Open Economies - Webucation In Ghana (Out ofOfficeuntil8/20) (Out of Office until 8/20)
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Webucation In Ghana (Out ofOfficeuntil8/20) (Out of Office until 8/20)
- Subject: Webucation In Ghana (Out ofOfficeuntil8/20) (Out of Office until 8/20)
- From: openeconomies(at)cyber.law.harvard.edu (Al Hammond)
- Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2001 14:51:37 -0400
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 14:49 >>>
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 14:46 >>>
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
_________________________________________________________________
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