OLPC chief in the country

The Chairman and CEO of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Association, Rodrigo Arboleda, has praised Rwanda for the efforts made in the implementation and distribution of computers in schools countrywide.Arboleda who is in the country for two-day visit to assess the progress made in implementing the programme, on Thursday visited several schools to find out how students are benefitting.“I am happy for the government of Rwanda, most especially the leadership of President Paul Kagame for taking the lead in promoting education and innovation using the power of ICT,” he told The New Times in an interview.He commended the distribution of laptops in schools countrywide.“I am planning to meet officials from the Ministry of Youth and ICT and education to discuss how we can start the next phase of the project,” he noted.The project that was launched in 2008 by President Kagame has seen over 100,000 laptops distributed in 208 schools countrywide.The project is yet to distribute an additional 100,000 computers in the second phase to cover all 416 sectors countrywide. The Ministry of Education targets to distribute 200,000 computers to children by the end of the year.“I was very impressed by the way children were programming the laptops using an application called ‘scratch”. Children who have never had access to computers and now they are programmers, this is so amazing!” Arboleda remarked.He added that his project aims at distributing one million laptops in the next two to three years, which he said is in line with President Kagame’s vision to have every child in school own a computer before 2017.“We are now in the second phase of integrating laptops as an educational tool with our current curriculum. We are embarking on speeding up the laptop distribution and reach as many schools as possible,” said Nkubito Bakuramutsa, OLPC Coordinator in the Ministry of Education.The OLPC programme, a government initiative, aims at providing all primary school children in Rwanda with the important learning tool.

National

OLPC chief in the country