1 Dec 2008

PNG plans big roll out of laptop scheme

10:43 am on 1 December 2008

The Oceania director of the One Laptop Per Child scheme says Papua New Guinea's decision to roll out the computers from next year will bring significant social gains to the country.

Following trials in several schools this year, PNG has announced it will aim to have the scheme extended to ten thousand students next year and a quarter of a million by 2015.

By 2050 it hopes that a million of the machines will be in use.

The scheme's regional director, Michael Hutak, says apart from improving a child's literacy the laptops will bring broader benefits such as connecting communities to each other.

"In terms of providing things like Aids awareness, health and nutrition information, market information, you can use it, you know this could be the basic infrastructure in which you also create micro financing in PNG."