I read an article, where students in some parts of Africa has to walk 3 hours, just to get to classroom. (and that is on top of their other duties such as fetching water and etc.)
What if we can create a cheap simple rugged portable videoconferencing solution, that can be installed in a remote communities around the few schools in Africa(or any other countries with massive dispersed landmass, and a lack of transport facilities).
It will communicate to the main school via a unidirectional UHF antenna. (satellite is better, but more expensive)
What this means is instead of walking many km to their school, they can all walk to the nearest 'video conferencing classroom'. (which may consist of a tent and a projector/TV screen system.)
If possible, we can hitch this concept to the OLPC initiative, by making each videoconferencing classroom a wireless node for the OLPC laptops. (Thus increasing the mesh reach of the system)
Perhaps to pay for the system, we could also make each node, a cellphone tower as well. (On the condition that we can use part of the cellphone tower to exchange classroom videoconferencing data) Thus it become partially financially self sustaining.-- mofosyne, May 02 2010 [+]'d but //they can all walk to the nearest 'video conferencing classroom'// gives need to non-parental adult supervision... in which case you could make that a teacher... and then it's in line with normal schooling practices in sparsely populated areas in "first world" countries: schoolchildren of different grade levels in the same classroom.-- FlyingToaster, May 02 2010 Complicated.
A remote classroom maybe in terms of a resource centre dropped from the air or orbit is certainly a nice idea. Also, one which can cope with being dropped from that height might be hard to vandalise. The question is, how appropriate would the education provided be? Also, and this is something about which i'm hugely confused, is it really the case that the people living there lack the skills and knowledge needed to cope? If that situation exists, how has it arisen? I'm open to the idea that it might be due to something like soil erosion altering the environment and i personally don't like the idea of the likes of female genital mutilation continuing unabated, but i'm ambivalent about the whole thing.-- nineteenthly, May 02 2010 Videoconferencing over UHF? And cellphone tower? I've got no time to think, nor research, at the moment, ut my snap reaction is: nae chance - data rates here are very ambitious.-- Jinbish, May 02 2010 Yes, there is that too now i come to think of the engineering side of it, but that's not essential to the idea. I need to read up on the disadvantages of UHF here. Is the range too short? The cellular radio mast really doesn't sound like it'll work.-- nineteenthly, May 02 2010 I heard about that.
It (not the appendectomy) makes me intensely curious about Australian home ed laws, which i presume vary by state.-- nineteenthly, May 02 2010 Why is this under category:Taliban?-- pashute, Jul 06 2015 Why do we have a category 'taliban' ?-- FlyingToaster, Jul 06 2015 random, halfbakery