30 May 2008
Lagos — THE Federal Government has cancelled the proposed "one laptop per child" scheme initiated by the last administration.
The scheme was aimed at providing affordable laptop computers to school children to promote the development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT).
Dr Aja Nwachukwu, the Education Minister, told newsmen in Abuja that the scheme was discovered to be a "white elephant" project.
"We discovered that the scheme is a conduit pipe to siphon public fund," he said.
Nwachukwu said the ministry was working on other options to promote the deployment of ICT at all levels of education.
"We are promoting the deployment of ICT based on a top-down approach for human capital and hardware development," he said.
The minister said V-SAT equipment had been installed in the 72 unity colleges, while laptop computers were supplied to zonal offices of the ministry.
He absolved the ministry of blame in the stoppage of the home-grown feeding programme for primary school pupils.
"The programme was initiated as a pilot scheme in some states after it had been agreed upon by the Council of State," Nwachukwu said.
He explained that the Federal Government's support for the programme was only for the one year duration of the pilot scheme, after which the states were to take over.
"It is now left for those states that are interested to continue. As far as we are concerned, our role was to support the take-off. No more no less," he said.
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