Technological Transfer and Democratization of Education in Africa: Reflections on the Educational Television in Côte d’Ivoire

Abstract

At the historical threshold of African countries’ independence, the stakeholders of education subscribed to the idea of its critical importance for development. At the 1961 Addis Ababa Conference on “the development of education in Africa,” African states adopted a resolution to achieve universal primary enrollment, working towards increased access to secondary and expansion of the higher education by 1980. Countries across the continent adopted their respective national policies toward their common goal. In the case of Côte d’Ivoire, a highly publicized educational television program was adopted in the early 1970s. This program was conceived as an effective technological innovation for the implementation of the common goal. Despite the confidence of the Ivorian policymakers and the solid international support for this educational television program, ten years after the beginning of the first experimental schools, the program was discontinued. However, it left behind heavy debt acquired through loans obtained to pay for the imported technology and the labor of the consultants and technical assistants who designed and ran the program. Even more important, the program produced a new generation and category of primary school graduates and early school leavers with a different learning experience. The thrust of this presentation is to analyze this educational innovation, with a focus on the potential benefits and perverse effects of technology in its application to education. ​