22 Aug 2008

Niue schoolchildren all have laptops

10:22 am on 22 August 2008

Niue will today become the first country in the Pacific to give laptop computers to all its school children.

Under the One Laptop Per Child scheme ' developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Laboratory and supported by organisations such as Google Corporation, two hundred Niuean secondary students got the special PCs last month.

300 hundred pupils at the island's only primary school get theirs today.

The saturation coverage of Niue has been done to coincide with the Pacific Islands Forum summit on the island.

The theme of the summit was climate change and MIT's Dr Barry Vercoe says the laptops are an ideal device to increase understanding about that issue.

"Children can become involved in observing the effects of climate change for themselves. And that, of course, is one of the fastest ways - or best ways - of enabling these children to learn about the realities of the situation."