Zuckerberg and Gates-Backed Startup Seeks To Shake Up African Education

theodp writes The WSJ reports an army of teachers wielding Nook tablets and backed by investors including Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg is on a mission to bring cheap [$6.50/month], internet-based, private education to millions of the world's poorest children in Africa and Asia. In Kenya, 126,000 students are enrolled at 400+ Bridge International Academies that have sprung up across the country since the company was founded in 2009. Bridge's founders are challenging the long-held assumption that governments rather than companies should lead mass education programs. The Nook tablets are used to deliver lesson plans used by teachers (aka "scripted instruction"), as well as to collect test results from students to monitor their progress."

Comments

Re:Missionaries

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey we need a new pool of cheap H1Bs

The Chinese, Indian and Eastern European devs are starting to get costly

It's already a failure...

[Lumpy]

If step 1 is not kill all the current warlords and government leaders it will fail.

An uneducated population is a lot easier to control than an educated one, These corrupt and evil leaders that have kept Africa in a constant state of turmoil and fear will not have anything to do with improving the education of the people.

Because if you educate them, they will learn that they are being abused and rise up. 100 men with machine guns are no match for 1,000,000 angry people with rocks and sticks.