JasonFernie3

=Computers in Africa: Inequality and Education=

=The Story=

Nicolas Negropante came to Africa’s Leaders with a proposal to make children their priority by introducing the XO, the budget laptop developed specifically for emerging countries for the purpose of educating poverty stricken children (Designed for Africa.org, 2007).

“It’s not a laptop project. It’s an education project.” –Nicolas Negroponte The OLPC project is a non-profit project that was funded multiple corporations such as AMD, Google.Inc. The project mission of the organization is defined as: “To provide a means for learning, self-expression, and exploration to the nearly two billion children of the developing world with little or no access to education. While children are by nature eager for knowledge, many countries have insufficient resources to devote to education-sometimes less than $20 per year per child(compared to an average of $7,500 in the United States). By giving children their very own connected XO laptop, we are giving them a window to the outside world, access to vast amounts of information, a way to connect with each other and a springboard into their future. And we’re also helping these countries develop an essential resource –educated empowered children”(One Laptop Per Child, 2008)

While they developed this laptop, Microsoft and Intel also worked on their own to prevent the XO from cornering the market. Thiers’s is called Classmate PC which was made for the same purpose, relatively similar price ,but has many technical differences. Initially, there were proposed orders of up to 100,000 for the XO from Africa. When the government changed, so did the plans for buying the XO. The increase in cost, concerns over servicing, teacher training and future upgrades of the product have turned them to the Classmate PC (Designed for Africa, 2007). The XO was made for harsh conditions while the Classmate PC wasn’t. Most importantly, the Classmate PC needs a power source to charge up its batter cell. The XO only needs human power in the form of a crank or pull-string to charge the battery cell. Basically, they believe that “nothing exists in isolation” thereby disallowing the young of Africa who don’t live in urban centers the benefit of a computer.

Racial Discrimination and Inequality Issue:
Over the decades, South Africa’s governments have instituted policies that “virtually guarantee poverty and powerlessness for all but the minority of whites”(CBC, 2009) thus dividing the entire country. The government continued to fund “white” schools and treated black children like they were nothing for many years. Beginning in 1950, South Africa government began Ethnic Fractionalization beginning with the Bantu Authorities Act which established “homelands” for South Africa’s ethnic groups. The lands that they were given, “reserves”, usually lacked fertile soil and the basic needs of any human.

Presently, racial discrimination is being eliminated from public policy, but the damage has already been done. The South African white population by 1978, controlled 87 per cent of the land and 75 per cent of the national income (CBC, 2009). This is the aftermath of the drastic division of South Africa in 1950. For example in Accra the occurrence of poverty in the capital is only 2 per cent while in the dry outer regions in the north, it is 70 per cent. This means that children that go to school in the capital have more benefits while schools in the northern regions would be lucky to have power.

Energy Crisis Issue:
When looking down on Earth, Africa is the darkest continent next to Antarctica. Africa’s power generation counts for only 4% of global electricity, but contains a sixth of the world’s population. Majority of the attempts to electrify the nation in the 1970s and the 1980s failed. (Economist, 2007) Power stations were built, but only maintained in urban centers. Turbines were built, but rival governments stole parts. The Classmate PC needs a electricity supply to charge the batter. If they choose the Microsoft’s Classmate PC, then more then half the nation’s children will be unable to use them in classrooms. This choice may have been made to better the African economy. Unfortunately, in this situation, the rich profit and the poor barely see any benefits.

Language Issue:
The Classmate PC doesn’t have as many variations of the standard keyboard as the XO does. The XO is adapted to the languages of the region and if there isn’t a standard for a language in any region, they’ll build it. If corporations like Microsoft continue to ignore the languages that aren’t represented in technology then Africa’s linguistic diversity will disappear. Unless language is used in the intellectual domains of the present day it will be a marginal language. When a standard keyboard is designed for a language it not only represents African’s culture, but also revitalizes the Ethnolinguistic Vitality thus immortalizing their culture in technology.

Current Situation
The current plan to buy Classmate PC on mass with the main priority of the purchase being the education of the poor has been made with poor examination of the average user’s environment.They are neglecting at least 500 million members of the rural sector while at the same time increasing the economic divide between rural-urban regions. Works Cited __­__ "One Laptop Per Child Vision" OLPC 

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"South Africa's 'race problem' -." __ CBC Archives __. 25 May 2004. CBC. 05 Feb. 2009 [|]======