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African Teachers Against Privatisation

Teachers from across Africa urged the continental bloc to halt the privatisation of national education systems today.
Unions affiliated to the Education International (EI) federation pressed the African Union (AU) to stop the spread of sordid tin-shack schools funded by the world's richest man.
The EI statement, issued in the Ethiopian capital and seat of the AU Addis Ababa warned: “we are witnessing a shift away from education as a public good,” with “a reduction in education budgets and increased privatisation of education.”
“This is not the Africa we want,” said EI Africa Committee Chair Christian Addai-Poku, referring to the AU's 'Agenda 2063' plan.
“Quality education for the public good is an indispensable condition for the development of our continent and the realisation of the full potential of all its people.”
The teaching unions criticised the rapid growth across the continent of ‘low-cost’ private schools, which they said were “notorious for employing unqualified teachers with low salaries and few labour rights.”
“The rise of ‘low-cost’ school chains run by multinational corporations offers little connection with the culture and rights of citizens,” the unions said, adding that they “operate with inadequate, if any, monitoring or accountability.”
Unsanitary tin shacks
The statement was accompanied by an EI report into education on the continent which singled out for criticism the Nairobi-based but US-funded Bridge International Academies (BIA).
The company, founded in 2008 by three Harvard University graduates, is bankrolled by the world's richest man and Microsoft mogul Bill Gates, along with fellow dotcom billionaires Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Ebay's Pierre Omidyar.
University of Alberta, Canada, researcher Cutis Riep exposed in 2016 how BIA employs unqualified staff to read out rigidly scripted lessons from a tablet computer.
In May of that year BIA took out 'wanted poster'-style adverts in the Ugandan press, accusing Riep of impersonating a member of staff and of trespass.
He was arrested and questioned by police for two days – before being released without charge. BIA justified its actions by insinuating that Riep posed a threat to pupils at its schools.
In August 2016 BIA's chain of 63 schools in Uganda was ordered closed by Education Minister Janet Museveni, after inspectors found they failed to meet basic sanitary standards or follow the national curriculum.
A 2018 High Court ruling stated that BIA schools had “mushroomed in Uganda without any consultation or authorisation from the Ministry” and had only applied for the required license after authorities discovered them.
In February 2017 Kenya's Busia county ordered 10 BIA schools closed, following a court battle, but the firm still runs more than 400 schools in Kenya.
Unaffordable education
Today's EI report also challenges BIA's claim to provide “low-cost” private education to families living on $2 a day or less, saying its fees are still too expensive for most parents to send more than one child to school.
Quoting research by Curtis Riep and his colleagues, along with the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) – a staunch opponent of BIA and school privatisation – it says the firm's advertised fees of $6 per month hide other costs adding up to a real total of $17.25.
That amounts to around half of average Ugandan household income to send two children to school.
Privatising schools “undermines the right of all students to free, quality education and entrenches inequalities, particularly for girls and the socially disadvantaged,” the EI statement said.
Global dominance
BIA also operates in India's Andra Pradesh state and Nigeria, and in 2016 was one of eight firms chosen by Liberia's government for a pilot scheme to privatise the primary education system.
A Liberian government report leaked in 2017 said the programme would not work “with sustainable budgets and staffing levels, and without negative side effects on other schools.”
Gates, Zuckerberg and fellow IT tycoon Michael Dell have funded a similar scheme in the Indian city of Hyderabad – dubbed 'Cyberabad' for its concentration of tech companies.
BIA also lists the World Bank among its “investors” – and has previously received funding from the UK's Department for International Development (DfID).
BIA's methods seem to be catching on in state education too. In his State of the Nation address last week, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the roll-out of digitised “workbooks” on tablets for all schoolchildren.

Ramaphosa was named on Sunday as AU chairman for 2020. It remains to be seen if the bloc will take any concrete action against BIA and other such interventions by billionaire western philanthropists.

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