Laptop Bulk-Buy: the Path to Development?

Libya recently made a deal which could make it the first country in the world to connect every school-age child to the internet via educational personal computers. The Libyan government agreed to invest $250 million in 1.2 million specially-designed laptops to be provided by the American nonprofit organisation, One Laptop Per Child.

There's no denying that it's an exciting concept. As The New York Times reported, in theory it would bring Libya to a point in education technology that neither the States nor Singapore have yet reached. It would also be a significant step for the e-Schools Initiative launched in 2003 by the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) with the aim of:

ensuring that African youth graduate from African schools with the skills that will enable them to participate effectively in the global information society.

As I have discussed in a previous post, there is no doubt that improved internet access is an important step for the economic and social development of the African continent. But I am not convinced that spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a laptop bulk buy is the most efficient way to go about doing it.

I spent four years working on a development project which invests in educational resources for rural secondary schools in the Kisii region of Western Kenya. My experiences in Kenya did not imply that laptops were the most pressing need of students. In fact, many of these schools were in dire need of the most basic essentials such as textbooks, science equipment, even electricity and teachers, without which the students were incapable of sitting the national examinations. This is true of rural schools in many developing countries, which suggests that there is much to be done with government money to improve basic educational infrastructure before importing millions of computers.

Based on a similar logic, the Indian government rejected the OLPC scheme in July, as The Hindu reports:

"We need classrooms and teachers more urgently than fancy tools," [Education Secretary Sudeep] Banerjee said.

and:

"...If the Planning Commission has the kind of money that would be required for this scheme, it would be appropriate to utilize it for 'Universalisation of Secondary Education' for which, a concept paper has been lying with the Planning Commission for approval since November 2005," he said.

The OLPC is a worthwhile intiative, whose work in developing a $100 laptop for emerging markets should be applauded. However, currently the organisation requires an order of over one million computers to begin manufacturing, making the $100 laptop an initially expensive and not necessarily optimal investment.