The new Minister of Education in Liberia made a deal with the for-profit Bridge International Academies to supply elementary education. The company’s investors include Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. (NEA is an investment company, not the teachers’ union.)
“The Minister who has been serving the position for less than a year instead of helping to fix has turned to outsourcing reform in the sector to a private institution with negotiations ongoing for the private entity to manage the primary and early childhood education for a period of five years. Bridge Academies which runs education projects in Kenya and Uganda has record of using android mobile phones in providing classroom lessons to pupils.
“Under the Bridge Academies project, the notes and other lectures materials are stored on an android mobile phone and the teachers use the phones to teach, a method where the teacher does not have to be sophisticated to teach. The institution charges US$6 per student per month in Uganda and Kenya as part of its project and also charges other fees for feeding and others. Some in Kenya and Uganda believe that $6 plus other charges by Bridge Academies is a lot of money for the millions in the two countries. In Uganda, many say the amount requires poor Ugandan families with many children to borrow in order to keep all their children in school or to choose which child goes to school.
“Despite charging fees, the World Bank through its sector investment arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) invested US$10 million in Bridge Academies in 2014 in order to increase the number of Bridge schools in the country and expand to three countries including Uganda. The IFC also approved a loan of US$4.1 million to Merryland High School, a private, fee-charging secondary school in Entebbe, Uganda in December 2014.
“Bridge continues to get criticisms from the Governments of both Kenya and Uganda for its method of using Android mobile phones to teach students where most of the teachers used only use what is placed on the phone as Bridge resulted to using teachers who are not qualified to teach since the teaching materials are placed on a phone and the teacher only needs to teach what is available. The entity teaching method is seen in the two countries as discouraging the employment of qualified teachers who will interact with the students while teaching instead of using fixed materials downloaded on a mobile phone.
“Current Education Minister Werner whom many described as reformer, instead of working to revamp the education sector, took off time visiting East Africa mainly Kenya and Uganda where he started negotiations for Bridge to come to Liberia and manage the primary education sector on a private-public partnership program. FrontPageAfrica has gathered that Bridge officials are in Liberia to conclude arrangement for a pilot project of the first 50 schools to begin using the Bridge project beginning school year 2016-17.
“As part of the project the PPP providers will design their programmes (curriculum materials, etc., from April to September 2017 while phase two will rollout contracting out the remaining schools over 5 years, with government exit possible each year dependent on provided performance- September 2017 onwards. Eventually the Ministry of Education is aiming to contract out all primary and early childhood education schools to private providers who meet the required standards over 5 year period. According to the tentative timeline the by February/March 2016 the memorandum of Understanding for the pilot 50 schools will be signed and by September 2016, the first 50 schools launch, with baselines and performance measures.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Education, especially primary/elementary education is a public good and an investment in the future of one’s country. No one should be making a profit from it.
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Horrible!
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And no doubt the oversight of what goes on will be minimal.
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The most telling point is that the “investors” are listed as Bill Gates and Z-berg, NOT THEIR FOUNDATIONS.
Another “investor” is Novastar Ventures, whose website has a link to a “partner”, J. P. Morgan Chase. Omidyar (E-bay founder) Network is an “investor” and, Bill and Karen Ackerman’s Pershing Square Foundation, is an “investor”. The Foundation’s front page has a letter to Warren Buffett stating that the Ackermans join in his giving pledge campaign.
A Buffett- owned company in the U.S. is under scrutiny for its practices in lending, particularly to Black families.
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We should inform our representatives in Congress about Bridge International Academies.
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Why? So they can invest, too?
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Good quip. Like you, I am cynical.
When, the public rises up and makes the politicians answer for their deeds, I don’t want them to be able to say they didn’t know. It will be in the record that they had the knowledge.
The World Bank has been put on notice, by the public, that their promotion of BIA is an affront to the values of the people.
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Ka-CHING 4 the deformers. Gotta make $$$$$ off some poor person’s back.
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Perhaps the post should be re-titled “Liberia Cuts Deal to Outsource Future.”
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I am reading widely these days, and I am seeing the New World Order continue its plans to control the education of the population not just of this nation, but the world. Australia and Canada are under the same assault on PUBLIC EDUCATION as were are.
The enormous profits that attend this move as corporate entities take over the ‘schools’ is NOT the real danger.
It is the insidious way these puppet-masters can control what people world-wide know. Truth and history goes out the window. Orwell is turning over in his grave.
How do we fight BIG BROTHER?
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Big Brother was supposed to be the elected government. That why the U.S. Founding Fathers wrote a Constitution that divided up the power between three branches of govenrment and limited what the government could do to its citizens. The Founding Fathers probably never considered that global corporations like Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc., have more wealth and power than most countries on the planet, and now many of those corporations and billionaire oligarchs, who gained their wealth and power from those corporations, are moving to nullify the U.S. Constitution and strip elected governments of their powers to protect the people.
This is treason and/or sedition that these private sector oligarchs show no fear of.
With for profit, private sector prisons, schools, post offices, VA, medical, military, police, etc. The private sector does not elect their leaders. The people have no voice in the private sector.
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Hello Lloyd. I knew you would weigh in on this, as we both see eye to eye on what is occurring on the larger stage as the cabals takes over. I have read two things today, that offer a ‘take’ on our ‘democracy’.
May I recommend “Doubling Down on Democracy” – The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/doubling-down-on-democracy/379340/
in which I just read the following from a 2014 piece by Michael IGNATIEFF, discussing Francis Fukuyama’s book “Political Order and Political Decay” and his essay “The End of History.”
Odd that this should fall into my hands at this moment in history.
“
Fukuyama provides important context,” says Ignatieff. He reprises a long tradition of historical pessimism—familiar to the Founding Fathers themselves—about the fate of republics. They do not, as Madison warned, always grow and prosper. They can also decay and decline. Fukuyama may be optimistic about democracy, but he wants Americans to wake up and understand that theirs could fail, just as other democracies and republics have failed in the past.”
“The fundamental problem, he argues, lies in the Madisonian machinery of American constitutional law. The Founders’ separation of powers can generate positive outcomes only when political opponents trust one another sufficiently to approve one another’s nominees, support one another’s bills, and practice the grubby but essential arts of political compromise. When the spirit of trust breaks down, the result is not democracy but vetocracy, a term coined by Fukuyama. Too many political players—courts, congressional committees, special interests like the National Rifle Association and the American Medical Association, independent commissions, regulatory authorities—have acquired the power to veto measures; too few have the power to get things done. The dire consequences of the systemic paralysis have become obvious: a democracy that cannot unite to pay down its deficits, rebuild its infrastructure, fund its rising long-term obligations to the aged, or rebuild its tax code to be simple, progressive, and fair”.
Ignatieff continues: “Contemporary American conservatism has no solution to paralysis; “starving the beast” ignores the necessity of capable government regulation for any efficient capitalist economy. The progressive side, Fukuyama argues, is equally at fault: encumbering American government with contradictory and unfunded mandates only reduces public public confidence in the state’s capacity to serve its citizens fairly and efficiently.confidence in the state’s capacity to serve its citizens fairly and efficiently.”
““No one dares suggest that what the country needs is a bit less participation and transparency,” Fukuyama writes, but that is precisely where his thinking leads. Less democracy means fewer veto holders in the system. Though he is not always clear, he seems to have in mind curtailing the power of senators to hold up presidential appointments, reducing the ability of members of Congress to lumber government with unfunded or incoherent mandates, increasing presidential power over independent government commissions and regulatory bodies, and cutting back on court interference and supervision of government bureaucracies.”
Ya think, Fukuyama? LOL! That was 2014. I was reading about the TPP today. in “The Sierra Atlantic.” Seems to me the end of America is nigh!
https://atlantic2.sierraclub.org/content/release-text-confirms-tpp-fears
“Based on our initial analysis of the TPP text, the Sierra Club confirms that the TPP would not only fail to protect our environment, but would threaten our air, water, and climate. We are now entering a critical stage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) fight. President Obama is planning to sign the trade deal in early 2016, after which Congress will be able to vote on this dangerous trade pact.”
It makes my head spin, Lloyd, because I was born in 1941 (and you a few years later) and I remember America and FDR and Truman and Ike and…. public schools around the corner where I went to class with Bernie Sanders, and things worked!
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Did they ever consider the ethical elephant in the room? Is it right to squeeze for profit education dollars from a poor nation and call it “philanthropy?” They probably used their $influence$ on officials to make it happen, just like they do in America.
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Since, Gates and Z-berg are not listing their foundations as the “investors” (see BIA webpage) and, only list their own names, they are probably not calling it philanthropy.
In the U.S., a “philanthropy ” tag was necessary (1) to insinuate standardization into the education market (guarantees a high profit margin) and (2) to avoid conflict of interest charges while infiltrating government departments of education.
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I have written about the Bridge program, with a reply from a USA marketer of Bridge in Africa who though it was a great deal even if the ads never included all of the costs, even if part of the aim is eliminate the responsibility of the nation to provide free public education to all.
But there is much more going on, and here is an early example.
As CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates signed an agreement in 2004 with UNESCO for delivery of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to various regions of the world. You can find the agreement by typing the key words Microsoft + UNESCO.
Then in 2014, Microsoft (Gates no longer CEO of the company) announced its “pledge to the Global Partnership in Education to help member governments transform their education systems and build critical skills for millions of learners.”
These gifts are tax write-offs for Microsoft. They include:
A program called K-12 Digital Access, a digital hub and competitions for schools with significant software discounts, technical expertise, content, measurement and evaluation, and teacher/school leader professional development to schools around the world.”
A Pan African initiative, called Project Badilko (means “change” in Swahili). This project is intended to reach half a million learners and 20,000 educators in 100 digital hubs. Search for current activity with the name of the project.
In addition, Microsoft hopes to “increase literacy by 100 million new readers in the next five years (starting in 2014) with e-book creation, consumption, and assessments, in any language, via the Matuto: Literacy for Life platform, a project coordinated with UNESCO.
Add TV, White Spaces broadband, wherein Microsoft pledges to collaborate with developing country partners, donors, and the private sector to provide free or low-cost broadband to schools, “to enable effective infrastructure for Education Management Information Systems (EMIS)”—the management and allocation of educational resources and providing data on students and teachers, especially those enrolled in on-line courses.
In addition, Microsoft’s YouthSpark program, started in 2012 is touted as “reaching 300 million youth worldwide with education, workforce development, and entrepreneurship skills building” in more than 100 countries. As part of this UNESCO pledge Microsoft is offering “a special package for Microsoft’s IT Academy program, an online training platform which offers everything from core digital literacy curricula to advanced Microsoft business and IT certifications.
The value Microsoft attached to this pledge, $300 million, is targeted to the following countries: Albania, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Georgia, Ghana, Haiti, Honduras, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Moldova, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Rwanda, Senegal, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
This pledge permits Microsoft to write off donations and build customer familiarity and comfort with Microsoft’s products. Details at
://www.globalpartnership.org/docs/replenishment/2014/Pledge-Microsoft-EN.pdf
I have not investigated Apple’s initiatives, or others from Alphabet (Google) and so on, but the neocolonialists, especially in the tech industry are worming their way into the hearts, minds, and cultures of people well beyond the USA. Not surprising, many of the programs offered appear to be politically neutral because they focus on basic skills in reading, math. But technology is the genie, and I doubt if the marketers any buyers are paying much attention to power of technology and social media to reshaping the political landscape.
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Ohmy goodness!
Thanks, Laura for joining the conversation about the Cabal that is taking over, and adding such valuable insight to those of us who follow ‘wiz up,’ here!
I had no idea. I myself, have been writing forever, here and at Oped, about the plan to o end democracy and the middle class, by taking out the schools!
My rant has been”WAKE-UP! IT IS TIME TO STOP talking about what’s wrong with VAM & PARCC and NCLB, , and start telling people about the LEGISLATIVE TAKEOVER…because INCOME INEQUALITY is at stake.
I Post a tOped, every one of Diane’s posts about the legislative assault… and in my comments there are links to other assaults. I have a series at OPED that are taken from this blog,
http://www.opednews.com/author/series/author40790.html
My thrust – forever – has been about the TACTICS and the PROCESS, and how THE EIC moved from the 1ST step (removing the real experienced practitioners and silencing the grunt on the line… the teacher) to the NEXT STEP, evaluation of teachers through invalid tests, and the third step SCHOOL FAILURE. https://greatschoolwars.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/eic-oct_11.pdf
I jumped for joy, when I saw the NPE report card. I remember when I first read that Leonie, Diane and Anthony had formed the NPE> Hmmm, I said!
The NPE provided the COUNTER INFORMATION to that endless bullpen about testing!
I love it… REAL PERFORMANCE STANDARDS…my other constant narrative!
NOW , the CABAL IS ON STEP 4 >>after INVENTING FAILURE they are taking over the schools; instead of funding public education, they are giving our money to private industry, as they did with heath care. THEY MUST BE STOPPED. THIS IS NOT LIBERIA!
But then>> Michigan is a textbook example of the TACTIC —
A GOVERNOR OR LEGISLATURE INTENDING TO TAKE over impoverished community schools ACROSS THE ENTIRE STATE.
Black populations and much of the middle class here have as little chance of obtaining the skills they need, the critical thinking skills needed for any job, in the schools that the EIC provides.
Liberia and Flint Michigan suffer from the same problem, top-down management that is ACCOUNTABLE to NO ONE! And what makes it easy for the EIC, is the fact that there 15,880 systems. NO one knows what the blazes goes on in the schools nearby, let alone in those across the nation! (Which is why the research in which I participated was SO valuable…it was nationwide!)
I am glad that Diane is pointing the finger at the real malefactors. The EIC is no ‘billionaire’s boys ‘club.’ It is a CABAL ! It has a plan and the money of the 1/10th of 1% who believe they OWN THIS NATION, and are out to prove it…while the people are fed bread & circuses (fast food & Trump) and are busy with important stuff like Football, they are undoing THE INSTITUTION of public education, UPON WHICH EVERYTHING STANDS!
SAUDI ARABIA IS NOT THE FIRST OR LAST DICTATORSHIP to ensure that they get the citizens young.
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It’s not American colonialism. It’s the colonialism of oligarchs,
who manipulate the people of their own nations, as well.
The oligarchs operate as corporations, having no allegiance to any nation and no accountability to anyone.
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So Gates and Zuckerberg are ensuring that poor people have to choose between necessities and educating their children, or picking a child of their children? Amazing. How little is enough? $6 per kid to send lessons via telephone to an untrained clerk? Amazing. This is a new low, for each of them. But tell me, its about the kids, right?
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Gates and Zuckerberg “investing” in Liberia to “educate” chidlren is nothing more than a high gloss version of colonislaism to exploit the natives. It’s monetary and cognitive control by two wealthy white techno-industrialists.
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Where and to whom can we speak up against this? Any names, contacts and sites that would be effective?
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This is sad news for Liberia. we do not need to outsource the future of our kids. This is not gong to work in Liberia.
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