Page 130 - Education in a Digital World

International Development 117

The guiding ethos for the programme has been to locate digital technologies in
what Arora (2010) characterises as ‘out-of-the-way, out-of-the-mind locations’
rather than in formal settings such as schools or universities.
Despite its unconventional approach, Hole-in-the-wall is considered one of the
more successful educational ICT4D interventions of the past twenty years. While
dependent on corporate backing from the likes of NIIT Limited and the World
Bank sponsored International Finance Corporation, the Hole-in-the-wall pro-
gramme retains a distinctly anti-authoritarian ethos. Indeed, the programme’s credo
of ‘minimally-invasive education’ is a non-institutionalised one, with children
expected to engage with the technology “free of charge and free of any super-
vision” (Mitra 2010, n.p). The initiative has since been extended – with a recent
incarnation attempting to use internet-based telephony to allow older community
members in high-income countries to act as mentors and ‘friendly but not knowl-
edgeable’ mediators to these young autonomous learners. As such the provision of
such access and support is seen to underpin what the project team term a ‘self-
organised learning environment’– thus providing an alternative “for those denied
formal schooling” in low-income countries, as well as “remind[ing] schools of their
purpose and duty to the community” (Arora 2010).
While ‘Hole-in-the-wall’ and ‘telecentre’ projects continue to run, recent
NGO and community initiatives have also sought to utilise the increased portability
and personalisation of computer hardware (increasingly in the form of internet-
embedded mobile telephones) as well as the rise of wireless connectivity. Now
an emphasis tends to be put on providing internet connectivity and portable com-
puterised devices to otherwise disconnected individuals in order to develop
technology skills and, more importantly, support their learning. As Richard Heeks
(2008, p.28) observes, these ‘open network’ projects usually seek to collect,
share and disseminate “relevant local data content focused on livelihood-appropriate
issues such as health, education, agriculture, and rights”. These projects are often
community-based, with individuals developing content and information off-line,
and then using the internet, mobile phones and other communication technologies
to share with other users. One of the advantages of this user-created content
is seen to be its relevance and usefulness, with content being produced in a variety
of national languages and local dialects, combining official information with indi-
genous knowledge. Examples of these projects abound – such as the Open
Knowledge Network that ran during the 2000s in countries such as Kenya,
Tanzania, Mali, Uganda, Senegal, Zimbabwe and Mozambique using mobile tech-
nology to support ‘a human network, which collects, shares and disseminates local
knowledge and is supported by flexible technical solutions’. Another, celebrated
initiative was the Vidiyal mobile telephony programme in Southern India, where
mobile telephones were used to support information exchange and self-education
across a federation of over 200 women’s self-help groups – mainly pursuing self-
employed business activities around goat and sheep rearing (see Balasubramanian
et al. 2010).