4.3.1 Gender Issues

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Explicit discrimination regarding gender has not been a significant issue in the on-going LCCD trials and implementations around the world.

The concept of one-to-one computing is inherently more equitable than a shared environment, in which some students could come to dominate access to the limited number of computers. Problems with equitable distribution are more likely to arise as a result of the existing socio-cultural environment in a country. For example if schools are not integrated by gender, then there is more scope for a lack of transparency in LCCD distribution. In Afghanistan, where many primary schools are separated by gender, LCCDs were distributed to a girl’s school and a “mixed” school in Kabul. In the mixed school, girls study in the morning and boys in the afternoon.76

LCCDs also hold the potential to become devices for empowering and training mothers, if students are allowed to bring them home. OLPC has found that bringing home an LCCD has a great influence on the entire family.  Children often teach computer skills to their mothers and even grandmothers. For this reason, OLPC often insists that governments let children take the LCCDs home. 

 

 

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