Computers for young children in India

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

Children were drawn to the computer immediately; within four hours they were able to turn it on and browse. In a short time (with some adult intervention), they were setting up home pages with MP3 music playing in the background. The regular users were very young children, both boys and girls (ages 6 to 12). The MS Faint software and the Disney Web site were the most popular activities with this group of young children.

Since the children did not have any knowledge of computers, they invented their own ingenious names for various icons on the screen. They called the cursor the "sui," or a needle, and the hourglass a "damru," a small drum that Lord Siva holds in His hand. Whenever the "damru" appeared, they knew the "thing" (computer) was doing something and that they had to wait.

The same year, Mitra set up another kiosk within the government middle school of Shivpuri (in the state of Madhya Pradesh), which was open to the children from the school and the neighborhood. The children at this site did have previous exposure to computers at school. They could also read and write English. The regular users were mostly teenagers, ages 13 to 19, and some older adults. A few of them were more adept with computers, as they had played computer games. Popular Bollywood film music was in great demand, and a few of them used DOS to create their own directories.

The striking contrast between the children at the NIIT site and those at Shivpuri was that the children at the latter site did not explore as much as the younger children did at NIIT. They were not patient, and they had a tendency to ask a caretaker or someone else for instruction every step of the way. They were not as freewheeling and insightful as the younger children.

Mitra established that socioeconomic strata did not affect children's exploration abilities-given a chance they, too, could succeed. Inspired by the technological tool, these young children taught themselves to operate the computer and in the process explored other subjects. Mitra's project aroused the children's natural curiosity and motivated them to problem solve, cooperate with others, and take responsibility for their own learning. These important aspects of education are often absent in traditional schools. This in itself justifies the introduction of computers into early childhood education classrooms.

Mitra's project attracted the attention of media and motivated several government and world agencies (Peterson, 2000) to fund similar projects. Mitra provided an update on the project:

Yes, we have some support now and are repeating the experiment in two locations. The first location is a spread-out slum called Madangir, in Delhi, where the Government of Delhi has funded 30 computers. The second is in the Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra, where the ICICI bank has funded a project to put 10 computers "on the road," so to speak. We also have funding from the International Finance Corporation for setting up 66 computers in 22 locations all over the country, (personal communication, July 4, 2002)