Laptops For Kids

The country of Uruguay has embarked on a great program over the last two years. It has been developing a program in which 362,000 primary school students and 18,000 teachers are given a laptop computers. This plan which is laptops for kids allows many children and their families access to the internet and a personal computer for the very first time.

About 70% of the kids who received these laptops did not have computers at home. The laptops cost about $260 each which includes maintenance costs, repairs, training for the teachers and internet connection. The laptops for kids program is being instituted in many countries, where the goal is reduce the gap between the digital world and the world of knowledge.

The overall cost to the country is about 5% of its total education budget. These laptops are not HPs or Dells but provide basic computer capability and able to connect to the internet via WIFI hotspots.

Presently not all the kids have laptops but the country's authorities stae that the continue to keep all schools connected, specially in rural areas, where there is no internet connectivity. Uruguay plans to roll out the Laptops for Kids program into its secondary and pre-schools in the next year.

This plan which is called "Education Connect" in Uruguay costs about $21 per child to maintain and is part of the the much larger "One Laptop Per Child," an organisation set up by internet pioneer Nicholas Negroponte.

Many other countries are showing an interest in copying Uruguay's efforts. It is reported in the BBC that Rwanda, El Salvador, Paraguay, Haiti, some provinces in Argentina and Colombia have spoken to authorities in Uruguay about their experience. Some other countries have had great success with the program already, including the Soth Pacific nation of Niue, Venezuela and Portugal.

Many large companies including Intel and Amazon have signed on to this program, Uruguay has pledged to help those countries looking to get involved in the program, with tenders, planning, evaluation, software, advertising and training they have developed. Still, there are many countries too scared to jump right in.