Roughly £11.5 Million (a tiny fraction of the £3 Billion pound overspend by TDC) is all it would cost to give an educational tool to every child in Thanet and the same number of third world children too. The result would be a potential blow to the cycle of poverty such as has never been dealt in the history of the United Kingdom.

Edit: The over spend is in fact £3M not £3B the entire budget being £20M which wouldmean TDC would need to pull down KCC funds...

The laptop in question is the XO and it has been created expressly as a learning tool. As of January 2008 it will be available in the UK under the Give One Get One offer whereby you can buy yourself an XO if you also buy one for a child in the third world. Sadly due the pound tanking quite hard of late the $399 price tag comes in at £275. Still not bad for something built and destruction tested to last at least five years in rugged conditions - per unit thats just £27.50 a year.



The astounding results of early years intervention demonstrated by educational nurseries like those in Millmead (Sure Start's Meadow Nursery) show that with the right tools the impact of poverty that sets the stage for future poverty can be undone. The price is a drop in the ocean for the area's education budgets and something the Council should easily be able to find.

To put this in perspective that's just £450 per councillor per day for a year. More than that is daily spent on lunches, fact finding trips to the US and China failed experimental builds for failed galleries.

I know the money for some of these things comes from different pots but what if inside of fifteen years we could start to see the trend of unemployment and unemployables reversed? Imagine what commerce, what business and what improvements we could make.

More than that imagine what all those young people might have to blog about. Imagine the impact on the political scene as these soon-to-be young adults start asking questions. Potentially this could set the stage for a year on year increase in the number of people voting.

I can see that our conservative overlords might not like that idea very much but those of us that still dream of things like justice, truth and the occasional bout of competence feel very differently.

Failing the council (TDC or KCC) actually doing something amazing and helping the area out you can make a difference on a child by child basis by taking up the offer on behalf of a child you know. You can order the XO from amazon.co.uk