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Interrogating Gender Divides in Technology for Education and Development: the Case of the One Laptop per Child Project in Ghana

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Abstract

The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project aims to make low-cost computers accessible to the “world’s poorest children,” presuming that the gadgets will support their empowerment via education. The project’s success globally, however, has been mixed at best, with many countries terminating their purchases due to cost, inadequate infrastructure, and negative side effects. In October 2010, Ghana suspended the country’s 3-year participation. This study examines the complex history and failure of OLPC Ghana in two pilot schools, one urban and one rural, with particular attention to gender bias. The analysis draws on interviews with government personnel, students, and teachers in the pilot classes. Despite lacking electric power in the rural community, UNDP’s Millennium Villages Project played a strong support role, making OLPC somewhat more effective with less of a gender divide in the rural school than in the urban school in Accra. Both pilot schools faced severe sustainability challenges raising decade-old questions about modernity and technological determinism. Further, in both schools, particularly the urban school, a digital divide by gender was evident.

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Notes

  1. http://one.laptop.org/about/mission, accessed 16 October 2014.

  2. The OLPC has backed away from insisting on Internet connectivity, as this has proven unrealistic in some settings, as in Ghana.

  3. For data, see ITU (2011, 2013a, b). Recognizing that national and regional comparisons obscure complex social intersections, both household and individual data show that Africa continues to have the both the fewest number and lowest percentage of Internet users compared to other regions.

  4. See http://one.laptop.org/map, accessed 16 October 2014.

  5. See http://www.olpcnews.com/about_olpc_news/goodbye_one_laptop_per_child.html, accessed 16 October 2014.

  6. See http://www.olpcnews.com/people/leadership/news_flash_olpc_association_li.html, accessed 16 October 6, 2014.

  7. See http://gizmodo.com/one-laptop-per-child-isnt-quite-dead-yet-1541430670, accessed 16 October 2014.

  8. See http://blog.laptop.org/tag/zamora-teran-foundation/#.VEA_NLyW-vE, accessed 16 October 2014.

  9. Other empirical studies with findings critical of OLPC include Apiola et al. (2011), Cristia et al. (2012), Kraemer et al. (2009), Nugroho and Lonsdale (2010), and Streicher-Porte et al. (2009).

  10. The lead author made a short documentary on the project (Steeves 2014).

  11. Interview, 13 July, 2011.

  12. Interview 21 July 2009.

  13. Previously the Ministry of Women’s and Children’s Affairs.

  14. Interview 9 March, 2012. See also Steeves (2014).

  15. Interviews referenced below took place in February 2010. The respondents’ names are pseudonyms.

  16. Interview 7 March, 2012. See also Steeves (2014).

  17. Interview with ICT volunteer teacher, Okley Okai Nii Enoch, 9 March 2011.

  18. The ICT teachers were not trained on how to educate the students about Internet use. Instruction generally focused on using social media such as Facebook.

  19. See Pan-African Conference on Inequalities in the Context of Structural Transformation (2014). The Inequality Country Report for Ghana shows significant inequalities in matrilineal as well as patrilineal groups and across rural and urban populations.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Senyo Ofori-Parku and John Yarney, who assisted with the fieldwork for this study. We also are grateful to the teachers and students at the Kanda cluster of schools, particularly Kanda 5; the teachers and students at Bonsaaso Primary; and numerous staff at the Ghana Ministry of Education, Accra, and the Millennium Villages Project of Amansie West District in Ashanti Region, Ghana. We acknowledge funding assistance by the School of Journalism and Communication, University of Oregon, including a David and Nancy Petrone Grant, and by the Center for the Study of Women in Society, University of Oregon. Finally, we thank Erin Beck and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback.

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  1. School of Journalism and Communication, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA

    H. Leslie Steeves

  2. Department of Communication Studies, Furman University, Greenville, SC, USA

    Janet Kwami

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Correspondence to H. Leslie Steeves.

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Leslie Steeves, H., Kwami, J. Interrogating Gender Divides in Technology for Education and Development: the Case of the One Laptop per Child Project in Ghana. St Comp Int Dev 52, 174–192 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12116-017-9245-y

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