Uruguay has become the latest nation to provide a
laptop to every child in state primary school education as part of the
One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) scheme. 362,000 pupils and 18,000 teachers in
Uruguay have been issued
laptops in the past two years under the Plan Ceibal (Education Connect). Although Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the
OLPC, had hoped to sell the small
notebooks for £61 each, the programme has ended up costing the Uruguayan government £159 per child inclusive of
internet connection, equipment repairs, teacher training and maintenance costs.
The final batch of XO laptops were delivered to a school in Montevideo on October 13th, meaning a vast number of families now have access to
computers and internet for the first time. An estimated 70 per cent of pupils receiving the laptops did not have a
computer at home.
Uruguay joins the miniature country of Niue in the South Pacific in giving every child an OLPC laptop. Bigger countries have also given their support to the scheme, with
Portugal last year pledging to provide every six to ten year old child in the country with an
Intel Classmate laptop
PC .