Google has partnered with the Raspberry Pi Foundation and will fund the distribution of 15,000 free Raspberry Pi microcomputers across schools in UK
To engage more children in computer coding, Google announced a collaboration with the Raspberry Pi Foundation to fund the distribution of 15,000 free Raspberry Pi microcomputers across schools in UK. Six educational organizations including CoderDojo, Code Club, Computing at Schools, Generating Genius, Teach First and OCR will help decide which schools in the UK will receive these free computers.
OCR will also provide schools with a full start-up kit to help students who want to hone their coding skills. They will be creating 15,000 learning and teaching packs that will be given away for free with the Raspberry Pi microcomputers.
Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt and Raspberry Pi co-founder Eben Upton announced the partnership while on their visit to the Chesterton Community College in Cambridge Tuesday morning.
"We're absolutely made up over the news; this is a brilliant way for us to find kids all over the country whose aptitude for computing can now be explored properly," the foundation's website said. "We believe that access to tools is a fundamental necessity in finding out who you are and what you're good at. We want those tools to be within everybody's grasp, right from the start."
Critics on the other hand have questioned whether companies like Google should enter into such a role in the educational field. Companies frequently use schools for marketing strategies and compel them to promote their brands in return for "teaching resources, books, sports equipment or computers," said a National Union of Teachers representative.
"Commercial sponsorship of school resources and equipment and their involvement in training can actively undermine teachers' efforts to educate children about the dangers of manipulation and commercial exploitation," he said.
