Transforming education: the power of ICT policies - Commonwealth ...

Summarizing, Ceibal is a policy driven and supported by the highest levels of the Uruguayan state that, despite
certain initial resistance from some groups of teachers, receives support from practically all public and private
sectors within and outside education.
Where is the leadership located for conducting this process
and what are the implications of this choice?
Since the beginning of Ceibal, its leadership was in the Technology Laboratory of Uruguay, which was created in 1965
as a result of the joint efforts of the offi cial and private sectors. It is managed by a Board of Directors integrated
by three members: a delegate from the Government (Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining), who presides; a
delegate from the Uruguayan Chamber of Industry (Cámara de Industrias del Uruguay); and a delegate from Banco
República. Its mission is to foster the sustainable development of the country and its international insertion
through innovation and transfer of valuable solutions regarding analytical, metrological, technological, managerial
and compliance assessment services, according to the applicable regulations (LATU, 2009).
LATU was responsible for leading the technical and operational implementation of the project (see presidential
decree that created Ceibal in April 2007). Ceibal, as part of LATU, was able to create the technical and logistic
management required to acquire, prepare, assign, distribute and provide technical support to the thousands of
computers delivered. Additionally, it coordinated the volunteers’ networks, develops an educational portal and
works in coordination with special working groups of the agencies in charge of administering the educational
system.
Additionally, ANEP and the Primary Education Council are responsible for the implementation of the educational
aspects of the initiative, that is, pedagogical proposals, teacher training and contents development.
It is possible that the designation of LATU as the agency in charge of Ceibal did facilitate the implementation of the
initiative in the promised time period. However, it is also possible that the fact that LATU was relatively distant from
educational matters helped to install the idea that this was more a social project aimed at closing the digital gap,
than an educational project, affecting somehow the adoption of Ceibal by the educational system.
Currently the coordination between LATU and ANEP seems to be well structured and the educational components
of the project have been gaining relevance along its implementation.
The Policy Development Process
What have been the various steps of the policy development?
At the end of 2009 Ceibal fi nished its fi rst implementation stage that had the goal of providing a laptop to each child
and teacher of public primary education. One of the biggest challenges of the fi rst implementation stage was the
relatively limited time available to implement the project in the country. This expansion was planned in four stages
(Ceibal, 2009b):
Stage 1 (fi rst semester 2007): School Nº24 of “Villa Cardal”, department “Florida”. “Villa Cardal” is a town with 1,290
inhabitants and just one school attending 150 students. For this stage, OLPC donated the computers;
Case Study: Uruguay | 153