Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Bootstrapping Cambodia

Posted by michael on from the basic-input/output-system dept.

Brian Stretch writes "This article in MIT Technology Review left me in awe. "...remote village schools, jacked into the world's online knowledge... Who can help these schools bootstrap, and bring them up to speed with computer skills? The amazing answer turns out to be--orphans.""

6 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It seems to be working, too. by rw2 · · Score: 3
    But the big problem today is that you need more than just a piece of chalk, a Blackboard and a teacher for a good education, you need to have computers and all sorts of High Tech devices.

    I couldn't disagree more. Tens of millions of tech illiterates make an honest living here in the US and we're, arguably, the most technologically advanced nation in the world. Certainly we're in the top few.

    Third world countries need things that tech essentially doesn't matter for. Building roads, planting crops, arresting outlaws (we just posted a story on this on poliglut a few days ago which is why this story caught my eye on /.), digging wells, building sewers. None of these require high tech solutions.

    So while I agree the method of knowledge dispersal makes a lot of sense, I disagree that you need high tech to teach.

    --

  2. Re:What's the Child Labor angle on this? by Spasemunki · · Score: 3

    So call it a co-op system. The kids are providing a useful service to the schools, and doing something that they seem to enjoy, while helping their community and learning at the same time. I don't really see a "child labor" problem in that. If these kids weren't working in schools and going to schools, they would probably be selling things in the streets, working long hours doing heavy labor on the family farm, or something along those lines. The truth is that projects like this may not be possible without the "labor" of children. If they were not working, they would not be home watching cartoons. Cambodia is a nation that has had its culture and economy devistated by years of Communist misrule. There are not a lot of options for rural children. Better that they work in a school during the day than that they wander into a mine field.

    "Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"

  3. Stories like this showcase the human spirit by duffbeer703 · · Score: 3

    I am always inspired by the way people in extreme hardship manage to survive and even thrive.

    In the USA, we believe that money can solve any problem, big or small. These kids are accomplishing something really big and learning alot without the big budgets of a suburban US school. My hat goes off to them!

    --
    Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
  4. It seems to be working, too. by Lover's+Arrival,+The · · Score: 3
    They sre building nearly 50 new schools thanks to this method. It sounds like an extension of the 'monitor' system of education developed in India in the 1820's by Dr Andrew Bell (I know this because he founded my old school in Scotland;). The system is that A teacher educates some children, and then the eldest children, who have learned what the teacher has told them, teach the youger children. It is a very cheap and effective method.

    I wonder if in Third World countries today this method could be used or even extended upon? These events in Cambodia sound like just the ticket, but they have extended it to even building the schools themselves. But the big problem today is that you need more than just a piece of chalk, a Blackboard and a teacher for a good education, you need to have computers and all sorts of High Tech devices. The only problem is that the only nations that have the education to make these things can get the money to do the education in the first place, so it is like a Catch 22 situation :(

    I just don't quite know how third world countries can break into the cycle. See, I am not a global affairs expert!

    --

    --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The

  5. Credit... by spellcheckur · · Score: 4

    This is a great program. Unfortunately, the article fails to mention Bernie Krisher, who started the program.

  6. http://www.cambodiaschools.com/ by eries · · Score: 5

    Follow the link from the article, it's a pretty amazing concept. US$14K buys you a new high-tech elementary school in Cambodia, with matching funds from the World Bank and donations from various multinationalcorps. Anybody know anything about this project? This is the first I've heard of it, and although having such remote donors leaves open the possibility of fraud, I think it's really exciting.

    Maybe 1000 Team /.ers, instead hitting refresh on the SETI@home stats page all day, could each get together $14 for this. If anybody is interested in helping to organize such an effort, pleaes let me know.

    --
    Can your IM do this?