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Schools Funded By Gates and Zuckerberg Ordered Closed In Uganda (cnn.com)
Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are two investors in Bridge International Academies. But in Uganda, the group's 63 schools have been "ordered to shut down in a matter of weeks, leaving the lives of thousands of pupils in limbo." An anonymous reader quotes CNN:
Uganda's High Court has described the Bridge International Academies...as unsanitary and unqualified, and has ordered it to close its doors in December because it ignored Uganda's national standards and put the "life and safety" of its 12,000 young students on the line. The Director of Education Standards for the Ministry, Huzaifa Mutazindwa, told CNN that the nursery and primary schools were not licensed, the teachers weren't qualified and that there was no record of its curriculum being approved.
Bridge's Uganda director denies the allegations, says the government hasn't even granted them an audience, and "suggested that the opposition against BIA was because the campuses competed against local state-run and private schools," according to CNN. Their reporter also found two educator advocates who complained that Bridge's schools were actually a privatized, profit-making entity targeting the poor. There's strong arguments on both sides, but it's all raising a lot of questions about how technology should be used in school programs, as well as how they should be funded.
Bridge's Uganda director denies the allegations, says the government hasn't even granted them an audience, and "suggested that the opposition against BIA was because the campuses competed against local state-run and private schools," according to CNN. Their reporter also found two educator advocates who complained that Bridge's schools were actually a privatized, profit-making entity targeting the poor. There's strong arguments on both sides, but it's all raising a lot of questions about how technology should be used in school programs, as well as how they should be funded.
theodp must be ecstatic over this news! Ugandans wont take his job!
Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have plenty of problems to solve in their own country. Why are they looking for trouble half a world away?
Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.
I trust Zuck.
https://www.unite4education.or...
They are literally commercializing schools similar to Trump University.. Didn't surprise me given this is an unholy union between Microsoft, Facebook and Pearson.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
No, there are not "strong arguments on both sides". One side is corrupt and lying. Either the local administration of the schools are skimming funds and creating the hazardous unqualified schools as described, or the government agency is lying because they demanded bribes and were refused. This is not a "both sides have a point" kind of situation, and actual journalism would require digging in and finding the truth.
Would the world one day get tired that Africa looks hopeless and let it go their way? It always looks like their priorities are something totally unrelated to what the world perceives as should be their "needs".
This is no bait nor trolling in any way, no need for AC, just want to know: if you donate like me, what do this kind of news make you think?
There's strong arguments on both sides, but it's all raising a lot of questions about how technology should be used in school programs, as well as how they should be funded.
Okay, I'll bite. Neither side in the dispute seem to be saying it's about the use of technology so how does it raise questions about how technology is used in school programs? What would be the top 5 questions it raises?
Let it burn. It doesn't matter how altruistic your goals might be, the government there is so corrupt they'll rip it down the second it's not making them rich. The place is a shithole and it's kept that way by the people who run it.
The Bridge Foundation just needs to pay whatever baksheesh the President For Life needs, and life will go on as before.
Uganda win them all!
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
How bizarre. Either
1. Somebody didn't pay their unofficial participation tax.
Or
2. Local resistance to alternative school ahh hahahahaha biting the Kind Hearted in the ass.
It is, of course, #1.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I don't like Uganda. It's CentOS on servers and something Minty on desktops for me.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Of course they are unsafe, and filled with witches, sorcerers, and demons ready to take over the minds of young innocent students. Not to mention the curriculum wasn't specifically approved by the government and might have taught them something like it was bad to cut off the clitoris of a woman, or birth control could prevent STD's.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
The problem is you can shovel all of the money you want into third world countries, but no problems will be solved or even mitigated until you clean out systematic corruption.
In a country that does not truly have rule of law, there is very little you can do to help the people and nothing at all remotely.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That's why we elected Trump!
Education, like any service, is either profitable or it isn't. If you want a service in society to continue to exist, it must be profitable.
Since when did being labeled "guilty" of something by a government ever really mean anything? Maybe Gates and Zuckerberg weren't willing to pay ("bribe") officials their "fair share", so the officials shut down their schools with these bogus claims.
Come on, guys. Show a little independent thinking.
African corruption is as common as weeds.
A shake down by someone looking for a new yacht for Xmas.
Please don't point fingers until you clean up your own country.
Bridge's Uganda director denies the allegations, says the government hasn't even granted them an audience,
So in short, they couldn't get permission, decided to just ignore that and go ahead anyways, and now they're crying?
The mental maturity of a 3-year-old at work.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Wouldn't trust anything Gates is involved in.
Go well
All you cynics have failed to note the generosity of Gates and Zuckerberg. How kind-hearted of them to reach out to underprivileged Ugandans and offer a techno-boost. They understand that poor people around the world need the best education so that they can some day come to America and fill the disastrous shortage of qualified (and ethnically diverse) programmers and engineers. As we used to say "What's good for General Motors (or M$ or FB) is good for America!" Let's give Gates and Zuck a big American salute!
...omphaloskepsis often...
In Africa, nothing ultimately gets done without a bribe. You might be able to get started by focusing international media attention but as soon as the cameras are gone and the news has moved on the same government officials will be back for the bribes they couldn't ask for when the cameras were there. Bill and Mark probably refused to pay bribes and this is the result.
"In a country that does not truly have rule of law, there is very little you can do to help the people and nothing at all remotely."
And your plan is... corrupt the rule of law at that place?
Please note the allegations are "the nursery and primary schools were not licensed, the teachers weren't qualified and that there was no record of its curriculum being approved"
That's quite easy to fact check: they either are licensed, and then there will be a paper track showing it, or they aren't, and then they have no place running an illegal school.
Provided they are not licensed, *then* you can start on why they are not (maybe they are not bribing the right people) but you still can't run a service requiring licenses without them. That *is* the rule of law.
No, this "raises the questions" of competing with the established locals and the proverbial "City Hall".
And, yes, there is not a shadow of doubt in my mind, it involved bribes — expected and/or outright demanded, but not given.
There are some decent countries in Africa — such as, perhaps, Botswana — but their schools are already Ok...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
It may be that they tried to get these things, but soon figured out they'd get nowhere without paying bribes, which while common there, will get you in a lot of hot water back in the states. "Will you pay this bribe or not" isn't exactly rule of law.
What happens in Africa is a template for our political future. Thank you reversion to the mean.
"Will you pay this bribe or not" isn't exactly rule of law."
So, damn the law be, I'll open my mill with or without legal permit isn't exactly rule of law either.
Really why bother.
Agora! Action! Anarchy!
"The maxims of law are these: to live honestly, to hurt no one, to give every one his due."
We only have to look at the track record of academies/charter schools in the UK and US to see how goddam awful the reality of these enterprises is.
... in Sipi Falls, near Mount Elgon. There was a nice computer lab, where adults were learning basic keyboarding and Microsoft Office. I asked what they are going to do with this knowledge? Well, nothing, they said, we don't have enough inexpensive internet out here, and there's no jobs that need computer skills. But it's good to learn things.
I left them some Ubuntu DVDs.