MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Latinamerica leads in distribution of free laptops for schoolchildren

Uruguay was the first country in the world to give each schoolchild a laptop

The massive delivery of free laptops for schoolchildren -- begun on an experimental basis nearly three years ago in Uruguay -- is booming throughout Latin America.

Uruguay recently became the first country in the world to give all elementary school children in public schools one Internet-connected laptop each, which is their own property and they can take home.

Chile’s former President Michelle Bachelet late last year began limited delivery of free laptops to rural students and on March 17, Peru signed a deal for 260,000 laptops from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program, a non-profit venture that is selling laptops for 188 USD each.

Peru’ new order will bring to 590,000 the number of laptops delivered to Peru's elementary school children under a program that provides most of the machines to one-teacher schools in poverty-stricken rural areas.

And on March 18, Argentina's government delivered the first of 250,000 Intel “Classmate” laptops for students of technical high schools, only hours after the mayor of Buenos Aires, an opposition leader, announced that his city will order 190,000 laptops for elementary school children.

Last month, Brazil announced a bid to buy 1.5 million laptops for elementary school children.

“Latin America is way ahead of Asia, Africa and other regions of the world in one-to-one computer penetration in elementary schools,” says Rodrigo Arboleda, the MIT program's worldwide operations chief, who added that 85% of the program's laptops are going to the region. “Countries have realized that it works, and they are rushing not to be left behind.”

The Inter-American Development Bank reports that the number of Latin American and Caribbean schoolchildren covered by these programs will soar from today’s 1.5 million to 30 million by 2015.

Source: Oppenheimer Report - Santiago Times