I applaud Fred's article on 10 lessons from a Goan classroom. The Goa School Computers Project (GSCP), which started as an ad-hoc effort at its peak had a presence in over a 100 schools in the form of donated hardware. Today it has an active presence in about 20 schools in the form of teacher training, collaborative school projects, etc. Recently it was highlighted by a World Bank report as an international best practice in the use of the low-cost opensource solution. However,without belittling anyone's contribution, I must point out that what made it go from 5-6 schools helped by several individuals to dozens of schools was more an organized Non-Resident Goan funded professional NGO approach, and less of an ad-hoc volunteer driven effort as might be concluded from the article below. I write this to dispel any notions that a quick donation of cash or donated equipment or the occasional visit to a school is all it takes.
Since 1999 till 2003, funds for GSCP operations were generously provided by Goa Sudharop (GS) in the US, and office support by the GS manager in Goa, Mario Mascarenhas. The project usually had full-time paid coordinator. Project coordination and oversight were provided on an expense-reimbursable basis by Ashley Delaney in Goa and me in the US. Without a co-ordination mechanism involving a paid staff, volunteers, the department of education and schools, all ad-hoc efforts would have been disjointed and quite frankly, totally inadequate given the scale of our undertaking. The project has now come of age as a locally registered Trust, Knowledge Initiative Trust (KIT). It is now independent of oversight by a US organization, and is seeking avenues to fund itself as well as to build a broad-based coalition as Fred suggests. I urge all individuals and organizations interested in IT in schools to visit the site listed below and contact KIT to co-ordinate their actions. While I have no argument with the govt effort to provide computers to individual students, few schools have more than 10 computers (a PC to student ratio of 1:3), and the government simply does not have the resources to provide thousands of PC's to both schools and individual students AND maintain them AND train teachers to get the most out of them AND provide Internet access. In my opinion, enlightened school management and continued local community financing will be necessary. PTA's simply have to get involved otherwise as Fred pointed out inertia of school managements and an unimaginative syllabus will result in computers continuing to be be used as glorified typewriters. PTA's have to pressure their managements to reach out to organizations like KIT to train their teachers in computers assisted teaching, to open the facilities to communities after school hours to generate revenue to maintian the equipment. If parents don't get involved, their kids will fall even further behind those from the more englightened city schools like Sharda Mandir or Rosary. What is now needed is less ad-hoc-ism, and more professionally guided coordinated action to scale up GSCP's best practices. Sincerely, Daryl Martyris Trustee Knowledge Initiative Trust www.gscp.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] p.s. I'd be curious to know how many on this list remember Marlon Menezes' annual GSCP on-line raffles, and if there is any interest in reviving it. Please write back to me if you supported the raffle in the past, and would support it if we had one again. > Message: 17 > From: "Eddie Fernandes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 10:35:44 -0000 > Subject: [Goanet]Ten lessons from a Goan classroom: FN: Express Computers. > Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Headline: Ten lessons from a Goan classroom > By Frederick Noronha > Source Express Computers, 1 March 2004 at > http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20040301/indiacomputes02.shtml > ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################
