Aid donors key to bridging Pacific digital divide

Radio New Zealand International broadcast the following feature this week on the OLPC Pacific programme:

And yesterday RNZI published the following story.

Aid donors key to bridging Pacific digital divide

The regional head of the world wide ’One Laptop Per Child’ programme, says key Pacific donor agencies must become involved and help Pacific countries to bridge the growing digital divide.

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Lessons from Niue feed into other Pacific efforts

In terms of our regional initiative, One Laptop per Pacific Child, we have learnt much from our experience with Niue (which was our first donation to Pacific children), as we have from our other early Pacific pilots. For today, the primary lessons we take from Niue are that:

• national education officials need to have goal-setting, deployment-planning and resource-mobilisation in place before any laptops arrive; this now seems very fundamental and is working in our favour in countries like the Marshall Islands, FSM, Vanuatu and Fiji.
• a full-time national ICT-for-Education coordinator should be funded within government and be responsible for coordination and rollout of the OLPC program;
• no matter how many politicians or parents in Small Island States publicly ask international donors to invest in ICT for basic education, none will be forthcoming without the active and real support of development partners.

The good news is that the countries which are just beginning their engagement with OLPC are taking these lessons on board and are benefiting from the experience of our early pilots.
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Niue education winds down OLPC due to funding shortfall

The acting Director of Education in Niue, Lisimoni Togahai, has told Radio New Zealand International the OLPC program there is to be phased out:

The programme’s first two years went very well, with children’s computer literacy and understanding of issues such as climate change improving. She says unfortunately the scheme is expensive to run and the Education Department hasn’t got the budget to pay technicians to service the laptops.
“When the pilot ended and the school could not afford to pay for the high cost of maintaining the V-SAT that’s connected to the satellite for the internet access. So it’s just phased out.”

COMMENT: I have been unable to confirm any of these details, however as the Pacific rep for One Laptop per Child, it is distressing to read about a national program that "went very well" but is now unsustainable due reportedly to the cost of internet access.
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OLPC drives stunning gains in numeracy in remote Australia

The registered charity One Laptop per Child Australia has enlisted powerful private sector support to reach largely Indigenous communities in remote or isolated locations. Its work is starting to produce results in Australia's new nationwide student testing program NAPLAN, which in turn are starting to attract attention among Australian policy-makers. This week the Australian Federal MP, Rob Oakeshott, told the Australian Parliament:

One Laptop per Child Australia delivers results in learning from the 5,000 students already engaged, showing impressive improvements in closing the gap generally and lifting access and participation rates in particular.
Most impressive of all is the first year in Doomadgee State School in remote, largely Indigenous North-West Queensland. Doomadgee has just produced stunning NAPLAN results, boosting their percentage of year 3 pupils at or above national minimum standards in numeracy from 31 per cent last year to a staggering 95 per cent in 2011. Principal Richard Barrie and his teachers are using plenty of clever and different engagement strategies, but one important tool in the toolbox is the early and strong use of technology via the One Laptop per Child Australia program. I am willing to back this program and I ask the Prime Minister and the government to do likewise... I strongly urge the government to consider this program.

In the Pacific around 8000 OLPC laptops are being used in 46 schools in 10 countries. The Pacific's major donor partners are currently considering several requests from countries to scale up and fully evaluate the program in the region. In August, the United States committed to partnering on OLPC with the north Pacific "Compact" countries, the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia, which both have embarked on OLPC programs. Read more!

Solar charged Haiti project points to OLPC's renewable future

On her excellent blog, Laura Hosman documents an inspiring collaborative project in Haiti which installed solar power to charge 500 XO laptops in 8 days! (Plus a year of planning!):

We did it!! We successfully carried out our first solar powering deployment in Haiti, August 3-11! The EFACAP school in Lascahobas now has the capability to charge 500 OLPC XO laptops with a direct current (DC)-only solar system. According to our research and to OLPC, our installation has the distinction of being the world’s largest single-school solar laptop charging deployment!

Read the full post at ICT Views from the Field. Read more!

US rep at Kosrae OLPC handover: "We are your dedicated partner"

In a speech made in July 2011 at the official handover ceremony at Tafunsak Elementary School on the remote island of Kosrae, Ambassador to the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Peter A. Prahar, declared the United States "a dedicated partner" in the effort to roll out OLPC and improve the quality of education in Micronesia:

"Thank you for inviting me to participate in this event. I can assure you from this day forth, education – or at least educational opportunities – in Kosrae will be changed forever. I certainly don’t need to tell the students this is a momentous day. They are leaning forward towards the pile of computers that will be issued after we stop talking with the biggest smiles imaginable on their faces! But of course with every change, there is anxiety. With every change, there is a need for leaders to explain the rational and value of the change and how it might be best carried out. So let me address some short remarks to this big topic.

"First of all, a good education is rooted in the classroom, the home, the community, and the culture. A good education requires a strong, coherent curriculum, dedicated and professional teachers, students motivated to learn, adequate resources and facilities, and parents and communities that support and value education. A good education requires enormous effort by everyone involved.

"Nothing about the One Laptop Per Child Program changes any of this.

Read more!

UNESCO: "Education is a Human Right"

A thoughtful video from UNESCO Bangkok: Children all over the world talk about the issues that affect them most.


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OLPC signs historic MOU with University of the South Pacific

OLPC Foundation has donated fifteen XO laptops to the University of the South Pacific (USP) as part of an historic new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) committing the two partners to work together to further research and teacher training on 1-to-1 Computing in the Pacific.



Speaking Saturday at an official handover of the laptops at a ceremony in Suva, Fiji, OLPC Oceania director, Michael Hutak, welcomed the new partnership as a breakthrough for OLPC in the region.
"This is a great day for OLPC in the Pacific," said Mr Hutak. "USP is the leading teacher training institution in the region with campuses in all 10 Pacific countries where there are OLPC projects. Governments and ministries of education will now have access to the best minds in the region for their country to using the XO laptop in the classroom. And at the Japan Pacific ICT Centre, they will now have access to the best facilities too.

Read more!

Spotlight on Special Ed as US backs OLPC in Micronesia

Micronesia's OLPC journey is off and running with the Official Handover ceremony of 810 XO laptops on the remote island State of Kosrae. The program comes after teacher training workshops funded by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, OLPC's deployment partner in Oceania.
Kosrae's program is funded by the United States, a significant and most welcome commitment from the largest aid donor in the northern Pacific, and a move that will ensure sustainability in a country heavily dependent on external aid.
The Marianas Variety reported comments by US Ambassador to the Federated States of Micronesia, Peter A. Prahar at the handover ceremony on July 7.  Noting "the importance of embracing the digita l age," Ambassador Prahar challenged Kosrae's parents and teachers to use the program to “embody and win the solid commitment and active participation of all of the stakeholders in the Kosrae education system.” Proof of that commitment could be seen immediately in Kosrae's inclusion of its special education students in the launch activities.

Kosrean Special Education students show off their new XO laptops .

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Marshall Is. leads Pacific on ICT for kids

The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) kicks off its OLPC program this week with consultations between Ministry of Education (MOE) officials and representatives from the One Laptop per Child Foundation and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community. Following the installation in 2010 of high-speed internet via fibre-optic cable, the remote Micronesian nation is rolling out OLPC as part of the MOE's wider "Comprehensive Technology Plan" for education.

OLPC is a key plank in the MOE's broader vision that will see RMI "schools becoming an environment where all students and staff have ready access to the best available range of current technology, software tools, and applications." The MOE is planning an innovative rollout of OLPC that will incorporate a teachers' professional development program to ensure teachers are well prepared when the laptops come to their communities.

"The Marshall Islands' investment in technology infrastructure is being matched by investment in its people too," said OLPC's Oceania director Michael Hutak, "With the rollout of OLPC in schools taking shape with meticulous planning, RMI is ensuring the next generation will not be left behind. "

Read the RMI OLPC Project document here.
Read the RMI Comprehensive Technology Plan here:

Read more!

OLPC Oceania at UN Asia Pacific Forum, Bangkok

APAC Regional Forum on ICT Applications, Bangkok, hosted by ITU, UNESCAP and the Government of Thailand.

View more presentations from One Laptop per Pacific Child

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"Let me add something raw and home based..."

In this recent post to a mailing list for Pacific educators, Brian Bird, the principal at Patukae College in the Marovo Lagoon, Solomon Islands, makes a passionate grass roots case for OLPC :

"Let me add something raw and home based to my previous article ... yesterday. Patukae CHS is one of the OLPC projects project in the Solomon. While it is true that technology does not in itself responsible for driving change, it is a tool that can be used to drive change in learning and in commitment to learn. In for instance which is one of the pilots in the OLPC project we accepted OLPCs as tools and we invested efforts to make them work.

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Teachers using technology to humanise the classroom

Founder Salman Khan talks to Bill Gates at TED 2011 about the concepts behind the Khan Academy, an online service providing "self-paced learning" that frees up teachers to focus on providing individual attention to meet individual student needs and encourages "peer-to-peer" teaching among students themselves. Khan has uploaded more than 2100 videos and 100 self-paced exercises and assessments covering everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history. Khan is American but his videos have become a global phenomenon. Do Pacific educators see any value in these approaches?

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Essay: One Laptop per Pacific Child

OLPC Cook Islands pilot.

As the world grows smaller, our common humanity will reveal itself.

-- US President Barack Obama, Inauguration Speech, 2009

If they are lucky enough to attend school, today’s six year olds will graduate in twelve years, in 2023. The pace of technological change is so astounding, how can we know what 2023 will even look like?

Consider for a second life twelve years ago. In 1998, internet access in global terms was slow, narrow and novel. Today it is fast, broad and approaching potential ubiquity. In education, how do we prepare children for a world we cannot predict? What should education be when information is just a few clicks away?

Here are some things we do know about the school leavers of 2023:

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Young iKiribati plug into Facebook to raise climate change alarm

UNICEF Pacific reports young iKiribati are using Facebook to tell the world they are experiencing a disaster that is slowly and steadily eroding their culture and home. Kiribati President Anote Tong calls again on the international community to take action on climate change.

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OLPC calls for Australia’s Aid Program to Bridge the Digital Divide

The OLPC Foundation has made a submission to the Australian Government's Independent Review of Aid Effectiveness.
While other agencies scale up their commitment to innovation in aid delivery, we note in our submission that Australia's contribution to global efforts on bridging the digital divide has been insufficient. We make the case that:

"From the perspectives of humanitarian aid, human development and human rights, contributing to global efforts to bridge the digital divide needs to become an urgent and central priority of Australia’s aid program."

We argue that Australia’s aid agency needs to develop a substantial, coherent, and overarching digital strategy with respect to the delivery of its programs and the conduct of its activities.

• Read our submission to the review here, or download the document here:
  http://www.aidreview.gov.au/publications/sub-onelaptop.pdf

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FAO feeds young minds on responsible aquaculture

Pacific educators looking for appropriate content for OLPC Oceania XS school servers should investigate the exhaustive array of online resources collected by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) for its Feeding Minds Fighting Hunger initiative. FAO, the UN agency leading international efforts to defeat hunger, has produced a rich online educational resource on all aspects fisheries and aquaculture. It includes a learning module of special relevance to our region, ‘Wonders of the Oceans’, which aims to:

"...teach 8-12 year olds the importance of conserving our aquatic resources through responsible fisheries and aquaculture. We have selected six major themes to learn and explore the world’s oceans: the richness of the oceans; creatures inhabiting the oceans; food from the oceans; people who depend on the oceans; bad and good practices and their impacts on the oceans; the importance of acting responsibly regarding the oceans.

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Next XO 'armed' to deliver even lower power consumption benefits

Low power consumption is an essential requirement for developing countries introducing technology into education. This great interview with OLPC Chief Technology Officer Edward J. McNierney introduces the ARM version of OLPC's XO Laptop, the XO 1.75, which will make possible a sub-2 Watt device for the first time:

"OLPC created the Netbook market, now they will push the PC/Laptop industry towards ARM support for lower power consumption and lower prices through increased industry competition and optimized SoC designs. The $100 Laptop is nearer"

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Solomons' Marovo pioneers a new "Pacific way"

A decade ago, the Solomon Islands was still a nation wracked by civil war. Today, inspiring stories of empowerment and rejuvenation are to be found, such as that among the communities of the country's remote Marovo Lagoon in Western Province. December 2010 marks 10 years since the people of this beautiful and fragile environment accessed email for the first time, via the ground-breaking People First Network (PFNet).
Today, Marovo is buzzing with innovative ICT-for-education projects which are motivating students, connecting people, empowering communities and pointing to the possibilities of a new "Pacific way" on education. Grass roots communities are driving these projects with support and assistance from their national government and its partners in development in the bilateral, regional, non-profit and private sectors.

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Solomons kids use XO and Wiki to bring encyclopedia to life

In 2005, almost twenty years after his first visit to the Solomon Islands, Norwegian Professor Edvard Hviding published an unprecedented work: Reef and Rainforest: An Environmental Encyclopedia of the Marovo Lagoon. First arriving in Marovo in 1986, Hviding is a dedicated pedagogue, and ensured his work was not only available in the indigenous Marovo language, but that it aligned with the national curriculum, and came complete with teachers' guides and lesson plans.
Now the OLPC XO laptops in the region are being used to bring a new dimension to this incredible resource. Solomon Islands Government are working with UNESCO to enable the kids of Marovo to use their XO laptops to access and update the encyclopedia via a wiki platform.

Read more!

OLPC Samoa field mission report

In May 2010, 75 XO-1.0 laptops were distributed to children and teachers in two primary schools in Samoa - 48 laptops went to Laumoli Primary School children and 27 laptops went to Paia Primary. Both schools are located on Savaii Island. In August, Tom Parker and Tabitha Roder, who are active in members of OLPC New Zealand and the global OLPC community, mounted a self-funded mission to Samoa to visit the two schools to provide technical assistance and assess the deployments. As part of their work at the schools, they used a grant by the Australian Youth Trust of the Commonwealth Day Committee of NSW to buy and install servers and wireless access points. The mission was supported by Secretariat of the Pacific Community and the Samoan Ministry of Education Sports and Culture (MESC). Tom and Tabitha's report is a clear and comprehensive assessment and offers some important recommendations for Samoa to consider, especially with regards to design and integration in the curriculum. See the full report below.

Open publication - Free publishing - More samoa

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New global survey of OLPC evaluations

OLPC learns and grows from every distribution, small or large, and actively seeks out feedback, documentation and analysis. OLPC partners and communities are critical contributors in this feedback loop and likewise are usually interested in how monitoring and evaluation studies from different countries can offer insight into successes and challenges of one laptop per child programs. The learning team at OLPC's Cambridge MA headquarters has compiled the first version of an assessment report of the existing M&E literature to compare different projects, generate discussion, and gain inspiration.

Open publication - Free publishing

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Encouraging impressions from the field in Solomons pilots.

Laura Hosman is an American researcher who has been travelling through Melanesia visiting our OLPC pilot projects in PNG and the Solomons. She has been keeping a fascinating diary of her impressions at her blog, ICT4D Views from the Field.
Her latest entry covers her visit to the village of Batuna, in Marovo lagoon, Solomon Islands.

"It was a special day in Batuna, because the sixth graders were taking the national exam. This meant that classes were not as they would be on a normal school day, so the teachers gathered the students who had their laptops, invited them in to the same room, and had them demonstrate the various programs they could use on the laptops. And there were many that I had not seen before!

Read more!

New guidance on the XS Server and starting an OLPC Oceania project

David Leeming, of Leeming International Consulting, has provided frontline technical assistance on OLPC in the Pacific since 2007 and has been involved in helping communities with first deployments of OLPC in the Solomons, PNG, Nauru, Tuvalu and Kosrae in FSM. David has produced two new documents for OLPC Oceania Technical Working Group which we've now shared for the benefit of education officers, teachers and community participants in OLPC Oceania Country Trials:

• OLPC Oceania - Workbook for Education Officers Guidance to accompany the two‐day workshop 
  for education officers and teachers participating in an OLPC Oceania Country Trial. Commissioned by the International Telecommunications Union.
• OLPC Oceania - Guide to installing the Pacific XS School Server Technical guidance for schools and communities on installing the XS school server along with content resources collected by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community.

Visit our document repository at www.box.net/keydox to download these and other key documents. Read more!

Vanuatu's PM embraces digital future with OLPC

The Prime Minister of Vanuatu, the Honourable Nipake Edward Natapei, has committed his nation to a digital future, announcing that the young country will "establish a Country Programme of the innovative 'XO laptop' in schools in remote villages, starting from next year." He said the XO "will be used to improve schools' performance on basic skills such as literacy and numeracy, and also teach children new skills such as 'information literacy'."
A former Minister for Infrastructure, Prime Minister Napatei made his announcement on OLPC after opening the PACINET 2010 conference, which has brought ICT experts from all over the region to the Port Vila to discuss the "next generation internet".
Vanuatu has shown its appetite for technology and innovation in recent years with a rapid uptake in mobile telephony and the recent rollout of a national network to deliver e-government across the Melanesian archipelago of 82 mainly volcanic islands.
Formerly known as the New Hebrides, the republic only gained independence from its former joint colonial administrators, Britain and France, in 1980, a unique history which has seen the country adopt three official national languages: English, French and the creole Bislama.
On OLPC, the Office of Prime Minister today issued the following media release:

The Honourable Prime Minister, Nipake Edward Natapei, today announced a new partnership to bring the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative to the children of Vanuatu.

The Prime Minister said the Republic of Vanuatu will partner with the Secretariat of the Pacific Community and the One Laptop per Child Foundation to establish a Country Programme of the innovative "XO laptop" in schools in remote villages, starting from next year.

OLPC, which is mandated by Pacific Forum Leaders in the Pacific Plan, will be used to improve schools' performance on basic skills such as literacy and numeracy, and also teach children new skills such as "information literacy". The eye-catching green and white XO laptops are rugged, low-cost, low-powered, and come loaded with safe, appropriate software designed for young children aged 6 to 12 years.

The laptops can be adapted to any language: English, French and Bislama. One Laptop per Child Foundation is a global non-profit organization, dedicated to creating educational opportunities for the world's poorest children. Since 2007 it has distributed more than 2 million laptops in over 31 countries including Uruguay, Peru, Pakistan, Nepal, Rwanda and Afghanistan.

Working with OLPC, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community has since 2008 helped established projects in eight Pacific Island countries: Cook Islands, Nauru, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Tonga. The governments of seven more Pacific countries have OLPC programs in development: Federated States of Micronesia, French Polynesia, Guam, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, and Palau.

The PM said in Vanuatu this project would also contribute to bridging the digital divide in the country, boosting access for people in remote villages to education, health, information and other government services. The announcement came one day after he launched the PACINET 2010 conference, which has brought IT experts from all over the region to the Port Vila campus of USP to discuss the "next generation internet".

The PM was joined by Mr Michael Hutak, the Oceania Director of the One Laptop per Child Foundation, who will address PACINET tomorrow. Mr Hutak said: "OLPC Foundation is proud to join with the Prime Minister and the people of Vanuatu in this effort to arm our children with the knowledge and skills they will need to inherit the world we are leaving to them."

The PM said a proposal outlining an initial trial phase of between 1000 and 2000 laptops would be jointly submitted by the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of Education to the Council of Ministers for approval and seeking a resolution to confirm the partnership agreement.

With work now underway on the new e-government network to link up the provinces and a revision of the education curriculum being planned, the PM said the time is right to introduce OLPC in schools, adding that this is the start of a long-term investment in our most precious natural resource: our children. Recent studies from the World Bank show access to the internet can significantly boost economic activity, adding points to economic growth.

The PM said he would be working with Vanuatu's development partners to finance the project which would cost between USD250,000 and USD500,000, depending on the scope of year long trial. To design and implement the project, the government would draw on the expertise and technical assistance of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community through its leadership of the regional initiative One Laptop per Pacific Child.

In the first phase the project would focus on remote islands coupling with another SPC program PacRICS, which provides satellite internet access to Pacific outer islands and other inaccessible locations.

ENDS

Download the full press statement here:

http://www.box.net/shared/0kxc41h5iv
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Australian charity puts XO into the remotest communities

 Grade 2 student Jeremiah Johnson at Doomadgee State School with his
new laptop computer. Picture: Brian Cassey  Source: The Australian 

OLPC Australia Ltd has broadened its reach to Queensland with the annoucnment it has brought the XO now to the remote Doomadgee State School, in far northwest Queensland -- more than 2200 kilometres northwest of Brisbane, and some 500km from the nearest major town, Mount Isa.
The charity has distributed some 4000 laptops in Australia, paid for through private donations and with the support of major corporations such as News Corporation, which has provided much media coverage free of charge to the organisation. In a front page article in The Australian today, editor-in-chief, Chris Mitchell, said the newspaper was proud of its long-standing support:

"Education is one of the most important things you can give a child," he said. "This program helps give kids in remote parts . . . educational opportunities they've never had before - opportunities we take for granted in the cities."

The remoteness of the Australian deployments underlines the facility of OLPC to reach the most inaccessible communities, a point not lost on Pacific educators where about 6000 XOs are now in use.
More than a dozen Pacific countries requesting assistance on OLPC from major donors such as AusAID will be hoping the re-election of the Gillard Labor Government in Australia bodes well for their aspirations to improve the opportunities of their children to bridge the digital divide and join the global revolution in electronic delivery of education.
The Australian government in May granted OLPC Australia Ltd charity tax deductible status, a move estimated to generate in excess of AUD$2 million in subsidies to the Australian program. Read more!

Uruguay's lessons: It CAN be done, it IS worth it...

While the Pacific focuses on trials and small projects, some governments outside the region have taken the key step of embracing OLPC as a national program.
This inspiring and informative talk from Miguel Brechner Frey, the director of Uruguay's Plan Ceibal, outlines the scope and challenges of delivering a laptop to more than 380,000 children in that country. The first lesson: it CAN be done. The second lesson: it WAS worth it... Listen! Read more!

Kiribati puts XO into education plan

The Republic of Kiribati, a small island state of about 110,000 people, spread across a vast marine territory in the Pacific the size of the Unites States, has joined the Pacific wave for One Laptop per Child.
"We believe OLPC has great potential to improve the quality of our basic education," said Kiribati Minister for Education, Hon. Toakai Koririntetaake, this week in a prepared statement. The Minister said Kiribati would deploy OLPC "to improve our national standards in literacy and numeracy, to teach our children new lifelong skills, and boost the long-term economic development of our country."
Kiribati, one of the world's poorest nations, faces severe challenges in population growth, health and sanitation, and climate change, and has embraced OLPC as a catalyst to breaking the cycle of poverty.
The MOE has appointed a senior level OLPC Country Working Committee to oversee the distribution of  2000 XO laptops in primary schools in 2011 and to address key issues such as curriculum integration and teacher training. Kiribati will measure OLPC's impact on basic literacy and numeracy, in line with the AusAID-funded Kiribati Education Improvement Plan (KEIP). In Kiribati, at the class four level in English literacy-43% of children show little or no evidence of achieving the learning outcomes appropriate for that level. For indigenous Kiribati literacy and numeracy, the figures are 25% and 53%, respectively.
Read the full Ministerial Statement here. Read more!

Rudd backs OLPC with $2.4m tax break

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced backing for OLPC through the provision of tax deductible status to One Laptop per Child Australia Ltd, the charity which has deployed 1500 laptops to remote outback communities. The listing is expected to attract AUD$2.4 million in donations to the charity. Said the PM in a statement:

The Australian Government is pleased to be able to extend deductible gift recipient status to One Laptop per Child. Through this listing, the organisation will be in a significantly better position to attract private and corporate donors to raise critical funds to meet its 20,000 laptop objective.
The decision will be effective from today and run until 30 June 2012. All donations of $2 or more will be fully tax deductible during that period and all taxpayers who make a donation should ensure they receive a receipt.
The listing of One Laptop per Child is expected to cost $2.4 million.
The work of One Laptop per Child closely complements the Government's six year $2.2 billion investment in the Digital Education Revolution (DER)."

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If there is no sharing, there is no education....

A compelling talk on openness in education by Dr. David Wiley, Associate Professor of Instructional Psychology and Technology at Brigham Young University, delivered at TEDxNYC 2010, April, New York.
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Picture painted by PNG G3 student on launch day at Rumginae

We received this image from OLPC technical deployment expert, David Leeming, who is working with kids in the North Fly River area in PNG's Western Province, part of 1000 XO laptops being deployed by the Papua New Guinea Sustainable Development Program. The image was produced on the XO by a child who had had his new laptop for only 4 hours.


"All his mates on that table were also painting similar standard," wrote Leeming. "Interesting how the perception of the mountains is like that. Blue mountains above the clouds. A classical artist couldn’t have done it better..." Read more!

New Solomons study puts hard evidence of OLPC's positive impact

An independent evaluation commissioned by the Solomon Islands Government (SIG) of the OLPC pilot projects in the remote Western Province has boosted calls to expand the program in the country and across the Pacific.
The study, conducted by the Australian Council for Educational Research(ACER), evaluated OLPC deployments in three village schools in the Marovo Lagoon and found the impact on students, teachers, parents and communities undeniably positive.
"OLPC must and should be given the opportunity to expand in Solomon Islands," the report quotes a school principal involved in the pilots. "It must be realised appreciated and embraced."
For students, the big pluses were access to new knowledge and the opportunity to learn independently. Children said the program helped them master the basics of reading, writing and mathematics but also opened up the world by enhancing learning through discovery: "To help me to learn many things I did not know before" as one Grade 5 boy told the researchers.
The SI government has welcomed the report, citing "clear potential benefits for schools and based on the positive outcome of the report the Ministry of Education is now focusing on the way forward".
The report was commissioned by the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development (MEHRD), which will now investigate options for scaling up the program in the country. The study fills a gap in local evidence on the global OLPC program and offers a crucial local perspective. OLPC projects are now up and running in 7 Pacific countries, with 8 more countries seeking support from international donors to introduce OLPC in their education systems. The SIG/ACER study now provides valuable evidence for Pacific countries to support their policy and program plans.
ACER undertook the evaluation in September 2009, some 15 months after students first received their “XO” laptops. The key requirement was to identify the impact of the OLPC program, both positive and negative, on the three Marovo schools. ACER conducted interviews with teachers, students, parents and community members, and surveyed MEHRD officials and other key stakeholders. ACER identified the improvements and published recommendations in the report. (ACER is the publisher of the OLPC Global Literature Review, the only comprehensive account of evaluation of the XO.)
The Solomon Islands is one of only a few countries to develop its own Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for the program. ACER’s evaluation focused on the impact of the OLPC program on teaching and learning, among other objectives stated in the framework. Three trial projects began in July 2008. The schools in the trial were Sombiro, Batuna and Patukae Primary Schools in Marovo, Western Province.
The evaluation indicated that the impact of the OLPC program has been very positive and while there have been some technical challenges, the new technology has been enthusiastically embraced by the schools and communities. The evaluation was carried out over two months in late 2009. Local interviewers were trained in workshop sessions as part of the evaluation. Interviews were conducted with students, parents, teachers and community members. Consistent interview questions, tailored for each group, were used.
The report’s highlights include:

• evidence to date indicates that the trial has largely met the objectives of the program as outlined in the MEHRD framework.
• Parents, students, teachers and community members see major benefits in the program.
• The provision of the laptops has been greatly appreciated as a step in improving learning for students. This appreciation was repeatedly expressed in interviews.

The report recommended that the program will be strengthened by:

• the provision of more technical and preferably local support;
• further training for teachers, and also for parents and community members
• an ongoing program of training
• continued attention to monitoring and evaluation.

The OLPC program provides rugged, low-cost, connected laptops to children in developing countries. The program seeks to encourage learning by engaging students in a range of educational software undertaken both individually and with eachother via the XO laptop. The software, called “activities” in the OLPC system, come pre-installed on the laptop for immediate use, or they can be adapted to suit local needs, or supplemented by wholly local content.
OLPC Oceania is one of three programs carried out under the Pacific Plan Digital Strategy with the support of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community. The Solomon Islands trial was also undertaken with the technical and resource support of the region-wide initiative, “One Laptop per Pacific Child”.
Related Links:

• Download the SIG/ACER report here.
• Read a news item from the Solomon Star newspaper here.
• More on the OLPC programme in Solomon Islands here.
• Access the Solomon Is government's Measurable Objectives and evaluation framework.

Related blog posts:

• Solomons endorses scale-up of OLPC pilots (Sept 09)
• All eyes on Solomons as evaluation gets underway (Sept 09)
• OLPC pilot in Patukae thrives one year on (Sept 09

Read more!

Private sector backs OLPC in remote Australia

Australia's private sector is backing OLPC in the remote outback:

"Now, an ambitious program that's caught the philanthropic attentions of some of Australia's biggest companies. Called One Laptop Per Child, it aims to deliver a computer loaded with educational programs to every child aged between four and fifteen years in hundreds of remote and outer-regional communities around the country. The program is the local extension of a global effort to give laptops to children in developing countries. And yesterday in a remote northern territory town it moved one small step closer to achieving its Australian goals..."

Read the full transcript and access an inspiring video here. Read more!

Commonwealth backs OLPC Oceania with support for Samoa reconstruction

OLPC Oceania has won high level backing on the eve of the launch of One Laptop per Child in Samoa next month. At a reception at Parliament House, Sydney, to mark Commonwealth Day, Chairman of the Australian Youth Trust, Sir Ian Turbott AO, announced a donation of AUD$5000 to kickstart the OLPC program in Samoa next month. He said the grant would "send at signal of support to the Samoan people as they rebuild their country in the aftermath of the September 2009 tsunami disaster."
The Award was presented by AYT Patron, Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO, Governor of New South Wales, to OLPC's regional director, Michael Hutak, and the Samoan High Commissioner to Australia, H.E Lemalu Samau Tate Simi. The funds will be disbursed by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, which will buy school servers and other peripheral equipment to support the XO deployment in April in two schools in the villages of Paia and Laumoli on Samoa's island of Savai'i.
Sir Ian Turbott is also Honorary Consul to the Cook Islands, which commenced its OLPC program in February in schools on the island of Mitiaro. Read more!

A letter from the Cook Islands...

A letter from Thomas, principal at the school on the island of Mitiaro, in the Cook Islands, recipient of the country's first XO laptops in January 2010.

"Kia Orana everyone,

"Here are some photos of the beautiful children of Mitiaro High School learning, teaching, working and having fun with their new tools – XO laptops. In Mitiaro, we are calling it the ‘Rorouira apaipai (literally translated, the carry around computer)
"We spent nearly the whole of week 2 working together as a whole school.

"The school has a team of 6 supervisors (students from correspondence class and one from Fm. 2) who generally look after the administration of the XOs. They remedy little hiccups like battery not charging properly, application disappearing from the homepage, labeling chargers, upgrading the new version and teaching children how to “pick up” their electronic copy of the school newsletter from the server. They get together sometimes to discuss new ideas or turn old ideas to new ones. As in the following example. Right now, all secondary students take home an electronic copy of the Cook Island news on Thursdays. This is one brilliant extension idea ( from the newsletter idea) by the two boys Nia and Joseph. These two boys are very committed to becoming administrators one day. (they think they are the godfathers of the XOs)
"This activity is extended to other classes.

"Senior students actually pick out (filter) their favourite news from the Top news and the General News section, not forgetting the sports section.
"Two days were put aside so that teachers have a better idea on integrating the use of the laptops in the curriculum. In this case, Social Science, language and music. The children just loved the Bio Poems activity that the Social Science advisor had sent us. I wish that I can easily print out the Bio poems.
"The teachers learned a lot from the activities.
"The photos show some of the activities and the student-supervisors assisting the others.
I am working on a draft Emergency plan for the XOs. I am looking at possibly purchasing some solid waterproof bins (enough to contain all laptops and the server and other equipment) so that the laptops are collected or recalled just before a major natural disaster hits.

"I hope to get these out to you all for some feedback. Are there funds available for this idea? (we believe it is)
 
"Cheers everyone.
"Thomas"

Read more!

OLPC workbook for education officials

Pacific OLPC deployment expert, David Leeming, has shared his excellent OLPC Orientation Workbook aimed at education specialists and officials overseeing the introduction of the XO laptop in their country. Leeming developed the Workbook for his recent workshop in Tuvalu, undertaken with funding support from the International Telecommunications Union and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community.

Download the Workbook from our OLPC Oceania document repository or here:
OLPC Orientation Workshop Workbook (Tuvalu).pdf Read more!

"I know how to read!" -- a story from OLPC Uruguay

Uruguay has distributed the XO to all 100,000 of its primary school age children. And now they are sharing stories, including this moving story (in machine translation) from a teacher working with OLPC in the town of Durazno:

In my 6th grade class I had a 14-year-old student that didn't know how to read. He was very anxious to receiving his laptop. He had serious behavior and social problems that he was controlling inside the classrom. When the computers arrived we distributed them and I proposed to write a text in (the XO activity) Write.

He had liked very much a play at the school. He had been moved by and identified with Nacho, one of the characters.

Then he told me:

- Teacher, I want to write about Nacho... but I don't know.
- Come and tell me what you want to write.

He told me orally. He brought his laptop, entered to Write and wrote everything he proposed himself. He knew almost all the phonemes and graphemes, but he didn't know how to join them.

- What a beautiful work you did! Now you have to read it to your classmates.
- But I don't know how to read?
- Ah, it doesn't matter, you will know because you did it, I said in a low voice with complicity and a wink.

He read it many times in silence, he passed it to his notebook, he stood in the front and with tears in his eyes, he read the text to the class.

- I know how to read, I know how to read! - he would shout, excited and smiling!

For him it was an unforgettable day, he wrote and the read aloud... then he read simple texts written in his classmate's XOs... this is how he started his literacy.

Read more!

Tuvalu readies for XO deployments

The Polynesian island nation of Tuvalu, population 12,000, is ready to join the ranks of Pacific OLPC countries following a senior-level workshop in the capital, Funafuti. The 10-day capacity-building mission is in advance of deployment of gifted laptops, courtesy of a tranche of 5000 XO laptops donated to Pacific Islands Countries by the OLPC Foundation.
The Funafuti workshop brought together teachers,school supervisors, curriculum officers, and the country's senior education administrators, including Ms Katalina Taloka, Director of Education. The workshop was conducted by Pacific ICT-for-education expert, David Leeming, who has provided guidance on OLPC to the governments of Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Nauru and now Tuvalu.
Workshop participants learned about:

• Principles of OLPC. Background and history, constructionist learning, and links to Open Education Resources (OER) movement
• OLPC in the region. Lessons learned from other Pacific projects.
• Technical awareness. Training on the XO Laptop and XS Server. Basics of functionality of the XO laptops, the activities on them, and the XS school server. Localisation – converting the laptop language into Tuvaluan.
• Curriculum integration. Using the laptop to support the learning objective. Integrating laptop (and server) usage into the lesson plan. Available curriculum materials. Understanding the learning curve.
• Developing an OLPC Country Program plan.
• Community and parents engagement and involvement.
• Online collaboration – setting up a Google Group and Ning social network and Wikieducator page for Tuvalu OLPC

Mr. Leeming reports the workshop was a valuable exercise for both Tuvalu and the Pacific: "It is early days yet, but I think there is a good potential from the Tuvalu project that may provide a good model for the region."
The mission was supported by Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). OLPC Oceania is a project partner in ITU’s global initiative Connecting Children. In February 2009, ITU and OLPC announced they would combine efforts to bring laptops to school children in the Pacific Islands and the Tuvalu mission was undertaken under this partnership.
Access the deployment plan for OLPC Tuvalu here. Read more!

Radio interview: OLPPC on 'In the Loop'

One Laptop per Child's regional director for Oceania, Michael Hutak, and OLPC Coordinator for the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, Ian Thomson, are interviewed on Radio Australia's "In the Loop" talk show.

Access the audio file here or visit In the Loop at www.radioaustralia.net.au/intheloop/. Read more!

OLPC underway in the Cook Islands

Cook Islands has embarked on its OLPC adventure with the deployment in early February of 72 XO laptops to children on the remote island of Mitiaro. The laptops are being deployed by the Cook Islands Ministry of Eduction (MOE) and the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) division of the Office of the Prime Minister. In fact Prime Minister Jim Marurai has been personally instrumental in driving the project forward.
The laptops are part of a tranche of 5000 donated to the Pacific by the OLPC Foundation, Cambridge, distributed with the technical assistance of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community.

Cooks' Secretary of Education, Sharyn Paio, told the Cook Islands News the government is "pleased that, at long last, these laptops will be put to use and trust that the children and teachers will find them useful."
We will soon share stories, photos and videos from Mitiaro. Read more!

Worrying impact of global economic crisis on Pacific education

A international conference on the impact of the economic crisis on the Pacific has been in underway in Port Vila, Vanuatu, this week. A key theme is the impact on Pacific education, where the crisis has affected both the quality of and access to education -- two key areas which OLPC seeks to address. The conference has been looking at evidence-based investment in education, early childhood development and child protection.
The website has many policy resources available for download including this excellent overview of the issues facing Pacific educators, prepared by Helen Tavola for the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. Read more!

OLPC holds promise for Guam's kids

Recent interest in OLPC from the North Pacific island of Guam:

"It's being called a progressive simple learning tool that will change the way we educate our children. Bruce Best, University Of Guam's Acting Associate Director of Telecommunication and Distance Education Operation says, "This unit doesn't contain Microsoft Windows or an OS system from Mac, but it's loaded with software designed for collaborative learning."

Read more!

Virtual Museum of the Pacific

"The Virtual Museum of the Pacific (VMP) is an experimental social media platform that is developed in collaboration between the Australian Museum and the University of Wollongong. The VMP contains 427 objects from the Australian Museum's Pacific cultural collections. Users can explore, tag and annotate these objects with rich media. In this video, we introduce its background, motivations and user experience, and also lead into its future research direction and technology platform."

The Australian Museum is working with the OLPC Oceania Technical Working Group and other partners to develop the user community for the VMP among Pacific children and communities who can access the VMP with an XO laptop.

Visit the Virtual Museum of the Pacific at http://epoc.cs.uow.edu.au/vmp Read more!

OLPC overview for Pacific country planners

Presented at the OLP Country Planning Workshop in Suva, November 2009, this is a broad overview of the actions and approach of partners in the region-wide initiative, "One Laptop per Pacific Child". In 2009, 15 Pacific Island states began OLPC Country Programmes, with pilot projects deployed in five countries.

OLPC Oceania Overview Nov09

View more presentations from One Laptop per Pacific Child.

Read more!

East African Community shows lead to Pacific possibilities

The East African Community's recent announcement that it will initiate a region-wide cooperative effort to deliver One Laptop per Child to some of the world's poorest countries is proof positive that if political leaders can overcome their differences and pool their resources then better basic education is possible for the even the most disadvantaged communities.

Pacific Island states introducing OLPC, numbering now 15 countries, will be watching progress in East Africa closely for signs that regional cooperation can assist in scaling up OLPC among countries with poor infrastructure and both physical and political challenges.

Anyone wishing to find out more about the East African initiative should contact Matt Keller, OLPC's Head of Global Advocacy, at matt@laptop.org. Read more!

Release: Fiji government embraces OLPC

Suva, Fiji, November 15, 2009 -- The Republic of Fiji is on target to launch a One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program in 2010 to coincide with the introduction of a new primary school curriculum in the country. Following meetings in the country's capital Suva last week, OLPC's regional director for Oceania, Mr. Michael Hutak, said Fiji had ambitious plans to distribute 70,000 OLPC XO laptops in its schools commencing with a proposed roll-out to 2000 children in the first phase of the program in 2010.

"Fiji's planning is in depth and on target and I am impressed by the broad consultative approach that the government have put in place on OLPC," said Mr Hutak, who met with Fiji's Minister for Education, Mr. Filipe Bole in Suva on Friday. He also met with Fiji's Permanent Secretary of Education, Mr. Filipe Jitoko, and the Deputy Permanent Secretary, Mr. Josef Natau, who is responsible for managing the project.

DPS Natau has established a cross-sector steering committee on OLPC, based in the Ministry of Education (MOE) but with inputs from other Ministries responsible for information, finance, e-government and digital and library services, as well as non-government partners such as the School of Education at the University of the South Pacific. Central to planning is a fully scoped monitoring and evaluation framework which officials are developing with reference to the M&E logframe developed by the Solomon Islands Department of Education for its own OLPC pPilot programme. The Fiji MOE is also looking into integrating OLPC into the new distance learning project it is implementing in partnership with Telecom Fiji in Fiji's more remote islands.

"This whole-of-government approach, with a strong attention to M&E and supported by wide consultations with communities and other stakeholders is a recipe for ensuring sustainability of OLPC not just in Fiji but across the Pacific," said Mr.Hutak, "Fiji's approach is one which other countries in the region might observe and learn."

The meetings came at the conclusion of a two-day OLPC Country Planning Workshop, jointly hosted by OLPC Foundation and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and conducted with the help of the Pacific Regional Initiatives in the Delivery of basic Education, better known as the PRIDE Project, based at USP's Laucala campus in central Suva.

---

The Government of Fiji announced its intention to implement OLPC in a statement in June this year. Fiji is looking for donors to support the project in its initial start-up phase, and has asked the OLPC Oceania Technical Working Group to assist in technical assistance and resource mobilisation.

Fiji is one of at least 15 Pacific island nations to announce an OLPC country program as part of One Laptop per Pacific Child initiative.

One Laptop per Child Foundation is a global non-profit initiative headquartered in Cambridge, Mass. and dedicated to realising better quality education in the developing world through the design, manufacture and distribution of rugged, low-cost laptop computers designed specifically for children aged 6-12.

RELATED LINKS:
Fiji Country Request
Country Planning Workshop
Read more!

OLPC Australia takes off online

OLPC Australia has launched an impressive new updated website at http://olpc.org.au, adding to its online presence on Facebook and Youtube.

The new site has a great design, easy navigation and lots of information about OLPC AU's plans to deliver a laptop to every child in remote Australia within 5 years. OLPC AU has already deployed 1,185 XO laptops to 18 remote community schools in the state of Queensland,Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

The charity has attracted some great media coverage including this profile of OLPC Australia's executive director, Rangan Srikhanta, which appeared in The Weekend Australian.

With the support of its founding partner, the Commonwealth Bank, OLPC AU is planning over the next 5 years to "deploy 400,000 laptops at a rate of 10,000 a month in some of the most remote corners of the country".

"People might think it's a pipe dream, but it can be done," Srikhanta told The Australian. "Uruguay did it in less than three years. It's just (having the) will." The following clip is an interview with Natalie Crisp, a Senior Teacher from Shepherdson College, Galiwinku, NT, where OLPC Australia distributed the XO.

Read more!

Key dox: easy access

Key documents related to OLPC Oceania can now be accessed at our new online document repository at www.box.net/keydox. A permanent link to the repository now appears in links to resources on the right. Read more!

Pacific Tsunami: Message of Condolence and Solidarity

OLPC Foundation expresses condolences to the families and friends of those lost in the earthquake and tsunami of September 30. NZAID has set up a website tracking relief and appeal efforts here. We offer our unreserved solidarity with the people of Samoa and Tonga at this difficult time and look forward to contributing to the effort to rebuild. Read more!

OLPC pilot in Patukae thrives one year on

Read more!

All eyes on Solomons as evaluation gets underway

An independent evaluation of OLPC pilots in the Solomon Islands gets underway in the country's remote Western Province this week, marking an important milestone in the application of ICT in basic education in the Pacific.

The evaluation of OLPC deployments in three village schools in Marovo Lagoon has been commissioned by the country's Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development (MEHRD) and will be conducted by the Melbourne-based Australian Council for Educational Research. ACER is the publisher of the OLPC Global Literature Review, the only comprehensive account of evaluation of the XO.

ACER's work will address the government's own Measurable Objectives and evaluation framework. The Solomons' have taken a deliberate and methodical approach to monitoring and evaluation of OLPC since the pilots were deployed in July 2008. It's an approach that has attracted the watchful attention of both donors and the more than 13 other Pacific countries which are introducing OLPC.

For an ongoing account of OLPC evaluations around the world, the blog of World Bank ICT and education specialist, Michael Trucano, is well worth bookmarking. Read more!

Solomons endorses scale-up of OLPC pilots

On the eve of a crucial evaluation of a year-old pilot programme, the Government of the Solomon Islands has endorsed the expansion of One Laptop per Child in the country.

"We anticipate that the evaluation report will provide us with information to to determine the possibility of expanding the programme into more schools in the country," wrote the Hon Matthew Wale, Minister for Education and Human Resource Development, in an open letter to OLPC's Oceania director, Mr Michael Hutak.

Minister Wale also announced his country's willingness to participate in the proposed "OLPC Pacific Pool", a standing stock of XO laptops which will feed Pacific deployments in some 14 Pacific nations which are testing OLPC's innovative approach in learning. Mr Wale also endorsed the efforts of the OLPC Technical Working Group to secure major donor funding for poor countries like the Solomons.

Minister Wale presented the letter to Mr Hutak at a meeting in the capital Honiara. Mr Hutak had been visiting the country at the invitation of the Solomons' Honorary Consul in Australia, Trevor Garland AM.

Mr Hutak's visit also included an audience with the Governor General, His Excellency Frank Kabui, and a site visit to the remote Western Province and the village of Patukae, one of three villages to conduct OLPC pilots. The Solomons is one of five countries to benefit from the donation of 5000 laptops by OLPC to the Pacific. The pilots were deployed by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), which is OLPC's deployment partner in the Pacific.

MORE INFO: email OLPC's Regional Director for Oceania, Michael Hutak, or phone +61 412 001 052. Read more!

XO demo by OLPC NZers

Members from OLPC New Zealand demonstrate the XO at the New Zealand Open Government Bar Camp in Wellington. Find out more about OLPCNZ at laptop.org.nz Read more!

ABC Radio: OLPC takes off in the Pacific

Short radio feature on Australia's Radio National. Listen here. Read more!

PNG forges historic OLPC partnership

OLPC PNG, led by Director Dr Alfred Tivinarlik of Divine Word University, has forged an historic partnership with PNG Department of Education:

OLPC teachers training at St Peter Chanel Primary School in Erima Port Moresby was successfully completed and the partnership between National Department of Education, Telikom PNG Ltd and OLPC PNG was launched on Friday 24th April 2009 at St Peter Chanel Primary School, Erima by Secretary for Department of Education Dr Joseph Pagelio, Telikom CEO Peter Loko and Director of OLPC PNG Dr Alfred Tivinarlik.

Some relevant links detailing the practical actions on OLPC in PNG:

• Feedback from OLPC deployments in PNG
  
• OLPC Teacher Training, September 2008

Read more!

Pacific ready for OLPC's "quantum leap forward"

In a key acknowledgment of its growing acceptance in the Pacific, OLPC has been referenced in the region's new strategic education blueprint as contributing to a potential "quantum leap forward" in education standards in the region.

With a vision aspiring to "quality education for all", the Pacific Education Development Framework 2009-2015 (PEDF), cites the OLPC deployments around the region -- now in five countries with eight more in the queue -- as evidence that "Pacific education systems are making increasing use of the advantages [ICT] affords".
The PEDF, launched in March at the 7th Forum Education Ministers' Meeting in Tonga, will guide education policy in Pacific countries in the run up to the 2015 deadline on the Millennium Development Goals.

Citing "encouraging results" from initiatives such as OLPC's programs in Niue, Nauru and the Solomon Islands, the framework (p.19) says students were:

"...more interested and motivated, absenteeism reduced, learning as measured on test scores improved, collaboration and teamwork enhanced, and communication and computational skills improved."

and...

"There is now a potential for Pacific countries to move beyond incrementalism and with assistance of ICTs make a quantum leap forward in realising goals of access, quality and equity in education."

OLPC Oceania is now working with operational and donor partners to turn this vision into reality. Read more!

Oceania's first OLPC deployment

Gaire, 45 minutes from Papua New Guinea's capital Port Moresby, was the first OLPC school in Oceania, deployed in early 2008 with the technical assistance of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community. This story comes from Australia Network's Clement Paligaru and you can read more from Clement on his blog, Pacific Pulse. Read more!

Pacific Educators get behind OLPC Oceania

OLPC won warm acceptance at the recent 7th Pacific Forum Education Ministers’ Meeting (FEdMM), in Nuku'alofa, Tonga this week with no less than 13 Pacific Island countries requesting to participate in a OLPC Oceania Country Trial program. This followed acknowledgment in the keynote address of growing acceptance of ICT and OLPC in the region.

Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat Secretary General, Tuiloma Neroni Slade, told Education Ministers and Officials from 16 Pacific nations:

“ An example is the development challenge that the region faces with HIV and AIDS. Information Communications Technology, or ICT, has a much more important role in education than perhaps it did seven or eight years ago. Many countries have engaged with the One Laptop Per Child initiative and we hope that the educational benefits of this and other ICT ventures will be worthwhile, as ICT has much to offer our region.”

OLPC was an official observer at the meeting, alongside regional and international actors such as UNICEF, the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, and European Union. OLPC made a joint presentation with its regional deployment partner, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community outlining a regional effort to establish a "Pacific Pool" of XO laptops in the region, feeding Pacific schools with hardware as they become ready to deploy them.

Some 13 nations have requested to take part in the regionwide initiative: Fiji, Samoa, Federated States of Micronesia, Solomon Islands, Nauru, Tokelau, Niue, Tonga, Palau, Tuvalu, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Republic of Marshall Islands. Existing small pilots in 5 countries -- Nauru, Niue, PNG, the Solomons and Vanuatu -- will be scaled up and deployments in the other 8 countries will roll out as donor support is mobilised. Read more!

Free education for PNG children: Somare

Papua New Guinea children will get free schooling after policy is put in place next year, Prime Minister Michael Somare says:

Cabinet had decided to cover schooling costs from grade one to grade eight, Somare told AAP on Thursday in Wabag, the capital of Enga Province in PNG's highlands region. "We have decided we should get the policy in place by the beginning of 2010," he said. "We want education from grade one up to grade eight, (where) parents will not meet the cost."

Read more!

ITU and OLPC Oceania announce Pacific partnership

ITU and OLPC join forces to bring connected laptops to school children in the Pacific Islands

NUKU’ALOFA, Tonga, 17 February 2009 – The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the One Laptop per Child Foundation Inc. (OLPC) today announced a new ICT development partnership to benefit the school age children in the poorest countries of the Asia Pacific.

On the occasion of the Pacific ICT Ministerial Forum: Connecting the Unconnected held from 17-20 February 2009 in Nuku’alofa, Kingdom of Tonga, Mr Sami Al-Basheer, Director of the ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau and Mr Michael Hutak, OLPC Regional Director, Oceania, announced a new joint effort to bring laptops to school children in least developed countries in the Asia-Pacific region, in particular the Pacific Island countries.


This new collaboration will contribute to ITU’s new global flagship initiative, Connecting Children. As part of Connecting Children, ITU is reaching out to partners active in the low cost laptop field to launch innovative public-private partnerships to serve the needs of school children in least developed countries, recognizing that traditional market models are not adequate to reach these children.

Through Connecting Children, ITU aims to build upon existing efforts in technical development, manufacturing, distribution and marketing as well as teacher, student and institutional training, and join forces with various partners under a common banner. ITU plans to announce additional partnerships with other industry players in the coming weeks and months.

OLPC is a global non-for-profit association, committed to the research and development of technologies to revolutionize the education of children. OLPC’s goal is to provide elementary and secondary school-age children around the world with connected laptop computers and enabling software to empower them to learn, explore, experiment and express themselves in new, creative and productive ways. OLPC is further dedicated to bringing this technology first to the world’s Least Developed Nations.

As part of a shared ITU-OLPC effort in Asia-Pacific, ITU will identify potential partner countries and coordinate with Governments and relevant agencies to identify requirements and will handle administrative requirements, including facilitating shipping of equipment.

OLPC will supply laptops to participating countries, with the support of donors, and will work with all partners to realize sustainable programs through cohesive deployment in schools, sufficient capacity-building and effective technical support.

ENDS Read more!

Pacific ICT ministers encourage OLPC

The Pacific ICT Ministerial Forum: Connecting the Unconnected, organised by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and kindly hosted by the Kingdom of Tonga, took place 19-20 February 2009, at Nuku'alofa, Tongatapu. The Forum included official representation from 16 Pacific Island Countries, 11 Ministers responsible for Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), and 2 Prime Ministers.

In their communique, Pacific leaders' recognised the

"number of initiatives[1] to make available low cost ICT end-user devices to Forum Island Countries and that these initiatives have brought improved access and use of ICTs, particularly for young people, and that such initiatives should be further encouraged;

[1] e.g., One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Read more!

Thirst for learning drives Slumdog spirit

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That's what friends are for...

OLPC Friends is a community project for enthusiasts, developers and volunteers in the Australia/New Zealand/Pacific region. Launched in November 2008, Friends offers a much-needed platform for social networking among the scattered and varied organisations and individuals working together to bring the OLPC vision to the Pacific and beyond. Friends fills a "people centred" gap missing from existing online OLPC resources and includes forums, volunteer and project registrations, news about OLPC in the region and ways and opportunties for people to collaborate and simply get involved. 

Visit the OLPC Friends website to join their mailing lists, community forums, get the latest regional community news and more!  Projects and community discussion can be found on the OLPC Friends Forum.
OLPC Friends is taking a hands-on role in mobilising resources to assist trial deployments in Australia and the Pacific. And it is playing an indispensible public interest role by providing an outlet for public discourse, a home for the organic OLPC community, and the electronic resources we need to leverage in order to make One Laptop per Pacific Child a sustainable reality.

Read more!

PNG to review education system

The National newspaper reports:

28 JANUARY 2009 PORT MORESBY (Pacnews) --- Papua New Guinea’s education department will conduct an extensive audit of the national education system’s school curriculum reform that it took on board in 2003.

The department’s curriculum development and assessment division (CDAD) said the review was necessary to monitor the first five years of implementation of the reform curriculum.

CDAD head Dr Eliakim Apelis said the department was hoping the findings would help the department redirect the focus of the curriculum reform in the system to ensure a smooth transition for implementation in the next five years.

Dr Apelis said the review was timely amid increasing public views in recent times over the outcome-based education (OBE) and its implementation in schools.

The introduction of the education reforms in 1993, Dr Apelis said, resulted in the structural reform of nine years of basic education that included elementary prep, one and two, (top-up) primary being grades three to eight while making grades nine to 12 the levels in secondary school.

The reform of 2003 introduced a more relevant method of learning aimed at meeting the needs of Papua New Guineans by providing relevant basic education for most of the students…. (ENDS)

Read more!