Computers for young children in India

Childhood Education, 2003 by Thirumurthy, Vidya, Sundaram, Nithya

School Systems in India

It is a valid assumption that most children enrolled in the state or central government schools are from rural, low-income, or transient families. In cities and big towns, the majority of children from the middle class and the elite attend private schools. These schools follow curricula set by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) or by the State Board of Education. Private schools have earned the trust of the public, and so there is a great preference for these schools over government schools. They are not under the strict vigilance of either the state or the central government; hence, they enjoy academic freedom. This freedom contributes to a wide disparity in what is being taught in these schools. In fact, one of the schools I visited was deemed an autonomous institution. As long as they prepared their students for the board examinations conducted by the CBSE/State Board, the government did not interfere with their day-to-day operations. The competition among private schools is tough and the schools have a performance- and result-oriented approach to education. Since private schools charge tuition (anywhere from $6 to $80 a month), their laboratories and libraries are usually better equipped than the government schools and so more computers are available for children than in the state-funded schools.

A Freewheeling Education Project

A lively debate wages over when computer education should begin for children. Some even question if money spent on high technology is not wasteful in light of other pressing issues, such as high poverty and low literacy (e.g., Viswanath, 1985). In their view, children at the elementary school level are better served by learning the traditional three R's. Nevertheless, many recognize that computers are a valuable tool in teaching and learning those basics.

Dr. Sugata Mitra, Director of the Center for Research in Cognitive Systems at the National Institute of Information Technology Limited (NIIT), conducted an unusual research project that he called "Minimally Invasive Education" (Mitra, 2000). In an effort to determine if children in the lower socioeconomic strata could be self-taught to operate computers, Mitra designed a "hole-in-the-wall" experiment. He defined the computer literate child as one who could turn on a personal computer; create pictures using MS Paint; cut, paste, and drag; navigate a Web page; and send and receive E-mail.

In January 1999, Mitra set up a kiosk along the outside boundary wall of the NIIT Headquarters in New Delhi, and installed a computer (with Internet connection) facing the neighborhood slum. This computer station was easily accessible to children and adults from the slum. Most of these children did not attend school; the few who did were in "government schools of very poor quality (. . . low resources, low teacher or student motivation, poor curriculum and general lack of interest)" (p. 6), and they had no knowledge of English. With a video camera and a mirror, experimenters inside the building could monitor the activity at the kiosk.