A Plan to Address Literacy Is a Plan to Address the Millennium Development Goals

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Today, BloggersUnite celebrates International Literacy Day, the day on which UNESCO reminds the international community of the status of literacy and adult learning globally.

September 8 was proclaimed International Literacy Day by UNESCO on November 17, 1965. It was first celebrated in 1966. Its aim is to highlight the importance of literacy to individuals, communities and societies. On International Literacy Day each year, UNESCO reminds the international community of the status of literacy and adult learning globally. Celebrations take place around the world.

Since its foundation in 1946, UNESCO has been at the forefront of global literacy efforts and is dedicated to keeping literacy high on national, regional and international agendas.

September 8th International Literacy Day

Literacy is a cause for celebration since there are now close to four billion literate people in the world. However, literacy for all – children, youth and adults - is still an unaccomplished goal and an ever moving target. A combination of ambitious goals, insufficient and parallel efforts, inadequate resources and strategies, and continued underestimation of the magnitude and complexity of the task accounts for this unmet goal. Lessons learnt over recent decades show that meeting the goal of universal literacy calls not only for more effective efforts but also for renewed political will and for doing things differently at all levels - locally, nationally and internationally.

This is obviously tied to Millennium Development Goal No. 2. Universal Education with 67.4 million children not being provided an education.

While four billion people in the world are literate, there are still one in five adults or some 796 million adults lacking minimum literacy skills. About two-thirds of those are women, so Millennium Development Goal 3. Gender Equity is also a factor.

Since January 2003 through resolution A/RES/56/116 the United Nations has declared the United Nations Literacy Decade, 10-year focus on the topic and International Plan of Action for the Decade.

Why is literacy important?

Literacy is a human right, a tool of personal empowerment and a means for social and human development. Educational opportunities depend on literacy.Literacy is at the heart of basic education for all, and essential for eradicating poverty, reducing child mortality, curbing population growth, achieving gender equality and ensuring sustainable development, peace and democracy. There are good reasons why literacy is at the core of Education for All (EFA).

A good quality basic education equips pupils with literacy skills for life and further learning; literate parents are more likely to send their children to school; literate people are better able to access continuing educational opportunities; and literate societies are better geared to meet pressing development .

Zunia reports that Plan International is putting forward an Education Strategy 2010-2013 that covers the last 3 years of the UN Literacy Decade.

Plan is committed to high quality education for children and young people. This strategy focuses on Plan's 3 education priorities - improving equal access, enhancing quality and strengthening education governance.

Each strategic priority has a clear set of key actions designed to bring about change, not only for families, schools and communities, but also at national and international levels.

The strategy places particular emphasis on the need to eliminate gender discrimination, as well as focussing on other key challenges, such as the inclusion of marginalized children.

Education and literacy are the human capital basis for achieving the other 7 of the United Nations' Eight Goal Millennium Campaign. From September 17 to 19 we need to Make NOISE to let the United Nations Summit on the Millennium Development Goals, taking September 20 to 22, 2010, know of their importance and the importance of all the Millennium Development Goals.

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• International Literacy Day a celebration and reminder (one.org)
• International Literacy Day (firstbook.org)
• Ministers of Education Mark International Literacy Day (newswire.ca)
• Literacy has empowering effect on women, UN officials say (yubanet.com)
• What is International Literacy Day? (socyberty.com)
• Twitter launches Literacy Day 2010 to eradicate illiteracy. (thenextweb.com)

Articles from Diigo Make Noise MDGs 06/27/2010

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• Indigenous Women - UNPFII - United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

  “The Forum recommends that agencies and bodies of the United Nations and other inter-governmental organizations rethink the concept of development, with the full participation of indigenous peoples in development processes, taking into account the rights of indigenous peoples and the practices of their traditional knowledge.”

  tags: millennium development goals, women, indigenous, unpfii, mdg3, mdg1

• Global Movement for Children

  A participating non-government organization in the MDG summit this September. The GMC was created as a result of the outstanding success of the “Say Yes for Children” campaign which led to the UN Special Session on Children in 2002 resolving to help mobilize citizens of every nation families, communities, civil society, organizations of every kind and children within an active, influential and united movement. This means

  tags: child health, education, mdg2, mdg4, millennium development goals

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Generate Rural Income / Generate Solutions / Generate Hope

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This blog is a personal means of learning about and promoting the Millennium Development Goals. It is admittedly small and meager compared to many but I believe that we need many more small voices speaking up about these efforts and so have no problem with being a slacktivist. I also get a certain satisfaction out of creating these posts. I do often though get to interact with others who are doing more and Taking a Step Beyond - Personal efforts in meeting the Millennium Development Goals. As usual, this post complies data from different sources and provides links to hopefully provide a helpful source of information of this effort.

One such person and one of my online friends doing more is Susanta Biswas, an internationally recognized documentary maker (Homepage) who hails from Kolkata, India.

I can't show you one of his films but the slide show below will give you a taste of his work.

He started off documenting the blight of the less fortunate. Now he is taking another step. One of his more recent endeavors is the founding of the Krishnaa Human Initiatives (KHI), a Citizen Sector Organization founded in memory of (Smt.) Krishna Biswas who dedicated herself to progressive movements for the welfare of women and society. According to their website,

"KHI works with the grassroots-level organizations working directly with and for the underprivileged. It aims to play a significant role in augmentation of livelihood opportunities for the people at grass root level which leads to sustainable future. The Organization is registered under The West Bengal Societies Registration Act XXVI of 1961."

Taking advantage of freely available social media tools, he has also created a new Generate rural income by managing Natural Resources on Facebook which at last count had reached 66 members. Through this and other online venues, he is promoting an upcoming seminar in his country.

Krishnaa Human Initiatives (KHI) works to explore various possibilities of managing Natural Resources to play significant role in Rural Development. It is going to organize an important seminar in Kolkata on Rural Development. Eminent speakers from relevant fields have given their consent to participate in the discussion. The Citizen Sector Organization aims to play a significant role in augmentation of livelihood opportunities of the people at grass root level.

The Krishnaa Human Initiatives (KHI), seminar in Kolkata on the “Significance of Natural Resource Management in Rural Development” will be taking place at Jivanananda Sabhaghar at Paschimbanga Bangla Academy, 1/1 A.J.C.Bose Road, Kolkata-700 020 on Friday, August 6, 2010. The discussion may lead to explore livelihood opportunities for the rural poor through natural resources.

Renowned Physicist Prof. Bikash Chandra Sinha {Padma Shri Award Winner 2001}, 2010 Padma Bhusan Award Winner, presently the Homi Bhaba Chair Professor of the Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre will be the Chief Guest Speaker of the seminar. Shri Sailesh Kumar Bandyopadhyay, Padma Bhusan, Member of Khadi & Village Industries Commission will preside over the function. Prof Ashoke Nath Basu, Former Vice-Chancellor, Jadavpur University will participate in the seminar. As will eminent speakers from relevant fields representing , Ramakrishna Mission Shilpamandira, Vivekananda Institute of Bio-technology, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development and Exide Industries.

This is of particular interest to me because what Dr. Jeffrey Sachs calls the on-the-ground solutions to the Millennium Development Goals will come from efforts like this. While I fully support the work of the United Nations and their many organizations such as UNDP, UNICEF, UNESCO and others, it will be hundreds of efforts such as this that will make the true difference in people's lives. Because of the World Wide Web we can share the lessons learned across the globe. It is my hope that they not only share what they learn with others of similar passions on the web, but they are also able to share it with the ongoing 2015 End Poverty Millennium Campaign and contribute what they solutions they are finding in their part of the world. My latest effort is trying to create sites where this could be possible at Bloggers Unite Make Noise for the Millennium Development Goals and Make NOISE for the MDGs on Grou.ps, both of which are still evolving.

Here are some other issues the KHI is working to address. What is noticeable is that they can all be included, either directly or indirectly, under the purview of the Millennium Development Goals either as issues to be addressed or means of finding solutions.

• To acquire, establish, start, aid, run, maintain or manage educational institutes, libraries for the benefit of the public.
  
• To arrange and organize lectures, debates, discussions, seminars & excursions for the diffusion of knowledge.
• To publish or cause to be published useful literatures, magazines etc. without profit motive.
• To promote and encourage advancement of literary, cultural, political, religious & scientific education.
• To help the needy students of all communities for prosecution of studies.
• To collect and preserve manuscripts, painting, sculptures, works of art, antiquities, natural history specimens, mechanical and scientific instruments and designs.
• To help the aged, sick, helpless and indigent persons.
• To alleviate the sufferings of animals or other living creatures as may be deemed appropriate.
• To help to organize self-help group based programs for augmentation of the livelihood opportunities of the people at the grass root level as being beneficial to the public or to a section of public.
• To fight against exploitation, injustice and corruption if found against any individual, class, community in the society.
• To work for uplifting the status of women in the society. To work against female circumcision and to fight against the victimization of girl / women by anybody in the society on female circumcision or any other related issues.
• To propagate the need for tree plantation / pollution control and environmental awareness.
• To help and generate training program for self-employment of women and educated unemployed people and to work for adult education.
• To create the means for providing medical assistance to the people suffering from diseases, especially for helpless people.
• To provide help under health & nutrition services for women and children.
• To promote rural industrialization including cluster development and Khadi
• To promote entrepreneurs
• To provide technical assistance and consultancy
• To perform research and development as well as sharing science and technology
• To provide help to people suffering from Natural calamities such as flood, Earthquakes etc.
• To provide free legal advice to poor people.

Zunia update on OLPC

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One of the early influences in this web journey was One Laptop Per Child program, which I learned of first from TED Video Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child.

The program has always engendered controversy in its implementation, its attempted partnership with Intel and the larger issues of how the program fits into the educational programs of developing nations. Whether it would reach its full potential has been a question. At times it seems to have been A Hopeful Idea Hopelessly Mired?

I had not thought about OLPC for quite a while when Zunia recently raised the issue again. This time the discussion is more extensive and deeper because of the time that the program has been out there and the shared experiences of those on-the-ground trying to make the best of the program. This post only scratches the surface of what the Zunia articles and extended discussions offer. I plan on reading them again to get a better understanding, not so much of the OLPC program but the challenges faced by organizations that attempt to create educational programs in developing nations that address the challenge of Millennium Development Goal 2. Universal Education. The discussion demonstrates that despite the best of idealistic intentions, implementing these programs is both difficult and complex.

Zunia asks, under both Education and Science & Tech ICT, What Have We Learned From One Laptop Per Child?

Four years ago, Nicholas Negroponte introduced the world to the "One Laptop Per Child" idea at WSIS by showing off a "$100 laptop" with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. The educational and technology fields haven't been the same since.OLPC has impact deeper and farther than just XO's passed out or more...

Dweep Chanana provides the counterpoint in the Educational Technology Debate with Wayan Vota on what the OLPC has achieved thus far. He disagrees with claim that that the OLPC is “changing education, technology, even culture in ways beyond any one person’s understanding.” Instead he takes the position OLPC is not “revolutionalizing” education

For one lets be realistic that the OLPC is not “revolutionalizing” education. Yes, OLPC will soon have 1 million XO laptops in circulation. But compare that with 121 million children not in school, 668 million children that started primary school in 2007, or the 774 million illiterate adults and the OLPC does not seem that revolutionary. No doubt, computers will be important in the future to deliver education, but a lot of schools still struggle with having a blackboard or even a building. So lets not overstate either the scale or the impact of the OLPC.

Scott Kipp writes about What We Learned From OLPC Deployments

I think there is a great deal being learned from the story of the OLPC Foundation itself, and even more still from the myriad OLPC deployments around the world. Lessons from OLPC projects will be coming out for years to come, to help better match the tools to the desired pedagogical approach.

According to Leland Smith For Real OLPC Impact, We Need Infrastructure

I was in the Peace Corps in Cape Verde as an ICT volunteer from 2006 to 2008, and while I was there, the One Laptop Per Child project came on my radar and I became pretty enamored of the prospect of bringing some XOs to the country, or at least raising awareness of the idea within the government.

However, after considering all the obstacles with some fellow volunteers and local educators, including a Ministry of Education delegate, I kept running into the same issue: So we get the laptops, and then what? We discussed the potential of OLPC endlessly, but eventually came to the conclusion that the program was a mess, especially after the departure of some of their best minds and the insistence that the hardware is the only thing to supply. But if OLPC itself won’t supply the rest of the framework, somebody must.

Getting Americans more educated to become more globally engaged to take greater leadership

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Change.org is providing an opportunity for participation through the U.S. Center for Citizen Dipolomacy in an arena that is vital if the Millennium Development Goals are to be achieved. We are pressed to take a leadership role in the Millennium Campaign because we have the greatest level of resources, we use the greatest amount of resources and we are still seen by the world as being among the primary leaders in the world, and in my view, we have the greatest capacity for leadership.

America's image abroad is improving, numerous polls and studies prove anti-American sentiment still exists around the globe. We need to dramatically increase our capacity to reach out to the rest of the world to foster mutual understanding and find common interests and values.

US. Center for Citizen Diplomacy is calling on all Americans to sign a Letter to the President urging President Obama to convene a National Summit on Citizen Diplomacy in order to bring this issue to the forefront and provide opportunities for global engagement at all levels of American society The idea is to encourage more Americans to reach out to the rest of the world and foster mutual understanding.

Tremendous opportunities exist to involve many thousands more Americans in this vital work, contributing as citizen diplomats in a variety of ways. A program that expands and utilizes their talents and expertise will greatly help the United States regain its stature as a respected, positive force throughout the world. Much of our thinking builds on the successful models of Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, and leaders such as J. William Fulbright.

The goal is to multiply the connections between American citizens and their counterparts overseas fourfold by 2016.

Change.org wants us to ask President Obama to expand resources for bringing Americans together with others to promote shared values and understanding >

One of the goals of the Millennium Campaign is 2. Universal Education, but the truth is that we are as much in need of education as those in developing countries. The fourfold increase by 2016 is laudable and matches fairly closely with the 2015 goal to end poverty, but it raises the question how many connections exist now. This blog provides me a platform to interact with like minded people in India, Australia, Brazil and other countries as well as in the United States through communities like Change.org, Orkut and Facebook.

The Common Ground Blog (which I will be adding to the blogs to which this blog links) has a post and a question on the subject US CENTER FOR CITIZEN DIPLOMACY: OBAMA ADMINISTRATION SHOULD SUPPORT CITIZEN DIPLOMACY OVERSEAS

Question to the Blogosphere:

What can the Obama administration do to encourage Americans to engage in efforts to strengthen America’s international relationships? Should public high schools in the United States be provided with funds to send young people to different parts of the world? What types of development assistance and community-based initiatives would be most useful in promoting international understanding? What can be done to involve the older generations in the United States in citizen diplomacy?

2nd of 8 days 8 Goals Personal Stories behind the Millennium Development Goals

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This is the second of the 8 videos provided by the Facebook Group United Nations Millennium Campaign on the Millennium Development goals. The "first" day video is here.

This captivating video focuses on the personal stories and struggles around achieving United Nations Millennium Campaign Goal 2 Universal Education.

Related Posts:

• Getting Educated about Millennium Development Goal No. 2

• Educational Pathways - for People - for Nations

• Reaping from Yesterday's Efforts Planting for the Future

• Learning how kids teach themselves, then get out of the way

• Talking about the Girl Effect at Davos on YouTube

• Change Initiative to Empower Adolescent Girls Investing in the Girl Effect

• Social responsibility, seeking the good

• The Girl Effect

Getting Educated about Millennium Development Goal No. 2

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This is a guest post on the Universal Education Millenium Development Goal written by BlogCatalog colleague Claus Thorsson, a freelance writer who specializes in *free college admission essays* (link to: ) and *time management tips for college students*.

MDG 2: Giving Children and the World a Better Future

The *MDGs or Millennium Development Goals* are a set of objectives committed to by the nation members of the UN to address global problems in education, poverty, gender equality, and environmental degradation by 2015. The *MDG No. 2* (pdf) aims to provide universal primary education for all children of primary school age, regardless of gender and nationality, all over the world. The goal not only focuses on enrollment, but also in ensuring the completion of primary school and the high quality of education.

MDG 2 as a necessary action

In today's world, education is the key to gaining quality life. By forwarding the cause of universal primary school education, especially in developing nations ravaged by poverty, wars, and civil unrest, children can be better equipped when dealing with these issues and when rebuilding their nation in the future.

The benefit for humanity in general

One of the main causes of poverty is *lack of education* (see page 16). By addressing education problems, one is not only helping children make a better life for themselves and their families, but one is also combating poverty as one of its roots. Through education, developing nations have a better chance of improving their situation and creating a better future for their countries. This results in narrowing the gap between developed and developing nations, which then ensures that each nation is truly sovereign in the sense that it can stand equally amongst all the nations in the world economically and financially.

MDG Goal 2 challenges

The main obstacle to the initiatives of MDG Goal 2 is getting the resources that it needs to achieve the goals by the set time of 2015. Though the MDG Goal 2 did obtain *significant results* (link to:) for the past years as can be seen in the examples in Africa and Haiti, it is still short of the $11 billion needed annually to be on track for its 2015 target. Another challenge to MDG 2's initiatives is the willingness of the governments to allot a significant part of their *budgets to education*. The MDG is working towards having governments allot 15% to 20% of their national budget for education. Part of the drive is to provide free primary education for children, and if not, to waive the educational fees for the poorest families.

Gender equality

As education is provided regardless of gender, nationality, or culture, this will help lessen gender inequality and provide better opportunities for women to get a better life (MDG No. 3 Gender Equity). *Statistics* (see page 18) show that there is still disparity between the number of girls and boys with access to primary education. The Millennium Development Goals strives to close that gap.

Working with different nations and governments organizations

Another one of the challenges that the MDG faces is getting the full support of UN member nations towards achieving its goals. Apart from getting the full commitment of governments about allotting their domestic budgets for education, there are also the cultural walls that have to be broken, especially about women's rights. But anything can be accomplished through dialog, and with the *proper coordination with developed nations* and local NGOs, breaking through these challenges can be managed.

Related Posts:

• Educational Pathways - for People - for Nations

• Reaping from Yesterday's Efforts Planting for the Future

• Learning how kids teach themselves, then get out of the way

• Talking about the Girl Effect at Davos on YouTube

Educational Pathways - for People - for Nations

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This blog, despite good advice to the contrary, has a wide and varied focus. Although it deals with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, that gives it 8 separate topics to write about. It also writes about a variety of approaches to those 8 Goals and the various organizations around the world implementing those approaches.

One approach particularly appreciated by this blog, though not dealt with enough, is education. Below are some links oriented to education gathered over time. These show both the tremendous challenges that must be overcome and the efforts that have been and are being made. They also show the impact that these efforts can have on the broader world stage.

OneWorld South Asia Home

Diigo tags: oneworld, education, mdg, mdgs

Education is the backbone of national development and is widely accepted as an instrument of social change. India has been an active partner in the worldwide movement for education for All that began in 1990 in Jomtien followed by Millennium development goals. The important issues which need immediate attention to achieve MDG targets in Education are as follow.[these issues can be updated]

• Talibans in madrasas trying to carve jihadis out of kids
• World Bank study spells out Bhutan's education woes
• India's missing think tanks
  

China’s higher education transformation | vox - Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists

Diigo tags: China, economics, globalization, trade

Unlike most developing economies, China’s educational policy focuses on upgrading higher education. This column summarises the major transformation occurring in China – including nearly a quintupling in enrolments – and highlights its implications for the global economy.

Economic View - This Global Show Must Go On - NYTimes.com

By 2010, China will have more Ph.D. scientists and engineers than the United States. These professionals are not fundamentally a threat. To the contrary, they are creators, whose ideas are likely to improve the lives of ordinary Americans, not just the business elites. The more access the Chinese have to American and other markets, the more they can afford higher education and the greater their incentive to innovate.

Diigo tags: marginalrevolution, globalization, trade, economics

There is a natural tendency to compare China and India in their economic policies and more specifically their approaches to meeting the Millennium Development Goals. They have each made amazing strides in improving their national economic standing though how well they have done internally is still a matter of concern both externally and internally to each country. The new Human Development Index statistical update which was released on December 18, 2008, (in which China, India and the United States went down compared to 2005) puts China at 94 and India at 132. A future post may take a look at how each country is doing regarding Millennium Development Goal No. 2. Universal Education.

Related Posts:

• Human Development - The Measurement of Human Endeavors

• Getting the Dragon and the Elephant to work together

• Next Year's Blogging Action Day - Getting an early start

• Learning how kids teach themselves, then get out of the way

Reaping from Yesterday's Efforts Planting for the Future

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Both Blog Action Day - Poverty and Stand Up Take Action are now in the past. You can see the results of the Blog Action Day here. Stand Up Take Action will be holding their press conference tomorrow to talk about the results. I already provided input to both the folks at Blog Action Day about an idea for next year's Blog Action Day and my views to the Orkut group I belong to supporting EndPoverty2015.

I had two basic messages to the Orkut group. One was to send in what they had done as stories, pictures or links. This is actually a bit self-serving because I get so many useful and interesting resources this way. The other was to register online as having Stood Up Against Poverty Online if they couldn't make it to an actual event.

The idea of pushing Universal Education as a means of promoting the Millennium Development Goals has been running around my head for awhile. I did see one local event at a near by Long Beach magnet school on Understanding Global Poverty, then I realized that it was 6th to 8th graders. Now I am very happy that they are studying global issues, but it wasn't something I would want to attend unless I still had my own eighth grader. So I participated online with the the Australian Council for International Development Make Poverty History Campaign.

Looking over some of the other posts at Blog Action Day I found Lucy Barrow's EduBlog post on Blog Action Day - What does the world think about poverty? | ICT and TLC. I did not know what an ICT trainer was until now. Lucy's post lead me to a more interesting resources such as Edublogger, and the polling site Ask 500 People. The pertinent question was “Do you believe it is possible to make poverty history?” That led me back to to Make Poverty History.

Another new and interesting find was Blog Action Day posts by "association" bloggers courtesy of Lisa Junker via Acronym by on 10/17/08. I have to admit that I am not familiar with the use of the term Association as a profession, but it seems like they do great work and that there is a great deal to learn from them. The Bamboo Project seems to have a good deal to offer.

I particularly liked the insight from Kristin Clarke the day after October 15th “Blog Action Day”.

Can one day’s worth of blog posts fundamentally shift public discourse on a major social issue? All I can say is that issues definitely won’t be addressed if no one is talking about them.

Next Year's Blogging Action Day - Getting an early start

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I left Collis of Blogging Action Day the following message by e-mail (sans some typos).

I am getting my "vote" in early about next year's Blog Action Day - Universal Education. Not too long ago I got interested in the UN Millennium Development Goals. I joined an Orkut group supporting Stand Up Take Action and the thought came to my mind wouldn't it be cool if the Blog Action folks had poverty as their focus this year, lo and behold you did. Trouble is despite the online success of Blog Action and the participation of people around the world in Stand Up Take Action these issues are still not mainstream which can be seen by the lack of 1st level mass media attention. Yes, I know that they are owned by corporations, but if this was understood and appreciated by the average person in the Western World there would be more main stream stories on it. So then Blog Action Day 2009 focuses on supporting Universal Education and then we can use it as a means of increasing awareness of all the related issues. Get Junior High School students on board and by 2015 they are or just about ready to vote. People are likely to be more willing to provide education for others when they are educating their own kids. Kids are more likely to be comfortable with the net having grown up with it. Lastly, this came to me because of the recent work of TED and Dave Eggers Once Upon a School, seems like there is something there that could be built upon.

Standing, Blogging, Electing - Small Acts of Great Change

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There are upcoming chances to participate in social actions against poverty, either Stand Up Take Action or Blog Action Day. These actions should be put in perspective. They are worthwhile endeavors that should be supported, but their worth is enhanced by the number of people who participate. My personal standing for one minute or writing a blog post for a day is like a drop of water. Admittedly, even writing, and maintaining this blog takes only an hour or two out of my day. It is no where near the same level as those dedicating their lives under Others Supporting Millenium Development Goals. Million drops in motion can move mountains but that force needs to be focused.

Another simple act that takes little time, but could have a far greater impact on the Millennium Development Goals, is voting for the next United States President. What takes the most time is educating ourselves. To help in that choice, Global Development Matters is a site provided by the Center for Global Development that includes their blog Election 08.

In the short time since its founding, CGD has rapidly earned a reputation as a unique "think and do" tank, where independent research is channeled into practical policy proposals that help to shape decisions in Washington and other rich country capitals.

• The election of 08 blog for the Center for Global Development

  Diigo tags: election08, millennium development goals, development, poverty

Learning how kids teach themselves, then get out of the way

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TED.com featured Sugata Mitra Speaking at LIFT 2007 about the "Hole in the Wall" project -- Not Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but kids in an Indian neighborhood figuring out (on their own) how to use a PC and mouse, and then teaching their friends. The fundamental underlying question, "How can traditional schools (especially those that are remote and without adequate resources) harness the immense power of children to teach one another?"

Sugata Mitra: Can kids teach themselves?

This fits in with the Millennium Development Goal No. 2. Universal Education, and the One Laptop Per Child program.