Global Networks bring Lo-cally Relevant Higher Edu-

cation to Poor Countries

LYNN ILONAPRIL 2012

New Growth Theory

Assumes that ideas are driving force of society’s progress

Knowledge is built through net-works of people

Is cheaply duplicated Can be used by everyone at same

time

Birth of new theory

Knowledge economics Countries grow from ideas World is linked through networks Learning is different than education Knowledge can be built from collective intelli-

gence Expertise is shared Professors are learning organizers

Birth of new theory

Investments in learning (personal, national, global) Infrastructure – access to learning systems Equality – part of backbone of national & global

systems Networks – learn how to build and maintain Learning to learn – major new skill Lifelong learning – continuously refresh knowl-

edge

Internet Cables into Africa

Source: http://manypossibilities.net/african-undersea-cables/

New opportunities give Africa a chance to make use of knowledge revolution

African internet us-age growing at 2000% compared to a global average of 480%

Problems with human capital theory

The Challenge

Bring high quality higher education to poor coun-tries

Quality content means making education relevant to the society and lives of the people

Use knowledge economics to reduce costs of higher education

Use collective adaptive system to build curriculum Use local strengths to build local content and in-

crease development prospects

Old development model

Donor Recipient Country

(resource rich) (needy)

Project management Training needs

Skills Material needs

Knowledge/ Ideas

Money/ material goods

Expertise

New networked model

GKI ZambiaProject manage-

mentIdeas/knowledgeMaterial goods/money needs

ReDI (Korean NGO)

ExpertiseSkills

Training needs (personnel)

Project manage-ment training

needs

Korean Research Foundation/ Ko-

rean GovernmentMoney/material

goodsSeoul National University

Project Manage-ment

ExpertiseIdeas/knowledgeTraining needs (s-

tudent)

“About 86% of the lecturers surveyed indicated that they rarely found materi-als relevant to their information needs. Only 3% of the lecturers said they found the materials needed for their work in the library, whilst 3% indicated they never found anything in the library.” Muyoueta Simui and Christine Kanyengo, (2001), “Financing Of University Libraries In Zambia,” Lusaka, Association Of African Universities.

Resources for building cur-riculum locally and for qual-ity curriculum delivery are a

fundamental constraint to expanding local higher educa-

tion access in Africa

“even the well-read Africanist or sociologist is struck by how little has changed in the field of edu-cational development in Africa since the turn of the twentieth century. Countries throughout Africa are still struggling to find a balance between curricula that are culturally relevant and that prepare stu-dents to participate in larger, global settings. And all over (or under) this problematic issue is the colonial legacy.”Bob White, (1996) “Talk about School: Education and the Colonial Project in French and British Africa, (1860-1960)”. Comparative Education, 32(1):9-25.

African higher ed-ucation has never

been relevant to the local situation and was never de-signed to be rele-

vant

Student analysis becomes new

content

Commu-nity Data

Local doc-uments &

data

Local Expert

Lectures

Local GKI Environ-ment

Disorganized, high quality

global content on the web

Collective/Adap-tive System for

Building Curricu-lum

The proposed col-lective adaptive

system will orga-nize both local and global content into

high quality cur-riculum for deliv-ery in poor coun-

tries

Internet module delivery to GKI

LYNN ILONMARCH 2012