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

Private sector initiatives normally maintain a dual concern with bothincreased market access and education improvement. A mixed motivation isnot intrinsically problematic and such programmes may be powerful leversfor positive change; an educational product that works effectively andenhances learning is clearly a more effective tool for increasing marketpenetration than an educational product which does not work. However, theprivate sector aspiration to expand the use of technology in developingregions through the medium of education is clearly dependent uponpropagating the notion that technology provides something unique which willfacilitate an educational breakthrough unattainable via any other means(Kort and Reilly 2001). In order to be credible, the vision of ICT-dependencyfor educational progress requires an accompanying pedagogy and, as hasbeen demonstrated, constructivism is the tool which has been adopted mostwidely for this purpose (Selinger 2009). Indeed, constructivism is not thepedagogical preserve of only the private sector. Section 8.4 thus highlightshow the OLPC initiative is utilising constructivism as an effective meansthrough which to propagate its own vision of technology dependent learning(Negroponte 2008).As the research has emphasised, the pertinent issue is to ensure that thoseengaging with multi-stakeholder partnerships in ICT for education are fullyconscious of, and explicit regarding, the various motivations and agendasprioritised by different actors, and the tools that they use in seeking tolegitimise their approaches. Indeed, traditional, solely quantitative,approaches to monitoring and evaluation have been one such tool.Maintaining a critically engaged stance is thus vital in order to avoidgradually imbibing the private sector narrative of development as beingsynonymous with the capitalist project (Wainwright 2008). The research hasshown that prioritising this critical engagement, through monitoring andevaluation is invaluable in ensuring the arena of ICT for education in Africaavoids gradually developing into nothing more than a Trojan horse for theambitions of the private sector, government or mission-driven organisationsas exemplified in OLPC.372