The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project is a laudable initiative that brings hope and optimism to our country’s ambitious agenda of transforming this nation into a knowledge based power-house. The OLCP project has great potential of transforming the education system of this country. Its goal is to provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment, and acquaint themselves with technology at an early age. The OLCP vision rightly falls into a well known Rwandan adage: “igiti kigororwa kikiri gito” meaning, an individual’s character is shaped at the infancy stage. For decades, children of this nation were fed on the toxic campaign of hatred defined by the previous barbaric regimes that took charge of their destinies.
The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project is a laudable initiative that brings hope and optimism to our country’s ambitious agenda of transforming this nation into a knowledge based power-house.
The OLCP project has great potential of transforming the education system of this country. Its goal is to provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment, and acquaint themselves with technology at an early age.
The OLCP vision rightly falls into a well known Rwandan adage: "igiti kigororwa kikiri gito” meaning, an individual’s character is shaped at the infancy stage.
For decades, children of this nation were fed on the toxic campaign of hatred defined by the previous barbaric regimes that took charge of their destinies.
Instead of investing into the most precious asset of this nation, its human capital, they (post independence regimes) invested in annihilation of this core resource.
Now, shining a bright light to Rwanda’s future are good initiatives like the OLCP.
This project is shaping the minds and character of our children at an early stage. With no doubt, it adds value to government’s long term goal of transforming this nation into a knowledge based economy riding on a vibrant ICT sector.
Training our children to become technology savvy at the infant stage is simply placing the future of this nation into the hands of the rightful people. As our children point and click, into the cyber space, so is our vision 2020 steadily becoming a reality.
During the first phase of this project, government brought in 20,000 laptops. Now 100,000 more have been ordered. But the burden of purchasing these laptops should not be shouldered by government alone.
It will be a costly bill for government, if all the school-going children are to be covered. Therefore, private sector institutions, should supplement on this good gesture as part of their corporate social campaigns and responsibilities.
It’s through this collective effort that we will expeditiously meet our targets as spelt out in vision 2020.
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