The tiny South Pacific nation of Niue has become the first nation in the world to issue laptop computers to all its children.

Every primary and secondary school student has been given a rugged little green laptop, which has a wireless connection to the internet. The move is part of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) charitable programme, designed to help children's learning.

The XO computers have been designed by OLPC to be “relatively waterproof and breakproof”.

The OLPC programme stems from research and development at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston in the US and has been supported by companies including Google and News Corp, the parent company of Times Online.

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The donation of 500 computers to Niue, which has a total population of less than 1,500, is part of an initiative to distribute 5,000 laptops in the Pacific region, OLPC said.

The laptops are designed for primary school children aged 6 to 12, but have also been given to high-school students in Niue, where the inhabitants have free internet access.

The laptops also support mesh networking, which means that pupils can access school study information and chat to each other within a radius of a kilometre without having to connect to the internet.

Jimmie Rodgers, the director general of regional development agency, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, said the laptops “have the potential to revolutionise education in ways that are difficult to imagine”.

OLPC, was set up by Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the MIT Media Lab, as an educational computing group. It caught the world’s imagination with the idea of providing $100 (£54) laptops to the world’s poorest children.

Turning the dream into a reality has proved difficult and the $100 pricetag has become nearly $200. The software giant Microsoft and computer chip-maker Intel have stood back from the project.

In October 2007, Uruguay placed an order for 100,000 OLPC laptops, making it the first country to place a full order. An order for an additional 200,000 laptops is expected in 2009 to cover all public school children between 6 and 12 years old.

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