Bring your own Technology? We wish

My colleague recently sent me a link to an article which discussed the merits and demerits of a new trend in the American schooling system, namely, B.Y.O.T – Bring your own Technology or B.Y.O.D. – Bring your own Device. In the article, and following a description of this growing fashion, the author asked if such a trend was positive, given that it might contribute to inequality of access to learning, with students bringing devices with varying degrees of sophistication. When I consider this argument in the African context I can’t help but feel a little exasperated by the precious attitude harbored towards education in other parts of the world. In Africa, or at least in East Africa, there is already gaping inequality in access to education between urban and rural, and between the vast majority of people and the thin wedge of people described as the rising middle class, and between them and the top 1% of elite with access to vast wealth and the best education money can buy - anywhere in the world.

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