$11m to fund One Laptop Per Child scheme

THE One Laptop Per Child program was a winner in the budget while the government's own Digital Education Revolution took a haircut

THE One Laptop Per Child program was a winner in the 2012 federal budget while the government's own Digital Education Revolution scheme took a haircut.

The OLPC scored a one-off grant of $11.7 million to help expand the program to primary school students in regional and remote communities.

The program, which was conceived by visionary Nicholas Negroponte, has a target in Australia of providing 500,000 of the green and white low-power, bash-resistant education-centric XO machines.

It has already supplied thousands of XO laptops for a range of projects, mainly in the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

OLPC Australia is sponsored by News Limited, which publishes The Australian, Telstra and the Commonwealth Bank.

Meanwhile, the federal government's own Digital Education Revolution project pool was slashed by $24.4m in 2011-12 to provide savings the government said would be redirected to other education and training schemes.

The DER project pool, which funds activities such as the National Digital Learning Resources Framework, will get funding of $6m in 2012-2013 and $4m in 2013-2014.