Page 126 - Education in a Digital World

International Development 113

phase’ where eighty schools in fifteen countries were equipped with computers and
printers, local networks, audio/visual equipment, and internet connectivity. Soon
after national governments were encouraged to adopt and adapt a prescribed ‘e-Schools
Business Plan’ as a broad policy framework that would allow them to implement
the initiative in their country’s schools. This business plan was also intended to
provide a basis for the later development of individual national educational tech-
nology policies and plans. The NEPAD programme also provided participating
countries with a framework for teacher training and professional development, as
well as attempting to establish a satellite network offering broadband connectivity to
the many rural areas where the high schools are located.
The e-Schools programme has certainly supported the adoption and integration
of educational technology into national school systems at a rate of change that
individual governments may not have been able to achieve in isolation. Yet initia-
tives such as these have also shaped the nature and form of educational technology
in these countries in other ways that would otherwise not have occurred. For
example, a key element of the e-Schools initiative has been the establishment
of partnerships between a variety of for-profit and not-for-profit organisations. In
practice, the programme has been delivered by five consortia led by large IT cor-
porations such as Microsoft, Cisco, HP, AMD and Oracle. These partnerships
involve more than fifty private sector companies and other organisations such as the
Commonwealth of Learning and African Development Bank. As such, programmes
such as NEPAD have been successful in bringing a considerable amount of public
and private expertise to bear on the educational activities of individual countries.
For instance, the guiding ‘e-schools business plan’ that governments have been
encouraged to use as a policy template was developed by the international
auditor and accountancy firm Ernst & Young. The activities therefore have
significant implications for the governance of educational technology in each parti-
cipating nation – not least the heightened role of commercial interests in public
policymaking.

Educational Technology as Part of Corporate Philanthropy

As the example of the NEPAD e-Schools programme suggests, educational ICT4D
is not the sole preserve of national governments. The integration of digital technology
into the educational systems of low-income countries forms a major element of the
philanthropy programmes of most – if not all – multinational IT corporations. Of
course, philanthropic activities by private and commercial interests have long been a
feature of education. As Anheier and Daly (2004, p.159) describe, “the voluntary
use of private assets (finance, real estate, know-how and skills) for the benefitof
specific public causes” can be traced back to the early twentieth-century ‘scientific
philanthropy’ pursued by the likes of Carnegie and Rockefeller. At one level, then,
the intentions that underlie such philanthropic activity – now as then – are based
around straightforward motivations of altruism and concern with the public good.