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Open Economies - Webucation In Ghana (Out of Office until8/20) [Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index] Webucation In Ghana (Out of Office until8/20)
I will be out of the office until August 20, 2001. Please e-mail my assistant, Beth Jenkins, at bethj@wri.org if the matter is urgent. Al Hammond >>> "openeconomies@eon.law.harvard.edu" 08/06/01 18:41 >>> Internet News : ISNN:0855-4552 Number 006 June 2001 openeconomies@eon.law.harvard.edu WEBUCATION IN GHANA - WEST AFRICA By Sam Dodoo In recent times, Ghana's Educational system especially the Tertiary sector, has been plagued with crunching headaches which has posed a major challenge and even serious threat to the government. The infrastructure which has been in place for over 40 years has not expanded enough to meet demands of the present generation. The result of these inadequacies are clearly evident in the fact that currently institutions available can cater for only about 20% of the actual number of students qualified to attend tertiary institutions. In an upwardly mobile, fast-changing world, education is becoming a lifelong activity for ambitious people. As webucation spreads beyond business training to the liberal arts and the sciences, you can bet it will become a rich consumer market as well as a rich business market. With its interactivity and multimedia capabilities, the web is by far the most efficient means of delivering this valuable but intangible product. In Ghana we are still struggling to find more money to build more walls. It is a known fact that most students in Ghana are travelling for hours a day for a three-hour tuition. As the old adage goes 'if the mountain won't go to Mohammed, Mohammed will go to the mountain'. It is this regard that Webucation comes in as a total solution to Ghana's educational problems and as a beacon of hope for our generation. Mr. Andrew Rosenfield is Chief Executive of Unext, an educational Web company in the U.S. Rosenfield understands that developing countries desperately need better trained and educated people but can't afford the infrastructure, to say nothing of the teachers required to deliver the necessary knowledge to masses of people. Webucation will be big, but will it be profitable? After all, the public has grown accustomed to getting information for free on the Web. Will it be like so many dot-coms that can produce revenue but not profits? Education is fundamentally different from consumer goods, says Corpedia's Alexander Brigham. It is not a commodity product like the books, shoes, airplane tickets and appliances most dot-coms offer. How is it different? Where most dot-coms compete on price, educators will not necessarily be required to do so. This is especially true for the business education market. 'Corporations do not want 'free' education for their employees,' he says. They want prestige education and quality education and are willing to pay for it. Education will be one of the few parts of the Internet where the more you charge, the greater will be the demand'. But of course you can charge a premium only if you can deliver quality and prestige. That is the challenge facing education on the Web. It has been said that the best online instruction is as good as the best in-class experience. An early player in Web education, Jones International University, launched in 1995 recently crafted custom certificate programs for AT&T Broadband Internet Services and the Ball Corporation Academics from the Wharton School and London School of Economics helped design the courses. An estimated 90,000 courses at U.S colleges and universities are delivered by some form of distance learning. Among the current and prospective operator of virtual classrooms established universities that want to expand their reach without expanding their physical plants. Many are already spun off for-profit Web operations such as Columbia University's Morningside Ventures or NYU online. Shrewd investors like Milken and Allen are getting into education because they think the field could benefit an injection of good management practices and professional applications of multimedia techniques. They see the nets interactivity as a reasonable proxy for a real life classroom. Certainly an imaginative combination of technology and capitalism has the potential much-needed efficiency to education. As education has grown to compete medical care, it has so far resisted all efforts to improve its productivity. Among those who want to help change that is the Washington Post Co., which counts Warren Buffett among its directors and heavy investors. The Post company has long owned Kaplan Inc., a major provider of education and career services. Other big names in Webucation are: Michael Milken, Herbert Allan, Larry Ellison, Warren Buffett, Andrew M. Rosenfield, Merril Lynch, Peter Drucker & Cushing Anderson. We in Ghana welcome this new resource which is poised to alleviate the difficulties in our educational system. Gershon Adzadi IT Manager, Ghana Civil Aviation Authority gershona@hotmail.com _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp _______________________________________________ Openeconomies mailing list Openeconomies@eon.law.harvard.edu http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/openeconomies ________________________________________________ Join the trend! Visit http://EarthTrends.wri.org for up to date, accurate, environmental information.
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