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One Client Per Child in Macedonia |
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Written by Stew
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Thursday, 17 January 2008 |
 In an attempt to provide computer access for its school aged children the Macedonian government has opted to use Client - Server based technology in its classrooms rather than offer one laptop per child.
According to Ivo Ivanovsky, Macedonia's minister for information society:
"The Computer for Every Child initiative is the largest and most important education project undertaken in the 15-year history of the Republic of Macedonia... Our goal is to build a knowledge-based economy in which our entire workforce is educated using information and communication technology within the next five years."
In a move to get ahead of its Balkan Neighbors, the Macedonian government has decided to provide its 180,000 school-age children with computer access. Macedonia, like most of Eastern Europe, is today a largely agricultural and industrial based economy. The plan to bring computing technology to the classroom is indicative of the governments efforts to transform the Macedonian economy into a knowledge-based one. The problem, like in most developed nations, is funding. How can they possible attempt to purchase this many computers? The answer is, I discovered in a recent article on thinclient.org, thin client technology.
The government reckons that by using thin clients in classrooms throughout the nation that they will be able to provide computer access for all school kids. It has been estimated that it should be possible to save an enormous amount of cash by having up to seven students share one PC through the use of Client terminals, with that one PC costing around $350.
In terms of hardware the plan is use Open-Source with the 'Edge Ubuntu' version of the Ubuntu operating system in tandem with the OpenOffice productivity suite.
The government has committed 30 million Euros to the project, the biggest commitment ever by a Macedonian Government. I think most us follow news of the OLPC project with a mixture of mild amusement or abject cynicism, it's refreshing to see that Macedonia is taking its own path towards bridging the digital divide. And that Bridge will be built on Client Computing.
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