There are many organizations in the world that support and promote education for children in developing countries. These organizations see to it that they give proper funding to the mode of education they impart to children as well as see to it that the learners will be abreast with the latest technology used in other parts of the world.

Image by One Laptop per Child via Flickr

The One Laptop Per Child Association, Inc. or the OLPC, is a non-profit organization in the United States that was set up to oversee the creation of an affordable educational device for use in the developing world. The mission of the organization is to create educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power connected laptop with software and content designed for collaborative, self-empowered, and joyful learning.

The OLPC has already had a successful run in Latin America and some African countries and recently it has launched the program in India to aid young students with specially designed laptops at a subsidized rate for better learning.

The OLPC President and CEO Satish Jha has said that more than a thousand laptops have been made available to students in the age group of 5-12 in twenty schools in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. He also stated that the scheme would be launched in Himachal Pradesh and other states soon.

The laptops provided by the organization are unbreakable and water-proof which will make them easy to handle without any risk. They have been created specifically to suit Indian conditions. Each laptop only consumes one watt of power and its screen can be visible in sunlight.

The laptops can easily hold course contents and books used in the schools in local languages. However, if it is part of their curriculum to learn foreign languages, the language courses can also be added in the laptop! The laptops are powerful tools of education for the less-fortunate children of India – they will not be left out from the rest of the world since they will be learning through modern means.

Each laptop for each child costs Rs 11,000 only and other organizations such as Microsoft, Red Hat, Nortel Networks, Bright Star Corporation and Google are helping in funding the project.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 10th, 2009 at 11:04 am and is filed under Languages and Society, Learn Languages. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.