Word perfect

New Delhi, Feb. 11: India plans to provide one computer for every two school-going children to share, and for teachers to take classes beyond the blackboard, in the country’s answer to the internationally mooted ‘one-laptop-per-child’ proposal.

The country is preparing for its biggest expansion in the use of Information and Communication in Technology (ICT) and planning to build Internet-enabled computer labs in one lakh schools over the coming five years.

“Our target is to have one computer - a PC - for every two school-going children by the end of the eleventh Five Year Plan. We will start with government schools, which need the assistance the most,” a senior official at the ministry of human resource development told The Telegraph.

A National Policy on ICT in Education is being drafted, which for the first time will provide a synchronised plan of action in making computers - and the Internet, in particular - available to all children.

The policy will focus on getting private players to build school computer labs which the companies will own and offer as a paid service, before transferring ownership to the school or the government.

“We want state governments to follow this system. We call it Build-Own-Operate-Transfer. Some are already practising this system, but others, such as Bengal, are not,” a source explained.

The new policy will also focus on making computers friendly to those differently abled. The HRD ministry is hosting consultations on the policy with activists working on education of the differently abled on February 13.

“Computers have the potential to bring the differently abled on a par with other students in education. The new policy will strive to ensure that,” an official said.

In 2005, Nicolas Negroponte, former director of MIT’s Media Lab, launched the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Foundation - a non-profit organisation set up with the aim of providing each Third World child with a laptop.

The group claimed they would produce laptops for US$ 100 (less than Rs 4,000). Negroponte offered his brainwave to several countries, and many Latin American countries have agreed to contracts for millions of the laptops.

But the idea of the Negroponte laptop - it has a maximum life of five years - had its share of detractors.

After debating for several months, India rejected the OLPC idea last year.

HRD officials said they would rather spend the money on building classrooms and blackboards in a country where basic school infrastructure was still not available everywhere.