Updated on Monday, July 24, 2006, 00:00 IST

New Delhi, July 24: Rejecting the planning commission's idea of implementing 'one laptop per child (OLPC) scheme' as "paedagogically suspect", the HRD Ministry feels it would be appropriate to instead utilise the money for universalization of secondary education.

"The case for giving a computer to every single is paedagogically suspect. It may actually be detrimental to the growth of creative and analytical abilities of the child", Education Secretary Sudeep Banerjee told the Planning Commission in a letter sent last month.

".....We cannot visualize a situation for decades when we can go beyond the pilot stage. We need classrooms and teachers more urgently than fancy tools," Banerjee said.

Citing notes received from a few experts in this regard, he said "our considered view, therefore, is that there is no case for further engaging with this idea within this ministry."

"...If the Planning Commission has the kind of money that would be required for this scheme, it would be appropriate to utilize it for 'universalisation of secondary education' for which, a concept paper has been lying with the Planning Commission for approval since November 2005," he said.

The OLPC was a non-profit association dedicated to research to develop a 100-dollar laptop to educate children. Faculty members at the Mitmedia Lab launched this initiative. It was first announced by lab co-founder Nicholas Negroponte, now chairman of OLPC.

Banerjee said that based on feedback from N K Sinha, a Joint Secretary in the ministry who had been deputed to attend the presentation at the MIT, "we do not think that the idea of Prof Negroponte is mature enough to be taken seriously at this stage and no major country is presently following this. Even inside America, there is no much enthusiasm about this".

Bureau Report