abuses Oppenheimer pointed out.

References

Del Valle, Sonia. Carecen de agua 30% de escuelas. Reforma, year 17, number 5934, p.16, March 22, 2010.

Del Valle, Sonia. Hacen de cuchitriles ¡escuelas! Reforma, year 17, number 5934, p.1, March 22, 2010.

GC13. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No. 13: The Right to Education (Art. 13), UN Doc. E/C.12/1999/10, December 1999.

Juárez, Alfonso. Nos gustaría tener piso de concreto. Reforma, p.16, March 22, 2010.

Marks, Stephen P., Ajay Mahal. On the Right to Education. Harvard University Lecture delivered on March 2, 2009.

Negroponte, Nicholas. The Next $100 Laptop. In Wired, April 2010, page 81.

Oppenheimer, Andrés. El Informe Oppenheimer. La avalancha de laptops en Latinoamérica. Reforma, year 17, number 5934, p.26, March 22, 2010.

Smith, M. Roe. Technological Determinism in American Culture. In Does Technology Drive History? MIT Press: Cambridge, MA 1994.

Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom.  Anchor Books: New York, 1999.

© 2010, Oscar Howell. All rights reserved.

Tags: Development, ICT4D, OLPC

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