Report: Chinese Government Plans To Put 3D Printers In All Elementary Schools

InfiniteZero writes The Chinese government has a new plan to install a 3D printer in each of its approximately 400,000 elementary schools over the next two years. Education is probably one of the areas that will benefit the most from 3D printers in the long run. The problem though is getting the machines into the schools in the first place. With prices generally ranging from $400 to $3,000 for typical desktop 3D printers, they are not cheap, and with budgets within many school districts running dry, both in the United States and overseas, the unfortunate fact is that many schools simply can’t afford them, not to mention the materials and time it takes to train teachers to use them.

Comments

Unconfirmed rumours

[Anonymous Coward]

These are unsubstantiated claims, and basically there is a 0% chance this is true. This should set your BS alarms ringing pretty loud.

Technology in Education

[Dutch Gun]

Good to see it's not just the US that wastes money on expensive technology-related boondoggles that don't appreciably translate to improved education.

With China’s recent plan for education, the ball is now clearly in Obama’s court. With a little under two years left in his final term, will he follow suit and fund a similar program to the one China has planned? We can only hope!

Uh, no. Why does this have anything to do with Obama anyhow? Don't just buy millions of dollars worth of hardware and dump it in the hands of teachers. At least first create a small pilot program to see if this is a worthwhile idea before spending millions of dollars on a device that remains unused. Nothing good comes from wholesale adoption of technology without first checking to see if it will actually be of any use to students and teachers. See: California iPad program scandal / disaster.

Budget running dry?

[duckintheface]

We use terms like "budget running dry" or "the school districts simply can't afford them" to mask the fact that we have prioritized tax cuts over education. The US is a rich country but the money is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands by the process of rolling back progressive taxes (income and property). This is a conscious choice to ignore educational needs in the coming generations.

The availability of adequate budgets is a separate issue from the advisability of spending money on 3D printers. Spend the money on basic education first and if you still want to experiment with high tech, then fine.