Exercise 4 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Exercise 4 - Essay Example Calling itself a start up, Mr. Brechner explained that by not taking a risk on the education and early technology training of the Uruguayan children, a whole generation was lost every year since they were prevented from experiencing equality and social inclusion. They did this by enacting active policies within the state. The initiative took great pride in being able to separate policy making and management while conceptualizing the project. The steering committee was involved in policy making while the management of the program was assigned to a separate and specialized institution. This was a feather in their cap because they were able to prevent the politicians in the country from meddling with management and the managers in the government were also unable to meddle when it came to policy making for the program. This was accomplished even though the states within the country were ill prepared to host a program of this magnitude. The program had to overcome such adversities as the fear of teachers that the students would know more than they did about technology, which, as everyone knows, is a given fact in our day and age. The teachers had to become comfortable with the idea that by using computers in class, the students will learn faster and will learn more but, the teachers still hold on to the power and authority that they traditionally had in the classroom. Since 2007 the program has deployed a total of 450,000 computers. These computers were distributed to various students from the first grade and all of primary school to the third grade of secondary school. In total, the computers were deployed to a total of 9 grades in public schools. Servers and connectivity were installed in over 2,500 schools and high schools. The man behind the program proudly announced that 99 % of students participating in their program had internet access in all their facilities with 40% not needing to walk more than 300 meters from where they live in order to have free Cibal in ternet access. Their current program includes transferring the ADSL programs of the schools to fiber optic for better bandwidth and applications. The company made sure that their network access would be publicly available in the most common places such as schools, hospitals, housing complexes and the poorest areas of Uruguay. The program has successfully trained 26 thousand teachers using portals and tv channels to further enhance the training that they received in their 4 year education courses. Total expenses per year for an average student in the program is $100. Included in that cost is the amount of maintenance for the computer, server, and other necessary components for the program. Amazingly, the total expenses on the program so far is less than 5% of the total education budget of the entire country. The results of the program are quite promising. First of all, Mr Brechner emphasized that the importance of the project could be measured in terms of it actually having been acco mplished. The program also had direct and indirect impacts. In numbers, he said that the program has 450.000 impacts, which is the equivalent of the number of students who are participating in the program. He claims that the expenses of the program were worthwhile because of the motivation that the children got to go to the school and study. By offering each student his own laptop, the student miss less classes and they do their work much more proficiently. The laptops brought education