The One Laptop School: Equipping Rural Elementary Schools in South India through Public Private Partnerships
This article's purpose is to report on a Public Private Partnership (PPP) program in South India that provides information and communication technology (ICT) to rural elementary schools. The article examines the current status of rural, government-run elementary schools in India by reviewing reports like the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) in India. Challenges like teacher absences, student drop-outs, lack of electricity, lack of separate toilets for genders, and a lack of teaching resources will be discussed. To meet these challenges, the article will describe the rise in popularity of India's PPPs. Then the article moves to a case study investigation of a PPP, called the SSA Foundation, which implements a "one laptop per school" program in rural areas in the Indian States of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Using ethnographic data from field research, the case study includes a description of how the students in a rural Karnataka elementary school use their school's laptop. The school is situated in a small village where most travel is non-motorized. Walking, usually without shoes, is the main form of transportation. A bicycle is considered a luxury. Most villagers work in the surrounding ragi and millet fields; laboring, often with only simple tool blades. Wood fires are the main source of fuel for cooking. In this village, the school's laptop has become a prized possession. The case study offers a "thick description" (Geertz, 1973) of how the village school's students use the laptop for learning basic computing skills and for learning English. Keywords: elementary schooling; educational technology, Public Private Partnerships, rural India, sociotechnical narratives