It's $60 retail, there are $75 retail Chinese Android 2.3 tablets - they didn't change the world, why would this one?
Is the government going to create online courses in English and Hindi? Is it going to have English lessons so you can access all those 'educational' Youtube videos?
Is it going to record the best elementary school teachers and put their lessons online?
Or is it going to be another - "we put computers in schools and therefore solved all educational problems" just like the US did with the AppleII in the late 70s
The subsidized cost is $35, which makes it affordable to pretty much everyone who can afford a mobile phone. Obviously, this is not going to fix India's education problems. I'll go a step further and say that nothing anybody can do will fix all the educational problems in my country within, say, the next 15 years. Having said that, this seems a step in a right direction.
Defintely the tablet by itself means nothing. it needs content. And it can be said that even 20 years ago the indian government could have put a tv + VCR + great recorded content in every classroom for what is relatively a small sum. Just doing this would have improved the current Indian system by leaps and bounds.
But maybe the thing about the tablet is that once people have the tablet, the government isn't the only one who can improve education. Private entrepreneurs, non-profits and juts plain teachers could build great content, market it, etc.
Considering the awfull state of indian education and(my guess) that indian educators are much less entrenched than westren ones(i.e. powerfull unions), affordable private education could really hit big in india, and a tablet at every hand could really be the needed channel for it.
It is not just about courses in youtube. Quite a few courses are already available in the educational network in India. At present, only a small section of the students have access to these; that too, only at school. The main objective of the government is to provide means to access these courses.
Is the government going to create online courses in English and Hindi? Is it going to have English lessons so you can access all those 'educational' Youtube videos? Is it going to record the best elementary school teachers and put their lessons online?
Or is it going to be another - "we put computers in schools and therefore solved all educational problems" just like the US did with the AppleII in the late 70s