One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Strategy

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) was launched in 2005 in an attempt to transform education in poor countries through governments' acquisition of small, rugged, custom made computers, to be delivered to all schoolchildren and teachers in a given educational system. It was intended to act as a disrupting implementation of individual centered education theories, replacing the traditional educational model with one based on using one computer for each student, or one-on-one computing. The initiative has not reached its purported goals, with a small number of countries actually implementing one-on-one computing. This entry reviews this initiative, considers a number of criticisms that have been levied against it, and offers some comments on its future.