1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:12,000 Peru has 5 million primary school-aged children and a national education budget of about $3.25 2 00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:19,300 billion. About 95% of that is devoted to teacher salaries. Purchasing 400,000 laptops will 3 00:00:19,300 --> 00:00:25,980 cost the nation about $75 million, a large portion of its discretionary budget. To find 4 00:00:25,980 --> 00:00:31,820 out why Peru is investing so much in laptops, we went to visit Oscar Becerra, who heads 5 00:00:31,820 --> 00:00:36,820 the project for Peru's Education Ministry. 6 00:00:36,820 --> 00:00:53,820 The Ministry of Education used to be the rector of the San Martín de Porres University. So 7 00:00:53,820 --> 00:00:59,980 the current rector and the minister talked about this interesting initiative. As a result, 8 00:00:59,980 --> 00:01:07,420 the university rector and myself, who then worked for the university, attended the New 9 00:01:07,420 --> 00:01:17,260 Countries meeting of OLPC in Cambridge last March, a year ago. There we presented to Nicolas 10 00:01:17,260 --> 00:01:24,900 what the efforts of technology deployment into schools were in Peru and that we were 11 00:01:24,900 --> 00:01:31,500 interested in beginning with the poorest kids and how that could be accomplished. As a result, 12 00:01:31,500 --> 00:01:42,380 we received 100 machines, donations that were given to the ministry to run a pilot project 13 00:01:42,380 --> 00:01:43,380 in Araway. 14 00:01:43,500 --> 00:01:49,500 Araway, if you see the map, it looks pretty close to Lima. It's just 100 kilometers. 15 00:01:49,500 --> 00:01:50,500 It's about here. 16 00:01:50,500 --> 00:01:56,900 Yes, it's about here. But it takes four hours to get there. Peru, where we deployed seven 17 00:01:56,900 --> 00:02:03,380 laptops for teachers, takes about a week to get there because you need to fly, then take 18 00:02:03,380 --> 00:02:10,620 a smaller plane, and then a boat to get there. And those are the really poor children that 19 00:02:10,620 --> 00:02:16,780 have, since centuries, had no opportunity in life. 20 00:02:16,780 --> 00:02:25,660 We already knew that computers have a major impact on education, on a very important aspect 21 00:02:25,660 --> 00:02:33,060 of education, which is intrinsic motivation. One of the major problems of education, formal 22 00:02:33,060 --> 00:02:38,340 education worldwide, is that students don't understand why they should learn what they 23 00:02:38,340 --> 00:02:45,500 are supposed to learn. So the phrase is old, but it was niche in the 40s, I guess, that 24 00:02:45,500 --> 00:02:52,340 said those who have a why can learn any how. The problem with most school children is they 25 00:02:52,340 --> 00:02:59,540 are taught many hows and no whys. So when you have a computer and students own the computer, 26 00:02:59,540 --> 00:03:08,940 they begin finding whys because they realize that they can actually build something with 27 00:03:08,940 --> 00:03:14,780 the computer, something that's meaningful for them. In trying to succeed, they must 28 00:03:14,780 --> 00:03:22,420 learn many things, most of them curriculum-related. So we already knew that. 29 00:03:22,420 --> 00:03:27,060 Another example that was discovered by the Arawai children is most of these children 30 00:03:27,060 --> 00:03:33,500 come from bilingual, Quechua, and Spanish homes and are not very fluent in Spanish. 31 00:03:33,500 --> 00:03:41,140 So their reading in Spanish is cumbersome. One of the exercises they do is they read 32 00:03:41,140 --> 00:03:48,260 aloud and teachers correct them, which is shameful. They don't feel well. Their relationship, 33 00:03:48,260 --> 00:03:54,740 the affective relationship with the teacher, is not a good one. The teacher is the enemy. 34 00:03:54,740 --> 00:04:01,500 Now they can record their voices. So they read aloud and play it back from the computer, 35 00:04:01,500 --> 00:04:09,540 and they don't understand what they hear because they are not reading properly. But it's not 36 00:04:09,540 --> 00:04:15,180 a teacher who's telling them. It's real for them. So they call the teacher in to help 37 00:04:15,180 --> 00:04:21,940 them read well. So the affective relationship is different. Now the teacher is an ally helping 38 00:04:21,940 --> 00:04:28,700 the children do what they want to do, which is read well. Most of them don't have any 39 00:04:28,700 --> 00:04:35,500 books. The Ministry of Education, as a policy, distributes books to every primary school 40 00:04:35,500 --> 00:04:42,540 children, but these remote places not always get them all and not always keep them all 41 00:04:42,540 --> 00:04:53,540 the time because the conditions of living are not actually very good. And it's the main 42 00:04:53,540 --> 00:05:03,420 textbook for primary school. What we have done is we have loaded reading texts that 43 00:05:03,420 --> 00:05:10,500 will help them learn and practice their reading according to their grade level. We are giving 44 00:05:10,500 --> 00:05:20,380 them the chance to look for a different future. Or the same, but by choice, not by force. 45 00:05:20,380 --> 00:05:27,300 So these children who didn't have any expectations about life, about becoming farmers as their 46 00:05:27,300 --> 00:05:33,140 parents and their parents' parents, now can think about being engineers, designing computers, 47 00:05:33,140 --> 00:05:41,180 being teachers, becoming singers, and whatever they want, as any other child should worldwide. 48 00:05:41,180 --> 00:05:49,900 They are taking the future in their hands, and that's the New York breakthrough. 49 00:05:49,900 --> 00:05:59,620 We weren't the only ones visiting Becerra at the Ministry. Mary Lou Jepson, the former chief 50 00:05:59,660 --> 00:06:05,060 technology officer of One Laptop per Child, stopped in on Becerra's team to check on the 51 00:06:05,060 --> 00:06:10,180 imminent deployment and offer help. She quickly admitted, however, that while she could answer 52 00:06:10,180 --> 00:06:15,900 any technical questions, she didn't have much expertise in Peruvian educational reform. 53 00:06:15,900 --> 00:06:22,580 Congratulations for taking it on. It's such a bold, bold move, and we're here to help 54 00:06:22,580 --> 00:06:30,540 in any way we can. We know it's a hard project, but an important one that we all believe heart 55 00:06:30,540 --> 00:06:42,980 and soul. So you're doing the work. Laptops are easy. Education is hard to transform. 56 00:06:42,980 --> 00:06:47,300 In this warehouse on the edge of Lima, we can see the beginnings of the biggest deployment 57 00:06:47,300 --> 00:06:53,580 to date of the One Laptop per Child vision. Boxes containing 25,000 laptop computers, 58 00:06:53,580 --> 00:06:58,700 the first of some 400,000 that are being loaded with software and prepared for transport to 59 00:06:58,700 --> 00:07:05,420 some of the poorest towns in Peru. But will all these laptops really transform Peru's 60 00:07:05,420 --> 00:07:12,060 destitute rural schools? We sought out Marcia Coth de Paredes, who spent 25 years as executive 61 00:07:12,060 --> 00:07:16,740 director of the Fulbright Scholarships in Peru, many of whose recipients have worked 62 00:07:16,740 --> 00:07:23,140 on Peruvian education projects. I think it's equally innovative. It's going to take some 63 00:07:23,140 --> 00:07:32,820 very intensive teacher training and some activities, I think, with the parents. The children, I 64 00:07:32,820 --> 00:07:39,200 bet they're going to just latch onto it right away. And I expect the parents also to do 65 00:07:39,200 --> 00:07:46,760 a lot with it, because there's a tradition in the Andean areas, in the Andean areas anyway, 66 00:07:46,760 --> 00:07:56,080 the mountainous areas, of community efforts, working together, and also writing, reading, 67 00:07:56,080 --> 00:08:03,120 speaking, drama, poetry, music, doing it together. The reading material that they have needs 68 00:08:03,120 --> 00:08:10,600 to be divided by difficulty. It needs to be analyzed by difficulty, and the teachers 69 00:08:10,600 --> 00:08:16,800 need to be taught which of those materials are useful for what kind of student. There 70 00:08:16,800 --> 00:08:23,640 is going to be a lot on those computers that they can use. There's going to be a lot. Now, 71 00:08:23,640 --> 00:08:29,400 what they need is more material very close to what they need to know, what they want 72 00:08:29,400 --> 00:08:35,120 to know. That's not just games. They need more information about plants. They need more 73 00:08:35,120 --> 00:08:40,840 information about agriculture. They need more information about how to be healthy, that 74 00:08:40,840 --> 00:08:44,880 sort of thing. This is different because it's going to a different type of school. It's 75 00:08:44,880 --> 00:08:52,800 going to a rural school in a very, in the poorest areas of the country. So that's a 76 00:08:52,800 --> 00:08:59,360 hero's effort, and it's going to be very difficult. But I think I'm optimistic about things working 77 00:08:59,360 --> 00:09:00,040 okay.