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Free laptops and internet connection for children in Uruguay

Regardless of their family’s economic situation, all children attending public school in Uruguay receive free laptop computers.

It is easy to be smitten by the enthusiasm of a class of 10 year-olds in a school in Montevideo, Uruguay, as they eagerly explain everything they can do on their laptops. They say they use them to look for information, play games, listen to music, take photos, draw pictures, watch TV, send emails, interact on Facebook and Twitter.

Most of these children, who attend a public school in a poor area of the city, are able to engage in these activities thanks to free laptops and free internet access.

In an effort to reduce the digital divide, the Uruguayan government has embraced the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative and introduced free laptops and internet access in public education.

One Laptop per Child is a project of the One Laptop per Child Association, a US non-profit organisation aiming to provide cheap, robust and easy to maintain XO laptops to children in developing countries. The laptops are sold directly to governments, which in turn distribute them to schools.

Since Uruguay started its national OLPC programme in 2007, known as Plan Ceibal, 362,000 students and 18,000 teachers in public primary schools have received XO computers. These are impressive numbers in a country with a population of 3.3 million.
All children covered by the scheme are entitled to the laptops, regardless of their family’s economic situation.

According to figures from the Ministry of Education and Culture, around 84 percent of the almost 350,000 students enrolled in primary education go to public schools.

As soon as a laptop is handed out, it becomes the property of the child. This means that the Uruguayan government keeps investing in each new school generation by buying more XOs. Although the scheme may look like a big investment, its costs do not exceed USD 50 million per year, or the equivalent of 1 percent of the government’s annual budget for public education.

Most children in Uruguay attend public school and receive a free laptop which they use can in the classroom as well as in their free time, for homework and for fun (Photo credit: Plan Ceibal)

Successes and setbacks

Evaluations of the programme show positive results. A recent report published by Grupo Radar, a Uruguayan marketing research company, indicates that four out of ten households own a laptop thanks to the government programme. For one in six households, this is the only computer in the home.

According to the same report, the number of internet users between the ages of 6 and 11 has increased from 55 percent in 2007, when Plan Ceibal was launched, to 87 percent in 2010.

Ten-year-old Hellen uses the laptop every day, says her mother Lilian: “She uses it for homework and entertainment. She and her friends spend a lot of time on the laptop and take it along with them when they play outside the home.”

Although the family already had a computer before Hellen received the laptop two years ago, Lilian explains that her daughter “feels important because she has her own computer.”

Plan Ceibal in Uruguay presented by Nicholas Negroponte, founder of of the One Laptop per Child Association (OLPC)

Despite the successful distribution of laptops however, the programme still needs to overcome a number of difficulties in achieving its aspirations to reduce the digital divide.

A call centre provides technical assistance for the maintenance of the large amount of laptops and 30 technicians have been assigned to tour the schools and fix damaged or broken computers. Nevertheless, according to the latest evaluation report presented recently by the National Administration for Public Education (ANEP), only 70 percent of laptops appear to be working.

Internet connectivity has proved another challenge in the implementation of the programme. Although the goal is to connect all public schools to the internet and provide WIFI in some public locations, the ANEP evaluation report states that only 69 percent of schools are effectively connected. In rural areas almost half of the schools do not have internet access.

Developing content for children

Plan Ceibal also entails the offer of content services such as a portal and intranet platforms for children. A recently added service is a digital library which gives children and their families access to 100 books in PDF format simply by connecting the laptops to the schools’ servers. By the end of the year, the library is expected to include an additional 1,500 donated titles.

The laptop can used as a reading tablet

The digital library includes titles of classic literature in the public domain and contemporary works donated by their authors. The team responsible for the project says that it was easy to find authors who wanted to contribute to the initiative. “ I wanted to offer a book as soon as I found out about the project,” says author Niré Collazo.

Children using laptops to communicate

The free laptop initiative has also inspired organisations to set up activities for children outside the classroom. The Gurvich Museum, a local museum in Montevideo, last year offered photography workshops to 60 children aged 9 to 12 using the built-in laptop camera.

The workshops took place once a week for a period of three months. “Children learned how to use pictures to communicate,” explains Ana Guerra, responsible for cultural projects at the museum.

The philosophy behind the photography course was to engage the children in a photo reporting activity in their own neighbourhoods. Apart from picture composition, the students learned technical skills such as sending emails, uploading and downloading pictures, and using Flickr. The course ended with a professional exhibition of the photographs made by the children.

Whether or not the free laptops will make a difference for the future of poor children in Uruguay remains to be seen. It is not yet possible to evaluate if the free laptop programme helps to address the current social and economic inequality. What is clear today is that children are enthusiastically embracing the use of the laptops.

“Balcon Circular”, picture made with the built-in laptop camera by a student who attended the photography workshop at the Gurvich Museum in Montevideo (Photo credit: Gurvich Museum)

“Miren mi retrato”, picture made with the built-in laptop camera by a student who attended the photography workshop at the Gurvich Museum in Montevideo (Photo credit: Gurvich Museum)

 

 

Tags: ana guerra, author, child association, computers nevertheless, content services, facebook, founder, free internet access, gurvich museum, internet access, internet connectivity, internet users, lilian she, ministry of education, montevideo, national administration for public education anep, nicholas negroponte, nir collazo, nir collazo children, one laptop per child, pdf, the gurvich museum, twitter, united states, uruguay, uruguayan government, usd, xos,

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