One Computer per Child in Poor Countries: Is it Really “Worth it”?

DATED: OCTOBER 16, 2013 

Students in Indonesia (2010) clustered around one computer. Credit: Mary Burns/EDC

The costs and benefits of 1:1 laptop programs in developing countries

By Mary Burns, Education Development Center

Few educational initiatives have captured the imagination of national educational policymakers like 1:1 or “ubiquitous” computing (where each child has his/her own computer at school). In over 80 countries (Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education, 2013)—many of them very low-income—national ministries of education have made 1:1 computing initiatives a major educational priority.

We all want what these programs try to promote—quality education for poor students, access to information, and cost efficiencies. But before low-resource countries dive into 1:1 computing, educational planners and policymakers should ask two key questions, the first of which is the focus of this blog post: Are these 1:1 investments really “worth it” for poor countries?

What’s the cost?

To answer this question, it’s worth looking at three variables that should be considered with any technology program: cost, impact on student learning, and broadband connectivity.

Few educational initiatives—indeed few technology initiatives—are as costly as 1:1 computing programs. It is hard to find information about the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of 1:1 investments in developing countries. But there is some evidence that the cost of these 1:1 efforts may be proportionally higher for developing countries than for middle-income or developed nations–even with equipment donations (Pedró, 2011).

Obviously, there are a number of costs associated with 1:1 computing, for instance:

• Fixed costs: Equipment, bandwidth, wireless points, electrical installations/upgrading
• Service costs: Teacher training, teacher support
• Recurrent costs: Maintenance, tech support, refreshing equipment
• Incidental costs: Consent forms, paper, toner, storage spaces, security
• Unanticipated costs: ?????

These costs are often onerous for developing countries because they often start from scratch in terms of infrastructure and have less money to work with than wealthier countries.

One of the biggest cost issues of 1:1 programs is the cost of the laptop itself. In many of the poorest countries it is difficult to find real (vs. estimated) per pupil costs. To get an idea of the general affordability of laptops, one can impute an “affordability ratio” by comparing the cost of a laptop to per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP). InfoDev (Kim, Kelly & Raja, 2010) has done this already and I’ve modified their data for this blog post using 10 countries that have or are planning large-scale 1:1 programs and 2012 GDP data (See Figure 1).

As Figure 1 displays, the cost of a laptop alone represents a high percentage ofper capita income—ranging from 10% of GDP in Nigeria to 34% of GDP in Madagascar. These are by no means the world’s poorest nations, though. The cost of a laptop, say in Burundi, can be upwards of 60% of per capita GDP and even higher in countries like the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Figure 1: Relative cost of laptops as a percentage of per capita income [(Adapted from Kim, Kelly & Raja’s (2010:49) examination of the cost of $150 and $400 laptops relative to GDP (World Bank, 2012 data); CASTLE, 2013].

What’s the educational impact?

Students in the Philippines in a 1:1 environment (2007) Credit: Mary Burns/EDC

A second consideration is research on the educational impact of 1:1 computing programs. Generally, little is known about the effects of technology on the quality of school education in general, and, more specifically, about which particular technology configurations (1 laptop per child or 1 laptop per 5 children) result in better student performance.

For 1:1 computing, in particular, the research base is even thinner—it is descriptive and exploratory and usually focused on implementation, not impact. Most data on 1:1 computing come from developed countries, but even here results are mixed.

There seems to be agreement that 1:1 programs can increase student engagement, improve technology skills, and improve student writing skills, but the same results are true about technology programs or use in general–not specifically 1:1 computing programs.

While there is research demonstrating that lower student-computer ratios are linked with student achievement, I cannot find any research showing the added value of one student per computer versus other technology-rich, low computer-to-student type programs. In terms of international measures of student achievement, many of the highest performers— Shanghai, Finland, Massachusetts, Norway—have a low student to computer ratio—but none of these jurisdictions have an overall 1:1 ratio. (And star performers, like Singapore and South Korea, have excelled on international measures of student achievement prior to their initiation of large-scale 1:1 programs).

Is there sufficient broadband access?

To truly exploit the potential of ubiquitous computing, schools need access to fixed broadband. As a former teacher in a 1:1 environment (at Mexico’s Instituto Tecnológico de Estdudios Superiores de Monterrey), I know how frustrating it can be  when many students are online at the same time  trying to access rich content but cannot because of system overload.  At that point, the Internet and the notion of “ubiquitous access” become aspirational versus utilitarian.

Broadband access is a significant challenge for even middle-income countries, as I’ve written in previous posts. Globally, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) estimates that only 35% of households have broadband access. In Argentina, for example, which has a 1:1 program in some of its provinces, only 17% of primary and 33% of secondary schools have broadband access. In St. Vincent, which has a national 1:1 program, only 30% of schools have broadband access. In Indonesia, another middle-income country, only 18% of the whole population has access to broadband (and they are mainly in cities). Broadband is also costly: one-month of broadband Internet is equivalent of more than 100% of monthly salary in Indonesia. Indeed, of all the broadband licenses held globally, only 6% are in developing countries (Wikipedia, 2013). In Sub-Saharan Africa, the situation is more grave. Only 11% of Africans have access to the Internet while 1% have access to broadband Internet connectivity (ITU, 2013).

So….if policymakers look at these three issues and decide 1:1 computing is not feasible, we need to ask a follow-on question: Are there other technology alternatives that can offer at lower cost what 1:1 computing promises, with a proven research base, and without the need for broadband?

This question, and technology alternatives to 1:1 computing, will be the focus of my blog post next month.

This post is adapted from the author’s 2013 presentation at the Comparative and International Education Society conference in New Orleans.

References

Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE). (2013). International 1:1 open access database. Retrieved fromhttp://bit.ly/OKgwBW (For more information on this database, contact jayson.richardson@uky.edu)

International Telecommunications Union. (2013). The world in 2013: ICT facts and figures. Retrieved from http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/facts/ICTFactsFigures2013.pdf

Kim, Y., Kelly, T.  & Raja, S.  (2010). Building broadband: Strategies and policies for the

developing world. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/67KvUK

Pedró, F. (2012). Trusting the unknown: The effects of technology use in education. In  S. Doutta & B. Bilbão-Osorio (Eds.) The global information technology report 2012: Living in a hyperconnected world. Geneva, Switzerland: World Economic Forum and INSEAD.

UNESCO Institute for Statistics. (2010). Global education digest 2010:

Comparing education statistics across the world. Database and Statistical Table 2. Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001894/189433e.pdf

Wikipedia. (2013). List of countries by number of broadband Internet subscriptions.

Retrieved from http://bit.ly/A4SDFw

World Bank. (2013). GDP per capita: Current USD. Retrieved fromhttp://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD