Evaluating ICT for Education in Africa - Royal Holloway, University of ...

(28/04/08) the view that there is little opportunity for reform due to thedirect political control over education:„There is definitely an emphasis on control within education inEthiopia. The most obvious example is the subject of civics – itis a political tool and only conveys a certain version of thetruth ... The government is about control.‟More broadly, government actively restricts public access to information andlimits the ability to communicate, linking back to the issues of discovery andcritical thinking in education and society in general. The government are alsoworking to pass a law that prohibits NGOs from engaging in any form ofadvocacy work within Ethiopia (Gagliardone pers. comm. 25/04/08). Theintention is to repress the growing civil society activism and this is alsowitnessed through the regular bans on text messaging during periods ofpolitical sensitivity. This political backdrop demonstrates the power of theaspirational status of technology in superseding the desire for control withineducation in Ethiopia in the OLPC programme. There is potential for thepresence of technology in education to facilitate and legitimise a moreprogressive pedagogy within conservative and often repressive educationalcontexts. The status of technology within the Ethiopian government psychemeans that educational reform may occur in ways that would not normally bepossible. The guided discovery learning beginning to be facilitated by Akili,the educational software on the XO laptops, is unlikely to have been betolerated by the government without the associated aspiration for thetechnology. They would not allow such a different model of education to bepromoted were it not „wrapped up‟ with the technology that they werestrongly in favour of.As a result, access to politically sensitive information that is normallyprohibited may unwittingly be facilitated through the spread of laptops. Thisunintended consequence has potential to be exploited for substantive changeand promotion of a more liberal approach to education. Within the context ofOLPC and Ethiopia this potential has not been fully realised because of the310