Often we get young entrepreneurs with charitable hearts eager to help Africa. Unfortunately, they often forget the basics. Such as a school without quality teachers is simply a building; a classroom without adequate textbooks is merely a room full of children.
These charities erecting buildings make it easy to forget the essential problem – unequal access to quality instruction. I commend their noble ideals but their misunderstanding of the actual problems detracts from creating substantial solutions.
Here are a few ideas to tackle these shortfalls.
1. Online syllabi – this is not a novel idea, in fact there is already an industry waiting in the shadows, hoping it becomes a viable market so they can jump in. While they wait for this major breakthrough, which will be soon giving the advances made in electronic reading devices, they should forge ahead with charity organizations. They should find a way to create curriculum that provides standard equitable education while remaining region sensitive and ensuring local content is adequately taught. I know more about Western history than my African past because the books available were tailored to that.
2. Laptops – the hundred laptops per child is commendable, but their marketing has not been. The way airlines provide the option to erase your carbon footprint at the end of each transaction is the way these guys should collaborate with major computer retailers. This way if you buy a laptop, you can simply add $100 to your transaction and one is sent to a little kid in the developing world. Equally as important, I feel the creation of notebooks is timely in ensuring compact computing units at a cheaper cost. I believe all major makers of computers should look into tailoring this technology adequately because even children in the developed world from poorer neighborhoods also face technological disadvantages.
3. T.I.A – similar to the Teach For America scheme, this Teach In Africa, will bring expatriate graduates home on teaching assignments. Not only does this bring an influx of quality personnel with novel ideas and dynamic methods, it also brings fresh ideas to local problems. Although I feel this should initially be restricted to émigrés and their home countries for the simple sake of building interest and empowerment, it can later be broadened to all those qualified and interested.
If we have all these in place, we have hit at the root of educational pitfalls. The cost of schooling will be greatly reduced as a child can be sponsored with a laptop and download textbooks at no cost. In addition, there will be improved Internet access that creates an avenue of necessary exposure in a rapidly globalizing world.