Background
Professor Sugata Mitra, Chief Scientist at NIIT, is credited with proposing and initiating the Hole-in-the-Wall programme. As early as 1982, he had been toying with the idea of unsupervised learning and computers. Finally, in 1999, he decided to test his ideas in the field.
The experiment
On 26 January 1999, Professor Mitra's team carved a "hole in the wall" that separated the NIIT premises from the adjoining slum in Kalkaji, New Delhi. Through this hole, a freely accessible computer was put up for use. This computer proved to be popular among the slum children. With no prior experience, the children learned to use the computer on their own. This prompted Professor Mitra to propose the following hypothesis: The acquisition of basic computing skills by any set of children can be achieved through incidental learning provided the learners are given access to a suitable computing facility, with entertaining and motivating content and some minimal (human) guidance.
Results
Professor Mitra has summarised the results of his experiment as follows. Given free and public access to computers and the Internet group of children can
Become computer literate on their own, that is, they can learn to use computers and the Internet for most of the tasks done by lay users.
Teach themselves enough English to use email, chat and search engines.
Learn to search the Internet for answers to questions in a few months time.
Improve their English pronunciation on their own.
Improve their mathematics and science scores in school.
Answer examination questions several years ahead of time.
Change their social interaction skills and value systems.
Form independent opinions and detect indoctrination.