OLPC India/Nashik

Holy Mother School

Holy Mother School is an English medium school in Nashik, Maharashtra. We are a private school established in 2004 by Joshua and Heera Pritikin. My wife runs the school, and I funded it out of my own savings. It is breaking even this year.

A small OLPC trial has begun as of July 2008. We are working on an Internet connection. We already have a machine to serve as a school server.

We would love to make the laptops child owned but

• There are 50 students in 1st grade and older.
• Students pay about 105 USD per year in tuition.

I am paying for 10 laptops to develop interest. The families may be able to afford laptops at half price.

Our implementation is simplistic because we are not yet trying to achieve child ownership. The laptops are owned by the school. The children spend just a few hours a week working with them. As the kids and parents become more comfortable with the laptops, we expect to move towards child ownership and closer integration into the curriculum.

We hope to save ourselves from disappointment by starting with very low expectations.

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  Children and staff

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  Cultural program within one of the classrooms

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  Traditional Indian dance

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  The first day with laptops