EAC adopts one laptop per child initiative

The East African Community has partnered with the One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a nonprofit organisation, to ensure transformation in education through computer literacy.

According to the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the EAC and OLPC, the two organisations agreed to work together to promote access to laptops and connectivity– especially for the region’s underprivileged children.
The EAC Secretary General, Mr Juma Mwapachu, said it is through computer literacy that EAC countries will build on the knowledge economy.

“If you want to build a knowledge economy, you must have a computer literate population, starting from primary, secondary school children and all the way to university,” Mr Mwapachu said on Wednesday. “This is a very ambitious project for which we will partner with various people and institutions to mobilise resources required to meet our objectives by 2015.”

Mr Matt Keller, the vice president of OLPC, said: “The OLPC’s partnership with the East Africa Community represents another significant step toward a world in which every child has access to world-class education, to the world’s body of knowledge, and to each other.” He said through this initiative, children will become agents of change in their communities.

Other officials who were present during the signing of the MoU include; Dr Diodorus Kamala, the Chairperson of the EAC Council of Ministers, Tanzania’s Minister for EAC, Uganda’s First Deputy Premier Eriya Kategaya.