4.3.1 HiWel in Jaipur city: Pacifying Troublemakers?
There are places on Earth, in every country where, for various reasons, good schools cannot be built and good teachers cannot or do not want to go………On top of that, those are the places from where trouble comes…(Mitra, 2010)
In Jaipur city, the capital of the state of Rajasthan, HiWel45 proposed to start 200 playground learning stations/centres (PLCs) through an MoU with the JMC with the aim to target 50,000 children through this project. I visited five PLCs in five locations of Jaipur
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HiWel had one more partnership (24 month duration) with UNICEF and Rajasthan Council for Elementary Education (RCEE) in three districts (Tonk, Jhalawar and Dholpur). This aimed to set up 15 learning stations with two computers each in 15 selected schools in Rajasthan and to demonstrate their impact on the outcomes of elementary education. At the time of data collection (July 2009) these three district partnership project had already ended.
city and interviewed two instructors in two of these locations, the project coordinator, the person in-charge of operations and logistics, the HiWel-NIIT team in Delhi (Interview, HiWel team, Delhi, 2009) and the children using the labs in the field. Children’s use of computers at PLCs was observed and recorded as field notes. I also interviewed the CEO of JMC but he was not very much aware of the HiWel partnership since he had joined only a month ago.46
Information and communication technologies have been promoted to a great extent as a panacea for all development ills. This applies even more in case of REI, where ICTbased partnerships have received strong support. The HiWel logic seems partly to stem from this cure-all approach that has infected the advocates of ICTs in development.
“Jaipur City in Rajasthan has the highest percentage of children in its slums populations among other cities of Rajasthan. The lack of education for this chunk poses a huge challenge in terms of awareness about critical issues such as health sanitation and water conservation. If children are provided access to quality education and are made aware of the critical issues relating to health, sanitation and water conservation, it is very likely that these disadvantaged communities will be transformed in a few short years. In fact, focus on children, and especially the girl47 child, might be the most important agenda for change.” (GoR-HiWel-JMC, 2007)
A cursory reading of the MoU reveals a lack of planned strategy towards defined learning outcomes. In this case for instance, the outcomes are described as ‘likely’ to be achieved. The focus on girls through self learning seems to ignore the larger structural constraints and biases in society which have been widely recognised in development literature as hurdles towards equity in gender participation. A defined intention or a qualified implementation strategy seems to be missing in the HiWel project. Was REI then an `innovative experiment’ where the outcomes were left under the care of probability and
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The CEO did not know at the time of the interview that JMC has five schools under its administration in the Municipal area. On his advice I tried to contact the Divisional Head Quarter Commissioner. Since the session of the legislative assembly was on, she was reportedly away from the office during my three visits and several phone-calls.
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Whilst the project MoU highlights the gap in enrolment rates of boys and girls: 10.71% in 2005-06, this however comes out as an incidental statement in the MoU because the HiWel project was never launched as a gender project. In fact, at least at one of the HiWel
good luck? Is this not too shaky an idea of development promoted as it was by IT companies and the GoR? The claim that self learning will lead to planned outcomes is quite paradoxical.
The HiWel MoU document says ‘it is very likely that these disadvantaged communities will be transformed in a few short years’ but fails to answer the question — transformed into what? There is no evidence in development literature that disadvantaged communities transform or change on their own. Structural disadvantages do not reduce without planned interventions. This programme had no strategic plan beyond experimentation, to make any sustained attempt towards this end. Nor is there any independent evaluation of this programme which can confirm that HiWel is indeed a coherent, sustainable, reliable experiment that was successful in achieving planned learning outcomes without planned interventions in a developing country context.
4.3.2 Fee and Costs
HiWel PLC is the only partnership amongst the various partnerships signed under REI where the partner organisation i.e., HiWel has quoted a consultancy fee to be paid by the GoR.48 This partnership could thus be seen as the first instance of a private for-profit company led experiment being partially funded with public money. This is different from other state funded support for innovations and experiments which focus on teaching and learning according to the context of the children and for building capacities of teachers without fee payments.
Fees and cost-sharing of this partnership project are clearly outlined in the MoU document. HiWel had proposed 200 learning stations in their partnership with JMC. For
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In the UNICEF supported partnership UNICEF had provided the computers and also paid the quarterly fee to RCEE to be paid to HiWel. Besides, UNICEF also paid towards professional fees for implementation and power management unit. RCEE contribution was payment towards civil construction for the stations (2,250,00.00 INR) and Remote monitoring system: HiWel proprietary software (81,000.00 INR).
HiWel the project deliverables involved providing equipment, hardware and software, tamper proof accessories, remote monitoring system software, learning content in Hindi, data management software and services e.g. implementation of enclosure, provision of electricity and internet (see Appendix 1 to Chapter 6), the responsibility of funding and execution for the electricity and internet is with the JMC but HiWel had included the implementation of these as part of their project deliverable; implementation of hardware software and accessories, monitoring and evaluation, learning interventions; maintenance of all enclosures, equipment, hardware and software. However the learning outcomes are not listed in this list of deliverables.
Four hundred units of hardware, software and related accessories for the project were funded by a third party (Michael and Susan Dell Foundation). The remote monitoring system software (Application log, URL log, Screen shot grabber, data analyzer and viewer) were also funded by a third party. The learning content (life skills related to health, sanitation and water conservation) was funded by JMC as also the data management software (field data collection, data availability for community, portal for community). JMC was also responsible for the construction of PLC enclosures.
The project aimed to benefit 50,000 children with 250 children per PLC (two computers for 250 children!) with total funding requirement of 4,48,30,000 INR (996,222 USD)49 for the three-year project. This translates to 1,49,43,333.33 INR (332,074 USD) per annum for 200 locations (see Appendix 1 to Chapter 6) or 74,716.66 INR (1660 USD) per location consisting of two computers. According to the HiWel MoU the cost per child is estimated to be 900 INR (20 USD) per year. JMC’s share of funding the project was 1,79,46,000 INR (approx. 398,800 USD). Rest of the funds towards hardware and software (1,30,24,000 INR i.e., approx. 289,422 USD) and research (1,38,60,000 INR i.e., approx. 308,000 USD) were provided by Michael and Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF). However,
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despite funding more than 50% towards the project, MSDF was not a signatory of the MoU.