A project jointly worked out by the Computer Society of India (CSI) and the Pune Municipal Corporation has made Pune the first city in the country to bring formal education in computers closer to students from the economically backward sections of society through municipal schools.

An appeal made by the Pune Municipal Commissioner Rajiv Agarwal to citizens to donate old machines for this noble cause has started yielding results and with five machines coming from the Karnataka High School, another not-so-affluent school - Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose School - now boasts of five computers and trained teachers.

Exposure of students is limited to the 10 machines at the Education Board where students are given turns to familiarise themselves. ``There are more than one lakh students in the PMC schools. We could not even think of reaching them individually so a project was envisioned where the CSI conducted computer training for 50 teachers from across Pune during the summer vacation,'' says C G Sahasrabuddhe, director of the Pune chapter of CSI. The initial aim is to educate the brightest students. But as and when more machines are available the training will be expanded to include more. The CSI has been updating donated machines and seven have been made functional so far.

The course curriculum for the students, mostly from the eighth and ninth standards, comprises computer fundamentals and quick basic and is aimed at logical aptitude development. ``Students can use it to do mathematical problems, for solving equations and design matching,'' says Sahasrabuddhe.

The need is for more machines so that the scheme can be introduced in more schools. ``If industries come forward to donate outdated machines for this project, instead of throwing them away or upgrading them, more schools can avail of this facility,'' he says.