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Executive Summary

New global corporate actors increasingly see the provision of education in the global South as an

untapped, emergent market. As more and more functions of the state are efectively outsourced

to the private sector, including the provision of education and other public services, state capacity

and the will to deliver has steadily declined. As a result, generally accepted claims of poor state

quality and deficiencies have increasingly opened-up ‘market opportunities’ for private for-profit

actors, including transnational corporations, to fill the ‘governance gap’ in education (see Ball, 2012;

Bhanji, 2008). For their part, global corporate actors develop and implement market-based ‘solu-

tions’ meant to work towards solving development challenges, such as universal access to educa-

tion, while at the same time laying claim to new forms of moral and social responsibility in order to

legitimate their profit-oriented ventures. Proclaiming the mission of ‘Knowledge for all’ as its driving

force, Bridge International Academies (BIA) has quickly become one of the largest education com-

panies in the world with plans to educate 10,000,000 children throughout Africa and Asia by 2025

(BIA, 2016f)—and do so profitably.

This study investigates the operations of Bridge International Academies in Uganda where it has

established 63 private for-profit schools, since February 2015, with an estimated 12,000 fee-paying

customers. Bridge International Academies aims ‘to be the global leader in providing education to

families who live on USD2 a day per person or less’ (BIA, 2016f)—and thus, challenging the long-

held belief that governments, rather than corporations, should be responsible for delivering mass

education. According to Bridge International Academies, 800 million primary and nursery aged

pupils living in poverty around the world lack access to quality education, representing a previously

‘undiscovered’ USD64 billion market for low-cost schooling (BIA, n.d). Bridge International Acade-

mies, however, has devised a business model to tap into this immense market. It involves leveraging

technology and data, including internet-enabled tablet e-readers and smartphones, to automate

instructional and non-instructional activities involved in education service delivery – reflecting strict

standardisations and cost-eficiency measures – designed to drive down costs and scale-up servi-

ces rapidly. Yet, the findings of this research reveal that innovations implicated in this model for

schooling the poor, profitably, also involve serious deprivations for teachers and learners.

In investigating the operations of Bridge International Academies in Uganda, this research has

found that the company’s profit-driven, cost-cutting, standardised, and internet-based approach

to education delivery involves a number of critical shortcomings. These include the (1) neglect of

legal and educational standards established by the Government of Uganda regarding the use of

certified teachers, accredited curriculum, appropriate teaching methods, adequate school facili-

ties, and proper authorisation of schools, essentially infringing upon the integrity and sovereignty

of the education system in Uganda; (2) strict automation and mechanisation of all curriculum and

pedagogy, involving scripted instructions readout from tablet computers (or ‘teacher-computers’)

by predominantly unlicensed and underpaid teachers, which obstruct the very teacher-pupil rela-

tions that are conducive to learning and child development; and (3) failure to bring afordable, qua-

lity education for all as the company claims. Hence, this research provides a cautionary case study

for policy makers, administrators, investors, teachers, parents, civil society, and the international

community at large, for understanding what is at stake when new global corporate actors aim at

schooling the world’s poor, profitably.

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Acknowledgements

This research was made possible through funding provided by Education International (EI). It

is based on research interviews conducted in Uganda with senior oficials in the Ministry of

Education and Sports (MoES), District Education Oficers, and District Inspectors of Schools as

well as teachers and managers at Bridge International Academies (BIA) and parents of pupils

enrolled in these schools. This research is indebted to the collaboration of these research par-

ticipants who were generous in sharing their time, knowledge, and experiences. Curtis Riep is

particularly grateful for the assistance given by the Uganda National Teachers’ Union (UNATU)

as well as the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER) for their support while conduc-

ting field research in Uganda. Riep would also like to express his sincere appreciation for the

support and solidarity received from a number of organisations following events related to this

research, including EI, Member Organisations of EI, too many to mention, from around the glo-

be, Consulate of Canada to Uganda, ActionAid, Global Campaign for Education (GCE) and the

Right to Education Project (RTE), as well as many other colleagues and individuals, too many to

thank individually. Truly, thank you all. Lastly, the authors of this research would like to express

gratitude to their families and loved ones for all they do for us.

Biographies

Curtis Riep is a PhD student in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University

of Alberta. His research interests involve the interdisciplinary study of global political economy

and privatisations in education with a specific focus on the growth of multinational education

corporations and their operations in various contexts. He has studied extensively the growth of

for-profit chains of low-cost private schools, including in-depth studies of such in Ghana and

the Philippines.

Mark Machacek is a PhD candidate at Simon Fraser University in the Department of Political

Science. His current research focuses on the global political economy of refugee policy and

its undergoing processes of liberalisation and decentralisation. He has studied extensively in

the areas of international relations and comparative politics with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa

and development.

URU, Alm.del - 2016-17 - Bilag 216: Henvendelse af 12. juni 2017 fra Danmarks Lærerforening om Bridge International Academys arbejde i Kenya og Uganda

Table of contents

Introduction

Understanding Bridge in Uganda: The private sphere, the state,

and the political economy of education

Backing Bridge: transnational investors, networks, and capital

Schooling the poor profitably: Innovations & Deprivations

‘Teacher-computers’ and their (dis)contents

Closing remarks, closing Bridge

Epilogue

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1. Introduction

Just about every program that is designed for someone else, instead of with them, fails.

Shannon May, co-founder of Bridge International Academies

Bridge is doing this behind our backs.

Senior Oficial, Ministry of Education and Sports, Republic of Uganda

Bridge International Academies (BIA) is an education company designed for schooling the

world’s poor, profitably. It is a for-profit enterprise that plans ‘...to be the global leader in pro-

viding education to families who live on USD2 a day per person or less’ (BIA, 2016f)—and thus,

challenging the long-held belief that governments, rather than corporations, should be respon-

sible for delivering mass education programs. The company has ‘...re-engineered the entire li-

fecycle of basic education, leveraging data, technology, and scale’ to cut costs and expand its

commercial education program to as many low-income communities as possible, with planned

profitable returns for its major investors (BIA, 2016f). The first Bridge International Academy

opened in 2009 in the Mukuru slum in Nairobi, Kenya. Currently, Bridge International Acade-

mies (also referred to as ‘Bridge’) operates more than 520 for-profit schools throughout Ken-

ya (405), Uganda (63), Liberia (50)

, Nigeria (4), and India (4), serving approximately 120,000

pre-primary and primary aged school children. Proclaiming the mission of ‘Knowledge for all’

as its driving force, Bridge has announced plans to educate 10,000,000 children across a num-

ber of countries by 2025 (BIA, 2016f). However, as this research reveals,

Bridge’s for-profit approach to education may actually

be undermining the accessibility of

quality

education

for all, while infringing upon the sovereignty of states

in the global South.

Bridge International Academies is a subsidiary company of NewGlobe Schools, Inc. founded

in Delaware, U.S. by Jay Kimmelman (founder and former CEO of Edusoft, a leading education

software company, who studied Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Harvard Uni-

versity), his wife Shannon May (a University of California, Berkeley trained anthropologist), and

Phil Frei (a successful product designer who studied Mechanical Engineering at Massachusetts

Institute of Technology). Linking up in Boston, the three entrepreneurs ‘...wondered why no one

was thinking about schools in developing countries the way Starbucks thought about cofee’

(BIA, 2013, p. 2). That was, as a product that could be mass-produced and sold in high-volu-

mes, while maintaining the exact same standards and qualities across a multinational chain of

suppliers. Thus, the founders of Bridge created a business plan for schooling the masses living

in developing countries—known as the ‘Academy-in-a-Box’ model—which is based on standar-

dised practices and methods that can be copied and duplicated across various contexts while

simultaneously shedding costs associated with mass educational provisions (BIA, 2016f).

Buchanan (n.d.).

Interview.

http://www.bridgeinternationalacademies.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Fact-sheet-Partnership-Schools-for-Liberia-and-Bridge.pdf

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Bridge’s ‘academy-in-a-box’ model is designed to be replicable and scalable; it is the ‘proprie-

tary heart’ of the company (Kirchgasler, 2016, p. 8). It involves a ‘vertically-integrated system’

(BIA, 2016f) in which the entire supply-chain is controlled and streamlined by Bridge—from

academy construction to content development to teacher training to the minute-by-minute

instructions that guide teacher-student interaction—it is pre-made for scaling-up. All instruc-

tional and non-instructional activities involved in running each educational establishment are

standardised and automated using internet-enabled devices that represent the

modus ope-

randi

of Bridge (BIA, 2016c; 2016f). For instance, teachers use tablet computers, referred to as

‘teacher-computers‘

, to deliver scripted instructions prepared by a central academic team,

while ‘Academy Managers’ – the single administrative employee at each Bridge school – use

smartphones with custom applications to manage the day-to-day operations of each academy.

Bridge has leveraged technology to drive down the costs it takes to operate an education

system, resulting in a radically standardised and mechanised form of provision. In doing so,

the company claims to reduce school fees to a price-point deemed ‘afordable’ for the masses

living in poverty (BIA, 2013, 2016f, 2016f; Interviews). Hence, the business model developed

by Bridge for educating the poor is premised on afordability and scalability. By lowering the

cost of its services and scaling-up rapidly, Bridge aims to benefit from economies of scale and

reach profitable returns. The findings of this research, however, suggest that this model is more

skewed towards profitability and scalability than afordable, quality education for all.

Two distinct ‘market opportunities’ have been identified by Bridge that involve schooling the

world’s poor, profitably: ‘one previously undiscovered, and one previously non-existent’ (BIA,

n.d.). The first relates to the ‘...800 million primary and nursery aged pupils living on less than

USD2 per person per day [that] lack access to quality schools’ whom according to Bridge,

spend an average of USD80 per year on education, resulting in a USD64 billion parent paid

market (BIA, n.d.). Bridge aims to tap into this market by establishing private storefront schools

in low-income communities—as it has in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and India—in order to sell

basic education services directly to fee-paying customers. Tapping into ‘previously undiscove-

red’ education markets represents a form of unilateral intervention since Bridge enters coun-

tries on its own accord and with its own agenda to advance its enterprise. The second market

opportunity identified by Bridge involves a USD179 billion publically funded charter school

market for low-income countries (BIA, n.d.). This is exemplified by the Liberian Partnership for

Schools program, a public-private partnership, in which Bridge has been contracted by the

Liberian government to operate charter schools that are publically funded. It is the ‘...first lar-

ge-scale publically-funded, privately operated model in Africa’ (BIA, n.d.). The company claims

it can manage large-scale systems like charter school programs because it has ‘...proved the

ability for a private operator to operate at government-budget price points and scale’ (BIA,

n.d.). By leveraging technology to cut costs and deliver basic education at lower price-points,

Bridge aims to tap into these ‘previously undiscovered’ and ‘non-existent’ markets for schoo-

ling in developing countries.

With Bridge’s unique edu-business model growing at an unprecedented scale, this study is

guided by the following questions: How does Bridge operate—educationally, commercially,

and politically? And, who ‘wins’ and who ‘loses’ as a result of this for-profit education venture?

In turn, four interlocking issues related to Bridge comprise the key topics of this study. They

include:

Although not explicitly described as such by the firm in any of its public documentation, this research revealed that employees of

Bridge commonly refer to tablet computers used by Bridge teachers as ‘teacher-computers’.

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an edu-business model that leverages new forms of technology and data utilised for

instructional (i.e. teaching) and non-instructional activities (i.e. school management),

including internet-enabled computer devices integrated with information and commu-

nications technology (ICT) that are designed to drive down costs and scale-up services rapidly;

transformations of governance as non-state and for-profit actors like Bridge, and their

donors, participate in new forms of moral and political responsibility usually associated

with the state, yet on a for-profit basis;

misplaced claims of afordability, quality, and accessibility; and

pedagogical and curricular efects of teacher-computers that involve scripted instruc-

tions readout by primarily uncertified and low-paid teachers using tablets.

Methodologically, this research makes use of a qualitative, mixed-method case study approach

for understanding Bridge (Berg 2001; Brady and Collier, 2010; Gerring, 2007). This approach

involves a case study on the operations of Bridge

in Uganda

to examine how the company

functions—educationally, commercially, and politically in this context. Primary data was collec-

ted through in-country field research in Uganda from May 13 to June 2, 2016. Over the course

of this period, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a range of actors, including

teachers (18 participants) and Academy Managers (7) from Bridge, Senior Oficials in the Minis-

try of Education and Sports (4), District Education Oficer (1) and District Inspectors of Schools

(4) as well as parents of pupils attending Bridge (6), totaling 40 research participants

. All

interviews were performed after informed consent. A moderate number of Bridge’s pre- and

primary schools (8) were examined to ensure ‘representativeness’ and ‘internal validity’ of the

findings across the chain of schools (Brady & Collier, 2010; Gerring, 2007)

. To avoid case

selection bias, the Bridge schools analysed here are spread across a mixed sample of five dis-

tricts in Central and Eastern Regions of Uganda (Wakiso, Buikwe, Jinja, Mayuage, and Iganga)

and representing populations in both ‘urban slums’ and ‘peri-urban’ communities. Observa-

tions of in-class instruction were also carried out in real-time. This dual method approach of

interviewing and observation was done to maximise validity through triangulating data collec-

tion methods (Berg, 2001; Schwartz-Shea, 2006). Furthermore, this research program involved

extensive desk-based research that included discourse and content analysis from secondary

sources including company and investor websites, brochures, press kits, marketing booklets,

media articles and on-line interviews with founders of the company. A review of literature from

secondary research related to the topic was also conducted.

In April of 2016, a month prior to this research, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of

Education and Sports (MoES) addressed a letter to the National Director of Bridge in Uganda

instructing Bridge to ‘halt the expansion’ of its operations in the country (MoES 2016b). Upon

arrival in Uganda, the first interview was at the MoES with a Senior Oficial in order to unders-

tand the perspective of the Ministry regarding the operations of Bridge as well as to inform

and seek endorsement to carry out this research program. Ministry oficials were in support

of this research since concerns had been raised regarding the legality of Bridge’s operations

according to the Education Act (2008) of Uganda (GoU, 2008). Hence, this field research began

at a time when Bridge was under increasing pressure from the MoES in Uganda for concerns related to

the setup and procedures of this private for-profit education firm.

The participant response rate was 100%. All questions were cooperatively answered by all participants.

In some cases, Bridge’s academies were closed for holidays during the time of visit (although with employees still on-site). However,

a number were still operating as normal, conducting remedial lessons. For the purposes of this research, this was an advantage

since teachers and Academy Managers could ofer more time to share in the research.

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This paper is divided into four main sections. First, it surveys the enduring legacy of the private

sphere in Uganda’s education system and the influence of (neo-)colonialism and neoliberalism

in Uganda – and their subsequent efects on the political economy of education – in order to

understand the current role played by Bridge in the country’s education sector. Second, the

transnational network of commercial investors, donors, and philanthropic organisations suppl-

ying Bridge with the private capital and equity necessary to scale-up rapidly will be outlined,

demonstrating how global capital, linked to business and charity, are steering new privatisa-

tion projects in education in the global South. Third, the business model developed by Bridge

for educating the masses living in poverty will be examined in relation to ‘innovations’ (i.e.

new technologies, techniques, and methods of schooling) and ‘deprivations’ (i.e. that which

is lacking, deficient, and absent from this new mode of service delivery). Fourth, the use of

‘teacher-computers’ will be examined in greater detail to critically understand the pedagogical

foundations and curricular content implicated in this method of instruction. In the conclusion,

some reflections on the current state of afairs related to the operations of Bridge in Uganda,

along with implications for other states (potentially) encountering Bridge, will be discussed.

In the analysis of the Bridge model in Uganda, this research unveils the critical contradictions

in Bridge’s approach to schooling the poor profitably. While Bridge purports to provide ‘afor-

dable’ and quality education to reach the goal of ‘Knowledge for all’, in practice it provides

educational services that are inaccessible to the most marginalised, of quality below national

standards, and driven solely by profit. This study finds that Bridge has continued to conduct

operations while lacking the legal and educational licencing and monitoring requirements,

ultimately infringing on Uganda’s sovereignty. As the following quote from a Senior Oficial in

the Ministry of Education and Sports aptly summarises:

Bridge International Academies came and did a presentation for some of us in the

Ministry to introduce us to what they do. We liked their presentation – it was quite

rosy. But the condition was they don’t expand before we visit their schools as a

committee. Unfortunately, we came to understand at the time of the presentation

that Bridge had already opened 25 schools in the country. As we talk today there

are now 63 schools they have opened without us going to see what they are first

providing. And out of all the 63 schools, as a department here, we have not seen

any of their schools applying for a license. They have not. A cross-section we have

seen of their schools, none of them meet the Basic Requirements and Minimum

Standards, which were designed by this Ministry. The curriculum they are using

has never been approved by the National Curriculum Development Centre. And

not all of the teachers they are using are qualified or registered teachers, as they

are supposed to be...If they see any gaps in our system, their job is not to come

and implement what they think is right. They should come and discuss with the

Ministry accordingly and not just implement what they think without us knowing.

They have no right to do that. This is a sovereign state. (Interview)

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2. Understanding Bridge in Uganda:

The private sphere, the state and

the political economy of education

Within less than one year of entering the country, Bridge has become the largest private, for-pro-

fit education company in Uganda. Yet quite concerningly, as this research demonstrates,

Bridge has operated with substantial disregard for

the country’s educational standards and established

a majority of its schools outside of the required legal

processes

for recognition and monitoring by the Ugandan government. How do we understand this rapid

and extensive growth of Bridge in Uganda, despite its record of disregard for educational and

legal standards? Answering this question requires a historical analysis of Uganda’s political

economy of education which reveals two specific processes that facilitated the emergence

and rapid expansion of for-profit education companies, like Bridge, and helped them operate

largely unhindered by the Ugandan state (at least initially). In particular, the interconnected

processes of liberalisation and globalisation – throughout the global and local levels of analysis

– help to understand Bridge in Uganda. This historical political economy analysis demonstrates

how Uganda, while seeking to protect its post-independence (educational) sovereignty from

the influence of other states, simultaneously opened itself up to the influence of global capital

and the global education industry driven by for-profit education companies such as Bridge.

The current state of Uganda’s education system is best understood historically with a focus on

the roles played by the private sphere and the state in education provisions and governance.

Private education in Uganda dates back to the pre-colonial, pre-state period where traditional

education was taught by the family and community through day-to-day social and economic

activities. Even when a formal, Western-based education system was first introduced by British

missionaries in 1877 – by invitation from Kabaka Muteesa I – education provisions were solely

a private afair. The British, and later French, missionaries worked closely with the Buganda

Kingdom’s political elites to provide highly religious and denominational education that was

financed through a user fee payment system. This wholly private education system extended

into the colonial period where the British Protectorate government delayed its involvement in

providing and governing education

. This delay continued until the British colonial authorities

enrolled the American-based Phelps-Stokes Commission to examine the state of education in

East Africa in 1924. The Commission strongly recommended the Protectorate governments’

involvement in the colonial education system and resulted in the establishment of Uganda’s

first Department of Education (Ssekamwa, 2000).

This is largely due to the Protectorate governments’ capacity being stretched at the time by an insuficient taxation base and their

military operations fighting rebellions in both the Bunyoro and Buganda kingdoms (Ssekamwa, 2000).

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Throughout the colonial period both private and colonial-based education was crafted in ways

meant to serve the interests of the private providers and colonial authorities. Like most African

colonies, Uganda’s colonial education system was based around providing functionaries

among the Uganda elites for the colonial administration and building the Ugandan economy

around exporting primary products to serve British economic interests (MoES, 1999; Uchen-

du, 1979). The British and French missionaries similarly sought to educate toward their own

agendas, often competing politically for influence in Uganda’s education provisions. Although

education became increasingly seen as a function of the (colonial) state, private missionary

educationalists sought to protect the politically and socially influential role played in educating

the populations (Ssekamwa, 2000). It is apparent that, in the enduring interactions for influen-

ce between the private and state spheres in education, education in Uganda became a central

site for social control and private gain for some education providers.

It was during the same period in which the colonial government first involved itself in educa-

tion when the first private

for-profit

schools began to emerge in Uganda. Like the current jus-

tifications professed by Bridge to legitimise their for-profit education provisions, these initial

for-profit schools were predicated on ‘filling the gap’ left by poor state-based education (BIA,

2013; Ssekamwa, 2000, p. 101). Also similar to the current situation with Bridge, these initial

for-profit schools often operated under poor conditions, lacking qualified teachers, suficient

infrastructure and afordable user fees (Namukas & Buye, 2009; Ssekamwa, 2000). Under the

1927 Education Ordinance these schools were required to register themselves with the colonial

authorities for recognised legal status. Yet despite the colonial governments’ increased invol-

vement in education provisions and governance, the Department of Education had no com-

prehensive policy towards private for-profit schools and a limited regulatory capacity to ensure

suficient educational standards (Namukas & Buye, 2009; Ssekamwa, 2000). The nature of

the relationship between the Ugandan state and the private sphere changed with the 1952 de

Bunsen Education Committee which oficially recommended the inclusion of private schools

to supplement state-based education provisions. This relationship was maintained through

Uganda’s independence in 1962.

The immediate post-colonial period in Uganda was characterised by the promotion of an ‘African

identity’ in contradistinction to the ideas promoted by the colonial system, especially within the

education sector. The newly independent governments’ desire to become

fully

independent

from external state influence resulted in the 1963 Education Act that brought all missionary

schools under the control of the Ugandan state. However, other forms of private schools, in-

cluding the for-profit sector, were left fully independent (Ssekamwa, 2000). Following the 1963

Castle Education Commission, the independence government further re-aligned the educa-

tion system away from colonial influence, focusing on producing educated and skilled Africans

for the independent African economy rather than as colonial subjects (Ssekamwa, 2000). The

commission was a general re-claiming of the education sector, replacing the colonial educa-

tion system that was operating under the 1952 de Bunsen Committee. Although it did not seek

to critically reconceptualise the nature of education, like some Africanists had promoted, the

Ugandan government re-fashioned the formal colonial style of education towards its own inte-

rests. However, as the Ugandan government explicitly promoted political sovereignty from co-

lonial influence, it simultaneously began exposing itself to the influence of the external private

economic spheres, including the for-profit education sector. The subsequent 1970 Education

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Act went further with its active promotion of the private sphere in education by instituting

school registration procedures that streamlined the establishment of private schools (Na-

mukas & Buye, 2009; Ssekamwa, 2000; Wood, 2008).

The 1990’s represent a critical juncture for the emergence and flourishing of the for-profit

education sector in Uganda. The decade witnessed a period of exponential growth of the pri-

vate sector largely as a result of two further processes that were occurring in Uganda and

throughout the global political economy: economic liberalisation and globalisation. The ideas

of economic liberalisation in this period, often referred to as neoliberalism, were based on the

assumptions of market supremacy and state failure in market governance and prescribed free

and open markets – with little to no state intervention – as the model of economic develop-

ment. These ideas were promoted by the world’s leading development assistance and loan

actors – the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and major Western donors – in the

form of loan conditionalities tied to assistance funds. Such conditionalities were expressed wi-

thin the IMF and World Bank’s structural adjustment programs that required developing states

to drastically liberalise their economies through policies involving privatisation, deregulation,

and drastic reductions in state expenditures, which were mandatory in order to receive donor

funding (Abrahamsen, 2000; Ferguson, 2006; Gill, 1995). Uganda signed on to such an ad-

justment package with the IMF and World Bank following the National Resistance Movements’

overthrow of the Obote government in 1986. In an almost instantaneous fashion, Uganda pro-

ceeded on a strategy of decentralisation

and privatisation of government services, including

within the education sector

. The private sector, rather than the state, was henceforth made

the engine of economic development. The Ugandan state’s role was greatly minimised, crea-

ting the conditions conducive for external investment and providing minimal public services,

often including cost-sharing, user fee methods of funding (Kuteesa et al, 2009). As a percen-

tage of GDP, the government reduced its total expenditures on education from 5.1% in 1988

to 2.46% in 2000 (World Bank, 2016). Where the immediate post-independence period was

characterised by Uganda re-claiming its education system, the 1990’s were characterised by

a retreat of the Ugandan state with private and for-profit actors increasingly playing a role in

education provisions.

Concurrent with the global processes of economic liberalisation, both the idea of education as

a commodity and Uganda as an education market were undergoing processes of globalisation.

At the global level the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) in 1994 included and re-

configured education as a tradable commodity, facilitating the growth of a multi trillion-dollar

global education industry (Ball, 2012; Robertson 2003; Verger & Steiner-Khamsi, 2016). Since

the GATS, Uganda has been actively promoting private investment in the education sector.

Other globalisation processes also helped facilitate the increased involvement of the for-profit

sector in education provisions. Global calls for ‘Education for All’ (1990) strongly promoted

universal access to education, with Uganda taking the lead in Africa in declaring Universal

Primary Education (UPE) in 1997. The government’s UPE policy sparked an unprecedented and

massive influx of new students with enrolment increasing by 58% in the policy’s first year of

implementation (MoES, 1999). This rapid expansion stretched the state’s capacity to provide

quality education for all, further perpetuating the arguments employed by the for-profit sector,

including Bridge, that the expansion of such schools is therefore necessary to reach UPE (BIA,

2016; Higgins & Rwanyange, 2005).

Uganda’s decentralisationvstrategy consists of five hierarchical levels of Local Council administration. Education was relegated to

the District Council (LC5) level. Decentralization was undertaken in education to ensure equal access across regions and improve

accountability (Namukas & Buye, 2009; Wood, 2008). Decentralization was supported by the IMF and World Bank with the intent of

increasing cost eficiencies and decreasing central government spending (Kuteesa et al, 2010).

The adjustment programs adopted by Uganda were further manifested in the new government’s recognition of private providers

as supplementary to public provisions in 1993. This directly followed the line of the Government White Paper on Education (1992), a

document ideologically influenced by the IMF and World Bank (ISER, 2016).

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Throughout and following the liberalisation and globalisation processes, the Ugandan go-

vernment had undertaken further neoliberal-based initiatives in the education sector that

assisted in embedding the private and for-profit spheres and reduced the role of the state in

service provisions. To help meet the commitment of UPE, Uganda established the Education

Strategic Investment Plan (ESIP) (1998-2003) and its follow-up Education Sector Strategic

Plan (ESSP) (2004-2015) to oversee the coordination of private investment actors in the now

swelling, and largely underfunded, primary school sector. The Education Sector Consultative

Committee (ESCC) – comprised of government representatives, donors, and private sector

actors – is charged with overseeing ESSP and is an arena in which wide-ranging education

policy directions and frameworks are constructed and administered. Other, similar commit-

tee-like structures composed of government and non-governmental representatives and the

for-profit sphere – such as the Basic Education Working Group of which Bridge has been a

member – put eforts into framing national education policy. The Ugandan government con-

tinued this cooperative relationship with the private sector when it embarked on a large-sca-

le Public Private Partnership (PPP) approach following the government’s commitment to

Universal Secondary Education and subsequent growth of enrolment in secondary schools.

The PPP program commits the government to contractual relationships with the private and

low-fee for-profit education providers to supplement government provisions (MoES, 2016).

PPP provisions have quickly grown in scale, with 45% of secondary education students now

enrolled in 879 PPP-provided schools (ISER, 2016)

. Hence, Bridge seeks out market-orien-

ted contexts in which the political economy of education, as it is in Uganda, is malleable to

scaling for-profit experimentations.

In the analysis of Bridge in Uganda a final essential dynamic to consider is state or institutio-

nal capacity. The Education Standards Agency was created in 2001 with the mandate of mo-

nitoring the licensing and quality of private schools. However, the agency lacks a significant

amount of capacity for monitoring and enforcement, largely attributed to the insuficient

funding it receives for its operations and the preceding structural adjustment programs that

encouraged austerity in government service provisions (Wood, 2008, p. 270). The inability

of the government to keep up with the monitoring of the for-profit sector’s rapid expansion,

combined with the processes of further liberalisation and globalisation, created the context

for Bridge to establish itself in the country and spread at the unprecedented rate at which it

has since February of 2015. By 2013 about 1.4 million primary school aged children, or 16.2%,

were enrolled in private schools (MoES, 2013). In total, enrolment in primary education has

increased exponentially since the 1990’s with approximately 8.3 million pupils and a net en-

rolment rate of 93.65% in 2013 (UNESCO, 2014). This enrollment boom, combined with the

1990’s cuts to government involvement in education, set the stage for the private sphere

to take a greater role in education. At the same time, a context was established for compa-

nies like Bridge to operate in an unobstructed and unaccountable manner with disregard for

Uganda’s legal processes, educational standards, and ultimately, state sovereignty. Bridge’s

operations, however, could not have started without the support of its notable investors.

Similar to the findings of this inquiry, recent research is finding that the PPP approach may be infringing on human rights in regards

to accessing education (ISER, 2016).

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3. Backing Bridge: Transnational

investors, networks, and capital

As more and more functions of the state are efectively ‘outsourced’ to the private sphere including

non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and for-profit contractors in the global South, state capa-

city has steadily declined (Abrahamsen, 2000; Ferguson, 2006). In turn,

global capital and investment has increasingly

been funneled into non-state actors to deliver

public services and responsibilities typically

associated with the state, such as education,

in view of generally accepted claims of poor state quality and eficiencies associated with the pri-

vate sector. In spaces created by state retrenchment new ‘market opportunities’ have opened for

transnational corporations to help fill the ‘governance gap’ (Bhanji, 2008; BIA, n.d.). In turn, for-profit

corporations like Bridge have benefited immensely from these new governance arrangements and

patterns of economic investment: with more than USD100 million currently invested in the com-

pany, Bridge has the financial backing to rapidly expand its for-profit education services in contexts

that agree with its enterprising mission or not.

In 2008, the Clinton Global Initiative made an USD8 million investment into Bridge over two years,

involving financial commitments from Deutsche Bank America’s Foundation, Grey Ghost Ventures

and the Kellogg Foundation. That momentum continued in 2009 when the Omidyar Network, es-

tablished by Pierre Omidyar (billionaire founder of eBay) invested USD1.8 million into the for-profit

education company. Omidyar Network describes itself as ‘...a philanthropic investment firm dedica-

ted to harnessing the power of markets to help people improve their lives’ (Omidyar, 2016). Beyond

leading its initial investments, the Omidyar Network has participated in successive rounds of invest-

ment in 2010 and 2012. However, the total amount invested in Bridge by Omidyar is undisclosed.

The investment firm states that:

Bridge International Academies is an attractive investment opportunity to Omidyar Ne-

twork because it is a compelling example of a high-impact, scalable, and entrepreneu-

rial solution that addresses one of the most urgent demands of the developing world:

low-cost access to quality education. Bridge demonstrates how for-profit innovation can

drive social change by employing a unique business model that can be easily replicated

in other emerging markets. (GIIN, 2016)

Omidyar has said its investments in Bridge will ‘...support the company’s aggressive expansion in

Kenya and beyond’ (Omidyar, 2016).

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Beyond these initial investors, Bridge has attracted private equity investments from entrepreneurs

involved in the growing educational technology (‘Ed-Tech’) industry, including Bill Gates and Mark

Zuckerberg. Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft as well as a prolific philanthropist, invested in Brid-

ge because he saw ‘...innovation in the approach and wanted to support it personally’ rather than

through his non-profit charity, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (Stevis & Clark, 13 March 2015).

The founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, invested USD10 million in Bridge through Zuckerberg

Education Ventures, which is a for-profit investment arm that has invested millions of dollars in a

number of ed-tech companies. It is listed as a limited liability company (LLC) and not a charitable

foundation, which allows it to invest in for-profit companies, make political donations, and engage in

partisan political campaigns or lobbying eforts (Cam, 5 May 2016). Zuckerberg Education Ventures

was drawn to ‘Bridge’s innovative business model and technology’ which is advertised to investors

as a model that can improve learning outcomes in developing countries, while providing profitable

returns to investors (Bridge, n.d.; Zuckerberg Education Ventures, 16 March 2015).

Pearson PLC, the largest education conglomerate in the world, has also invested private equity into

Bridge. Pearson is a market-maker, enabler, and leader in advancing the growth of low-fee private

for-profit schooling throughout Africa and Asia. In 2012, Pearson established the Pearson Afordable

Learning Fund (PALF), which is a ‘for-profit investment fund’ that ‘...makes significant minority equity

investments in for-profit companies to meet the growing demand for afordable education across

the developing world’ (PALF, 2016). Before the launch of PALF, Pearson invested in Bridge in 2010

via Learn Capital, which is a U.S. based venture capital firm focusing on ed-tech startups. Pearson

is the largest limited partner of Learn Capital and Learn Capital is the largest shareholder of Bridge

with a 15% stake in the company.

New Enterprise Associates (NEA), ‘...one of the world’s largest venture capital firms with over USD13

billion in committed capital’ is another major investor in Bridge (Sakoda, 13 November 2012). Jon

Sakoda, a partner at NEA, claims that:

Today’s education crisis calls for more than politics and policy changes, but for

revitalization and re-imagination of our education system for the 21st century. At

New Enterprise Associates (NEA), we see a unique opportunity to invest in entre-

preneurship and technology in this education crisis and believe that now is the

time for our industry to step up and do its part…We see amazing opportunity in

this education crisis. And, after all, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

(Sakoda, 13 November 2012)

Furthermore, NEA suggests that ‘...low-cost bandwidth around the world has made it possible

for anyone with an Internet connection to pursue a world-class education’ (Sakoda, 13 Novem-

ber 2012)—which efectively articulates the Bridge model of internet-based education adverti-

sed as ‘world-class education’ (BIA, 2016f).

Bridge has attracted further investment from national governments in the United Kingdom

and United States. The U.S. government has provided capital to Bridge in the form of a USD10

million long-term loan made by the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC).

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The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the U.S. Government’s

development finance institution, mobilises private capital to help solve critical

development challenges and in doing so, advances U.S. foreign policy. Because

OPIC works with the U.S. private sector, it helps U.S. businesses gain footholds in

emerging markets, catalysing revenues, jobs and growth opportunities both at

home and abroad. OPIC achieves its mission by providing investors with finan-

cing, political risk insurance, and support for private equity funds. (OPIC, 2016)

By investing in U.S. businesses, such as Bridge, that aim to tackle global ‘development challen-

ges’, OPIC aims to advance American economic and political interests abroad.

The British government has provided both financial and technical assistance to Bridge. In 2012,

the U.K.’s Department for International Development (DFID) established a new Impact Fund – a

13-year project worth £75 million – to ‘...invest in enterprises which serve the poor as con-

sumers, suppliers or employees’ (CDC, 7 June 2016). The Impact Fund is managed by CDC,

which is ‘DFID’s principal mechanism for leveraging private sector investment in poor coun-

tries’ (DFID, n.d., p. 20). The first investment made by DFID’s Impact Fund was a £15 million in-

vestment in Novastar, which in turn was used to invest in Bridge. According to DFID, ‘Novastar

seeks to develop fully commercial businesses that adapt and deploy innovative business mo-

dels to profitably serve proven demand for basic goods and services’ (DFID, 2016). In January,

2014 it was announced that CDC would provide an additional USD6 million equity investment

to support the expansion of Bridge in other viable markets in Africa (CDC, 21 January 2014). The

UK investments in Bridge have also raised concerns about the use of public taxpayer money

to subsidise the operations of private corporations that aim to profit from the privatisation of

basic services sold to the world’s poor (Curtis, 2015).

Aside from the for-profit private sphere and governmental bodies investing in Bridge, the

world’s leading international financial and development assistance institutions have taken an

interest. Congruent with the World Bank’s history of promoting the private sphere in educa-

tional provisions, in January 2014 the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) an-

nounced a USD10 million investment into Bridge (IFC, 2016). According to the IFC, ‘...the capi-

tal will be used to expand the network of schools in Kenya and enter 3 new markets’ including

Uganda (IFC, 2016). In addition to providing long term capital investment, the IFC and World

Bank ‘...can use its reach and experience in emerging markets to assist the company in analy-

sing expansion targets, selecting appropriate markets and supporting market entry’ as well as

‘navigating regulations and government policies in new markets’ (IFC, 2016). The co-founder

of Bridge, Shannon May, said the firm partnered with the IFC and World Bank ‘...because it can

play a large role in engaging government leadership in discussing issues that are key to our

business’ (Kayser et al., 2014 p. 51). The World Bank, therefore, uses both its economic and

political capital to help meet the interests of Bridge.

Bridge has received equity from a host of other private investment firms as well. Khosla Ventu-

res, one such equity provider, seeks to invest in ‘...large problems that are amenable to techno-

logy solutions’ (Khosla, 2016). LGT Impact Ventures, a venture philanthropist firm, has provided

Bridge with an initial investment of USD200,000 (LGT, 2016). Bridge has also received equity

from PanAfrican Investments, an investment company in the U.S. focusing on business oppor-

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tunities in sub-Saharan Africa. Rethink Education, an investment firm providing equity to bu-

siness ventures that aim to remake education through technology, as well as Pershing Square

Foundation, a private foundation investing in social enterprises, are two other major investors

supporting the growth of Bridge through capital financing (BIA, 2016b).

Bridge is backed by an interconnected, yet multifaceted, network of venture capitalists, entre-

preneurs, philanthropic foundations, international financial institutions, and government agen-

cies; representing an ensemble of actors with jointly aligned interests and activities. These

shared interests and initiatives have awarded Bridge the financial and political capital to profit

from the provisions of social goods. Bridge, and the actors that constitute it, represent and

participate in a form of ‘philanthrocapitalism’ (Edwards, 2008). This particular form of ‘philan-

thropy’ involves business logics and strategic capital investments, coupled with new forms

of ‘giving’ or ‘social impact’ pursuits, that provide access into new for-profit markets and the

commercialisation of essential services in the global South—a model considered by these ac-

tors to be the basis for social change and development. As DFID claims, companies like Bridge

are meant to ‘...generate and measure both a social and a financial return’ (DFID, 2016). In

the process, distinctions between philanthropy and business, commerce and charity, beco-

me increasingly blurred, resulting in education corporations like Bridge ‘...taking on the moral

responsibilities normally associated with the state’ (Mundy et al., 2016, p. 541). Hence, Bridge

is assuming the moral responsibility of bringing basic education services to those living in po-

verty, whether it is desired and requested or not, on a mercantile and for-profit basis.

4. Schooling the poor profitably:

Innovations & Deprivations

Populations living in poverty in the global South are

increasingly seen by multinational firms as new

sources of revenue that provide an immense, yet

largely untapped, market opportunity.

By creating ‘pro-poor’ markets that target the masses living on less than USD2 per day, firms

aim to expand the reach (and presumed benefits) of global capitalist markets into new geogra-

phies, communities, and sectors of life. In doing so, corporate actors purport to ‘do good’, whi-

le doing good financially, by establishing new forms of ‘inclusive capitalism’ (Prahalad & Hart,

2002, p. 1). From this perspective, profitable markets oriented towards social impacts are seen

as the ‘solution’ to challenges in the global South, such as a lack of quality education for all.

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For their part, Bridge claims that 800 million primary and nursery aged pupils living on less

than USD2 per day sufer from ‘...a huge gap between the education ofered and the needs of

the population’ (BIA, 2013, p. 4). However, according to Bridge, families living in poverty spend

on average USD80 per year on education for their children—representing a USD64 billion pa-

rent paid market (BIA, n.d.). For Bridge, this is a discernable and viable market opportunity

previously left undiscovered.

Prior to Bridge International Academies, no one had put together a viable bu-

siness model that demonstrated that educating the world’s largest market was

possible.

Bridge International Academies was founded from day one on the premise of

this massive market opportunity, knowing that to achieve success, we would

need to achieve a scale never before seen in education, and at a speed that

makes most people dizzy. (BIA, 2016f)

By scaling-up services rapidly and selling basic education as a commodity to millions of chil-

dren throughout Africa and Asia, Bridge aims to tap into this ‘massive market opportunity’.

Bridge, therefore, epitomises a type of business strategy referred to as ‘the fortune at the

bottom of the pyramid’ (Prahalad & Hammond, 2002; Prahalad & Hart, 2002). ‘Bottom of the

Pyramid’ (BoP) strategies aim to create markets that capture the population on the lowest (and

largest) end of the socioeconomic pyramid. However, firms like Bridge wishing to tap into the

BoP require a business model based on rapidly developing economies of scale, which in turn,

can lower the costs of goods and/or services to a price-point deemed ‘afordable’ for the mas-

ses living in poverty. As Bridge co-founder Shannon May clarifies:

If you want to serve the truly poor, families living below the poverty line, you

have to come up with a service at a very low price-point that’s actually accessi-

ble. That also means you’re going to have to have a very large business – a very

big volume – so that it can work. (WISE Channel [Interviewer] and Shannon May

[Interviewee], 17 July 2014)

Such economies of scale require a highly standardised model that runs on optimal eficiency

and cost-efectiveness. In turn, Bridge has developed a mass education service delivery model

based on standardisations that are designed to reduce costs, referred to as the ‘Academy-

in-a-Box’ model. This model has re-engineered the whole lifecycle of basic education, using

real-time data, technology, and rapid operational expansion to drive down costs and reach

scalability (BIA, 2016f).

Broadband technology is essential to the academy-in-a-box model developed by Bridge. Sim-

ply understood as internet-enabled ICT, broadband technology is utilised by Bridge to inte-

grate a systematised and standardised model made up of smartphones and tablet computers,

equipped with customised mobile applications and internet connectivity, which enable tea-

chers and administrators to perform all matters related to instruction, operations, and manage-

ment. Instructional activities (e.g. curriculum, pedagogy, lessons) as well as non-instructional

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activities (e.g. admissions, accountancy, administration) are enacted through computer devi-

ces connected to broadband internet. Hence, internet-enabled devices are used to run the ‘en-

tire company from start to finish’ including all aspects related to teaching, tracking and asses-

sing pupils, communicating with parents, collecting fees, and the management and evaluation

of each academy (BIA, 2013, p. 11). For example, on the instructional side, pre-programmed

curriculum is centrally developed by Bridge at headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts and

Nairobi, Kenya, and sent electronically to each school site using web-enabled smartphones

that transfer curriculum to tablet e-readers

, also referred to as ‘teacher-computers’ (which

are further discussed in the next section), that distribute knowledge and information to pupi-

ls. As one Academy Manager from Bridge described, the ‘...scripted content is sent through

smartphones and then synched with the teacher-computers each day so teachers can read the

lessons in class’ (Interview). Within this new model of learning students do not have access to

a computer or the internet in class, but rather internet-enabled devices are used to transmit

scripted lessons readout by teachers to the students. Bridge’s use of broadband technology is

meant to reduce operating costs and facilitate rapid expansion in order to reach more custo-

mers at the bottom of the pyramid.

Figure 1:

Systematic Representation of Bridge International Academies

Source: Kayser, O., L. Klarsfeld, and S. Brossard. (2014, September). The Broadband Efect: Enhancing Market-based Solutions for the

Base of the Pyramid. Inter-American Development Bank.

According to Bridge, broadband technology used to support instructors has eliminated the

need for professionally trained and certified teachers. Yet, the absence of certified teachers

and presence of new technologies in Bridge’s model reflects a corporate strategy that is con-

cerned less with innovation and quality in education and more about cutting costs and increa-

sing rates of profitability. Since teachers are the most capital-intensive aspect of any education

system, Bridge is able to drastically reduce operating costs and benefit from economies of

scale by employing unqualified teachers and paying them severely low wages. One Academy

Manager explained:

Tablets used by Bridge are produced by Nook Media LLC, a subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, which shares some major investors with

Bridge, including Bill Gates and Pearson.

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Teachers at Bridge are facilitators because the content is prepared and they are

just there to read it to the pupils, following the script 100%. And it’s emphasised

that scripts are followed 100%. So at Bridge it is not mandatory that teachers be

licensed. (Interview)

‘Learning facilitators,’ as Bridge refers to its teachers, only require the equivalent of a Senior 4

level education and fluency in English. Based on consultations with Bridge teachers and Aca-

demy Managers this researcher found that, of 8 Bridge academies in Uganda, 80-90% of its

teachers (or ‘learning facilitators’) are indeed unlicensed. This employment of uncertified and

unlicensed ‘teachers’ is an infringement on Uganda’s educational and legal standards.

Similar to nearly all developing and developed states who have formally recognized require-

ments for teacher registration and licencing, the Education Act (2008) of Uganda states that:

‘No person shall teach in any public or private school of any description unless he or she is re-

gistered as a teacher or licensed to teach under this Act’ (GoU, 2008, p. 17). As a senior oficial

at the Ministry of Education explained, regarding the operations of Bridge:

If there is a school which is using teachers who are not professional teachers, who

are not trained teachers and they are teaching our children, then they are doing it

illegally… A teacher should be qualified and registered by the Ministry. If he or she

is not, then that teacher is illegal to stand in any class and the owners of the school

stand a very big risk if such a person ever made a mistake with any child. (Interview)

By hiring unlicensed and unregistered teachers – a clear violation of the Education Act in Ugan-

da – Bridge is able to drastically reduce operating costs by paying its frontline employees

severely low wages. According to research participants, monthly salaries provided to Bridge

teachers in Uganda range from Ush 130,000 (or USD39) at the nursery and lower primary le-

vels up to Ush 180,000 (or USD54) at the upper primary levels. By comparison, public primary

school teachers who are on the

lowest

end of the pay scale receive at least Ush 279,000 (or

USD84) per month (Nalugo, 6 August 2014). At this rate, teachers at Bridge receive the equiva-

lent of approximately Ush 6,000 (USD1.80) to Ush 8,600 (USD2.50) per day for their services –

essentially making them a part of the bottom of the pyramid market in which Bridge professes

to serve.

Bridge’s particularly low teacher pay rates are afecting the very livelihoods of its teachers.

Many of the Bridge teachers that participated in this research expressed the daily struggles of

providing for themselves and their families. One Bridge teacher complained that:

The salary they are giving us is very little. Remember we are in an urban area. We

rent and everything is costly. When you compare the money we are getting, you

find we cannot even manage to buy a pair of trousers. (Interview)

Similarly, another Bridge teacher stated:

According to standards of living here, our salaries are not enough. We receive

no accommodation. Some of us have responsibilities and other people we are

responsible for but with the pay they are giving us we are finding it very dificult

to sustain ourselves. (Interview)

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Subsequently, a number of Academy Mangers that participated in this research pointed out

that the turnover rate for teachers at Bridge schools is ‘very high’ (Interview).

Teachers at Bridge schools also lack the employee benefits that registered and licensed tea-

chers receive in the public school system

. This lack of basic benefits, such as healthcare,

supplements the financial strain already felt by Bridge teachers. One such teacher summarised

the situation:

When you are sick, teachers are not insured. So first we go to a pharmacy to see

if maybe we can find some medicine that can help because maybe you can’t

aford to go to the hospital because our salary is so low. (Interview)

Furthermore, Bridge employees lack any form of job security. According to one teacher:

We don’t have job security. They can even terminate you over a simple matter. If

someone calls ‘customer care’ in Kenya about a teacher, those people can termi-

nate you very easily. For Bridge, they say ‘better we loose a teacher, than loose

a pupil.’ (Interview)

Hence, the work of teachers is valued significantly less by Bridge than most education provi-

ders, since the role of the teacher has been efectively replaced by new forms of technology.

Interviews with Bridge teachers also revealed that the company undertakes additional measu-

res to cut back on teacher costs while also securing free labour. Such measures include a re-

fusal to pay teachers for certain extracurricular responsibilities. As one Bridge teacher shared:

We also do community outreach during the holidays but we are not paid. It is

a form of marketing they make us do. We go ahead and emphasise to parents

that they must send their pupils to us; so we talk about the benefits of the child

studying at Bridge. But we don’t get paid to do that. (Interview)

In this particular instance, a Bridge teacher was unpaid for essentially advertising (or what

Bridge refers to as ‘community outreach’) the company to the community. Using teachers as

unpaid advertisers, combined with their remarkably low pay and lack of employee benefits,

is a clear case of exploitation of labour in the global South, but premised as making a social

impact. For these reasons, as some research participants indicated, there have been cases of

resistance demonstrated by Bridge teachers in Uganda in the form of teacher strikes (Inter-

views).

Beyond the work of teachers, Bridge also uses technology to automate the non-instructional

activities of Academy Managers through internet-enabled devices and ICT. These activities

include, for example, academy administration, payroll management, and academy monitoring.

As stated by the company:

The only employee benefit provided to Bridge teachers is the ability to enroll one of the teachers’ children at a Bridge school at no

cost.

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Using technology and data, Bridge drives enormous eficiencies both in terms

of the overhead costs required to run an academy and in terms of increasing

the quality of the output. For example, at the academy level, a Bridge Interna-

tional Academy has only one employee involved in management – the Academy

Manager. The vast majority of non-instructional activities that an Academy Ma-

nager would normally have to deal with (billing, payments, expense manage-

ment, payroll processing, prospective admissions, and more) are all automated

and centralised through a combination of our Academy Manager’s smartphone

application and our Teachers’ tablet application, all interconnected to a custom

backend ERP [enterprise resource planning system]. (BIA, 2016f)

A Bridge Academy Manager in Uganda further explained that ‘...all school operations are run

using a smartphone’ (Interview [emphasis added]). Smartphones are used by Academy Mana-

gers to admit new students, track student performance, monitor teachers, manage finances,

and collect school fees through custom mobile applications, which are set-up to automate

each administrative task (BIA, 2016e). For example, Bridge uses a mobile money system (known

as M-Pesa) that allows parents to pay school fees by transferring money via text message. Aca-

demy Managers can then use smartphones to:

…instantly track students who have not yet paid school fees. It shows who has

paid and who has not. I can then call parents directly with a simple tap of the

phone, which has all of the parent’s contact information on it, so I can tell them

to pay for their child’s school fees (Academy Manager, Interview).

Hence, all teaching and managerial components of Bridge’s schooling services are automa-

ted, mechanised, and systematised. As Jay Kimmelman, a co-founder of Bridge claims: ‘We’ve

systematised every aspect of how you run a school. How you manage it. How you interact with

parents. How you teach. How you check on school managers, and how you support them’

(Olopade, 12 November 2013). Although technological innovation can be used to reduce admi-

nistrative burdens, it opens up new issues and dangers regarding data security, confidentiality,

and social control.

The physical structures that make up each academy-in-a-box are not nearly as innovative as

the technology put in place for instructional and managerial activities. The cheap and rapid

construction of Bridge schools results in school buildings that often do not meet the Basic

Requirements and Minimum Standards established by the MoES. One Academy Manager ex-

pressed that:

The structures they set up are a problem. We have lost many good parents be-

cause of the poor structures. There is no security. They should modernise the

facilities like they do with the technology…The money they use to buy these

computers can be used to buy bricks to build proper walls. (Interview)

All classrooms and ofices are made of bricks up to window level and the rest of the building,

including the roof, are assembled using iron sheets. Wire mesh is used in place of windows

and school bags hang from nails hammered into wooden poles outside each classroom. One

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Academy Manager at Bridge referred to these facilities as ‘chicken-coops for kids’ (Interview).

Yet, despite these poor conditions, Bridge brands itself as ‘International’; implying and also

explicitly marketing the idea of high, ‘world-class’ standards (BIA, 2016f). In regards to Bridge,

a District Inspector of Schools in Uganda explained that:

When you look at the nature of the structures, they are uniform but very, very

simple. But they have written on them ‘International’. And people here know

something ‘international’ must be something fantastic, something wonderful!

But now people are saying: ‘are these really international schools?’ Because our

schools are even better than them. So what type of international school is this?

Its not international standards because, in fact, they are actually below our na-

tional standards. So that word ‘International’ they are using is a problem. It has

caused a lot of question marks and people are having a lot of doubts. (Interview)

The physical appearance of each Bridge classroom represents not only the standardised aca-

demy-in-a-box model but also the profit motivation behind cutting costs in relation to school

construction.

Figure 2:

A typical Bridge International Academy classroom in Eastern, Uganda.

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Figure 3:

Bridge International Academy, 6-classroom structure in Eastern, Uganda.

Cost-cutting techniques employed by Bridge are purportedly designed to make the company’s

educational services ‘afordable’ for youth in Uganda living in poverty. Although fees charged

by Bridge can vary slightly from one branch to another, the table below shows the typical costs

a customer in Uganda would expect to pay.

Table 1:

Fees (in USh) for Bridge International Academies in Uganda

Nursery

Admision fee

Anual fees (3 terms per year)

Compulsory uniform fees

(expected to be 15% of total

revenue)

Optional lunch services per

year

(contracted to outside

vendors but potential for 10%

revenue share)

Total fees paid annually

(including lunch costs)

(excluding lunch costs)

10,000

250,500

26,000(girls)

24,000 (boys)

150,000

Primary 1, 2, 3

10,000

286,200

37,000 (girls)

40,000 (boys)

150,000

Primary 4, 5

10,000

315,900

37,000 (girls)

40,000 (boys)

150,000

435,500 / USD129

285,500 / USD84

484,700 / USD143

334,700 / USD99

514,400 / USD152

364,000 / USD108

Source:

Data retrieved and compiled based on visits at Bridge Academy locations in Uganda.

Calculations do not include hidden costs associated with Bridge’s mobile money payment system. Parents with children attending Bri-

dge who participated in this research commonly complained that: ‘Paying in instalments through mobile money is very expensive be-

cause every time we pay Bridge with mobile money we are also charged extra fees to do that.’ The cost to make a mobile payment va-

ries but a conservative estimate is USh500 per transaction. It is common for parents of Bridge pupils to make 15 to 30 pay instalments

over the course of the year using mobile money, resulting in additional costs ranging from USh7,500 to 15,000 (US$2.20 to 4.40).

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At these rates, for-profit services sold by Bridge are neither afordable nor accessible for the

most economically disadvantaged pupils in Uganda. For example, in the Eastern Region where

one-third (21 out of 63) of Bridge’s academies in the country are located, the average annual

household income (in terms of real income) is USh1.872 million (Uganda Bureau of Statistics,

2014). In turn, families in these communities with an average household income would have

to expend approximately 23 – 27% (including lunch) or 15 – 19% (excluding lunch) of their ear-

nings just to send one (1) child to a Bridge school for one year. On average, however, house-

holds in Uganda classified as ‘poor’ consist of 6.1 persons, which suggests that these families

have multiple children to send to school. In turn, households with two (2) children, for example,

would have to expend 46 – 55% (including lunch) or 30 – 39% (excluding lunch) of their total

household income on school fees at Bridge. Therefore, the claim that Bridge provides schoo-

ling that is afordable for all learners is misplaced given that its basic education services are not

afordable for households with an average income, let alone those most afected by poverty.

User fees charged by Bridge undoubtedly act as a barrier to its claim that it is bringing ‘knowle-

dge for all’ to impoverished populations ‘...regardless of their family’s income’ (BIA, 2016f).

A Uganda child of low class cannot aford what Bridge is charging. The majority

of pupils not going to school in Uganda are those who are not able to aford to

pay for any type of schooling. So any intervener who would like to provide edu-

cation to the low class cannot charge a fee. (MoES oficial, Interview)

Multiple studies have indicated that user fees are an obstruction to the achievement of the

global mandate of ‘Education for All’ (Klees, 2008; Tomasevski, 2003). This was largely re-

cognised over a decade ago when many user-fee policies were largely overturned across the

global South, leading to massive increases in school enrolment (including in Uganda) (Watkins,

2000). Acknowledging these findings, United Nations bodies have repeatedly condemned the

application of user fees and for-profit approaches for universalising access to basic education.

As the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, Kishore Singh, has announced that:

The costs associated with private schools are exacerbating inequality in socie-

ties as poor and marginalised groups are often excluded from going to them…

The state is both guarantor and regulator of education which is a fundamental

human right and a noble cause. Provision of basic education free of costs is not

only a core obligation of states, it is also a moral imperative. (UN, 27 October

2014)

The charging of user fees by Bridge and other low-fee for-profit education providers, therefore,

obstructs eforts meant to universalise access to quality education, while also exacerbating in-

equality in societies. As the findings of this research have shown, user fees charged by Bridge

are not afordable for the populations they purport to be serving.

Many students that enrol into a Bridge school are forced to leave if school and exam fees are

not paid on time in full. One parent with a child enrolled at Bridge explained that:

…when we get money we send her to school. But when we have no money she

has to stay at home because we can’t pay the school fees. We don’t have money

right now so she hasn’t been in school for weeks. (Interview)

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Fees, therefore, are the primary reason identified by Academy Managers, teachers, and pa-

rents for high student dropout rates at Bridge (Interviews). Based on a cross sample of Bridge

Academies in Uganda, dropout rates can range from as low as 10% and as high as 60%. As

one Academy Manager explained: ‘Initially, I had 215 pupils enrolled but they went on drop-

ping because of school fees. So after they dropped we were left with 128 that sat for exams’

(Interview). Hence, fee-paying forms of commercialised learning for the poor involve a distinct

and obvious structural inequity: user fees, which deny access to those already marginalised

by poverty.

New technologies and innovations that constitute the academy-in-a-box model aim to drive

down costs, facilitate rapid expansion, and produce ‘world-class’ education that is claimed

to be afordable, and hence, accessible for

all

children living in poverty (BIA, 2016a; 2016d;

2016e). However, the commercial model of education rolled-out by Bridge also involves con-

tradictions and deprivations for both employees and clients. Pupils living in poverty are expec-

ted to pay unafordable fees to receive an education – with lessons developed from outside of

their cultural context – from poorly paid and, oftentimes, uncertified teachers. Furthermore,

the use of tablet e-readers for delivering scripted lessons to students strictly limit teacher-pu-

pil interaction, to the detriment of the child’s development, within sub-standard learning envi-

ronments marketed as ‘International.’

5. ‘Teacher-computers’ and their

(dis)contents

As described in the previous section, Bridge has made use of internet-enabled devices to

re-engineer how basic education is delivered to the bottom of the pyramid. This particular

strategy is based on the use of ‘teacher-computers’ that link up tablet computers with low-

paid, and oftentimes underqualified, individuals that together transmit scripted instructions

to pupils.

Teacher-computers represent not only the company’s

most ‘innovative’ and entrepreneurial effort towards

education standardisation, calibration, and economies

of scale, but also the most problematic, given that it has

fundamentally altered the nature and practice of edu-

cation itself.

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This section will look more closely at the use of teacher-computers and their implications on

curriculum, pedagogy, and teacher-pupil interaction. In doing so, the focus is on the educatio-

nal experience of teachers and learners at Bridge.

Teacher-computers represent the device, the instrument, the tool, ‘the thing’ that delivers

knowledge and instruction – in some form or another – to Bridge pupils. All curricular acti-

vities and processes related to instruction are developed by Bridge in Boston and Nairobi ‘...

by the world’s leading education experts’ (BIA, 2016e) which, in turn, are encoded, packaged,

and distributed to pupils using internet-enabled devices (i.e. the teacher-computers). As the

company claims:

On the instructional side, Bridge invests in hiring world leaders in education to

develop comprehensive teacher guidelines and training programs. Again, be-

cause of our highly eficient delivery mechanism (marrying talented individuals

from each community with technology, scripted instruction, rigorous training,

and data-driven oversight), Bridge is able to bring some of the world’s greatest

instruction and pedagogical thinking into every classroom in every village and

slum in the world (BIA, 2016b).

Every aspect of the curriculum is developed by Bridge outside of Uganda, yet the company

claims that content is ‘based on government standards’ in terms of ‘scope and sequence’ (BIA,

2016e). It is standardised and converted into scripted lessons that are sent electronically to

computer devices, across social and political borders into the Ugandan context, where it is rea-

dout to the class using tablet e-readers, or teacher-computers. These scripted lessons include

‘...step-by-step instructions explaining what teachers should do and say during any given mo-

ment of a class’ (BIA, 2016e). Bridge, therefore, defines ‘world-class’ education as scripted ins-

tructions designed in Boston and recited word-for-word to children across sub-Saharan Africa.

Teacher-computers are integral apparatuses within this service delivery model that instruct tea-

chers what to say, what to do, what to teach, and how to teach it. As one Bridge teacher shared

‘...teacher-computers are our basic support; they are what make us teachers at Bridge. So wi-

thout them there is nothing like a teacher at Bridge’ (Interview). Bridge’s model of instruction

that is deeply reliant on teacher-computers has rendered pedagogy automated, mechanised,

and computerised. As another teacher at Bridge explained: ‘We just click and teach the pupils.

Tap here and teach the pupils. Just like that, following the scripts’ (Interview). Below are exam-

ples of scripted lessons delivered by and through teacher-computers.

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Scripted curriculum delivered by teacher-computers is distinctly rigid and controlled. It re-

sembles a formula for ‘teaching’ based on technical-reductionism in which every moment and

activity related to instruction is pre-programmed, paced, sequenced, and fixed according to

the scripture of the tablet. As illustrated in the examples above, data-enabled devices instruct

teachers when to ‘Pause’ when to ‘Circulate for 30 seconds’ when to ‘Rub the board’ and when

to tell pupils to ‘Close your textbooks.’ A Senior Oficial in the MoES expressed serious concern

with the teaching methods employed by Bridge, stating that:

A problem arises when that modern approach of teaching using the computer

is designed to say when to clean the blackboard, when to stand up, when to sit

down: it’s like a robot. That robot-style of teaching is likely to cause problems

for a learner whose brain is not acculturated according to the robot. (Interview)

It is what could be referred to as a type of

techagogy:

a technology-directed form of pedagogy

in which instruction is led by machines. In this approach, technology takes on new and con-

cerning measures of social control. In Bridge classrooms, the

techagogy

employed through

teacher-computers requires teachers and pupils to ‘follow the scripts 100%’ (Bridge Teacher,

Interview). In the words of one Bridge teacher, ‘...the technology controls us’ (Interview).

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Relations of power and control, therefore, are enacted through the use of teacher-computers

which strictly regulate what is taught and how. For Bridge, the dual role of creating and acting

upon lesson plans (i.e. schemes of work) is no longer handled by professionally-trained and

autonomous teachers following national curriculum, but rather structured according to the

external rules, procedures, and technology designed by this transnational corporation. In turn,

the agency of a teacher to act within this educational reality is bound by externally-devised

tools that control what and how to teach. One District Inspector of Schools who had inspected

Bridge’s teaching methods, observed that:

Teacher-computers are too controlling because the teacher is not allowed to

use his or her creativity. From my years inspecting and supervising teachers, you

find that some teachers are better than others because of their innovativeness

and creativity. But these aspects of teaching are not involved in the scenario of

Bridge because you have to follow what is on the computer. (Interview)

In doing so, teacher-computers structure not only

what

is taught, but also

how

it is taught.

Crucially however,

how

something is taught, in turn, efects

what

is taught (and also what is

not

taught).

For their part, teacher-computers are important tools for

framing

pedagogic discourse, which

relates to how knowledge is communicated within educational settings (Bernstein, 1996). Fra-

ming is about the

…selection of knowledge, its sequencing, its pacing, the criteria of selection,

and the social/educational interactions that communicate that knowledge—

implicating both

how

meaning is communicated and who has the control over

what happens in the classroom discourse. (Au, 2012, p. 43)

Therefore, ‘...framing refers to the controls on communication in local, interactional pedago-

gic relations’ (Bernstein, 1996, p. 26). Given that all curricula used by Bridge (including what

is taught and how) involves strict framing, formulated at corporate headquarters outside of

Uganda, the local interactions that communicate knowledge in the classroom are regulated

and constrained by external forces and their tools of curricular control. However, the form

in which knowledge and skills are presented, and how they are communicated, also impacts

what is taught (and not taught). As a result, the use of teacher-computers can have uninten-

ded consequences for what pupils learn. Commenting on the teaching practices of Bridge, for

example, a Senior Oficial in the MoES eloquently pointed out that:

...there is also the issue of creativity – we must train the children to have creati-

vity and this gift of creativity must also be seen through the teacher. So if a child

cannot see a teacher being creative you can’t teach the capacity for the child to

create. (Interview)

By framing each moment, phrase, and aspect of pedagogic discourse and interaction through

the use of teacher-computers, pedagogy takes on a robotised form that involves implicit (or

‘hidden’) lessons that are taught and not taught to pupils, such as creativity and critical thinking.

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Curricula and pedagogy embedded in the Bridge model involve radical standardisations and

calibrations, which are designed to be replicable and scalable across various settings. Standardi-

sed curriculum – that is scripted, packaged, compartmentalised, and delivered uniformly across

the chain – fits congruently with the academy-in-a-box model developed by Bridge that levera-

ges technology and data to maximise cost-eficiencies and economies of scale. Yet, this method

of curriculum is proven to be problematic given the limitations imposed by pre-programmed

scripts that inadequately respond to the diverse needs, requirements, and realities of learners in

various contexts and situations. This is reflected in the following statement by a District Educa-

tion Oficer regarding the practices of Bridge:

There are gaps in the curriculum; in the way they manage the curriculum becau-

se every child is diferent. You cannot expect every child of Buwenge to be at

the exact same attainment level as every child in Bugembe. These environments

are diferent. They have disabled the teachers from using their creativity and

innovativeness. Teacher aids and materials used in class must fit the locality; the

needs of the children in that local context. It is too dogmatic the way that Bridge

operates. They don’t change anything. The notes are the same. The examples

are the same. So they don’t cater to the needs of the children. (Interview)

These ‘gaps in the curriculum’ suggest a systematic failure, in terms of curricular design, since

rigid standardisations fail to efectively respond to the local realities, experiences, and needs of

learners, and their various attainment levels, while also disabling creativity and innovativeness

in the classroom. Furthermore, Bridge teachers explained that rigid scripts dictated by Bridge

can impede student engagement with the learning material, since they do not allow adequate

time and opportunity for students to interject or ask questions. As a result, many students have

been left to “struggle silently” (Bridge Teacher, Interview).

Teacher-computers, therefore, are pedagogic tools which raise new concerns regarding the

accessibility of knowledge in learning environments established by Bridge. By framing, pa-

cing, selecting, regimenting, and distributing knowledge (of a certain type), teacher-compu-

ters structure the form in which knowledge is communicated, and hence, made accessible;

these devices are what convey and transfer knowledge. However, if the computer device itself

is the knowledge-bearer, how accessible is ‘the knowledge’? For example, as one Bridge tea-

cher explained: ‘Sometimes the computer freezes and time keeps running so the lesson is lost

along the way’ (Interview). Any technical glitch, therefore, can cause a blackout and disrupt the

distribution of knowledge in Bridge classrooms.

Since all aspects of instruction and pedagogy are controlled and automated through the use

of teacher-computers, Bridge assumes it does not require professionally-trained or certified

teachers. Instead the company has established its own Bridge International Training Institutes

where it provides three-week teacher-training programmes for new recruits. Here, prospective

teachers are ‘moulded’ by Bridge and trained ‘...how to use the tools, the technology, how to

deliver lessons, and how to handle children’ (Bridge Teacher, Interview). Bridge’s teacher-tra-

ining programme ‘...is basically about teaching using computer technology’, as one Bridge

teacher described, adding that ‘...we don’t make our own lesson plans or schemes of work, all

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of this is delivered through the computer tablets. So we are trained how to use these compu-

ters to teach’ (Interview). Concerning Bridge’s approach to the training and preparation of its

teachers, a District Inspector of Schools in Uganda expressed that:

We want people to particularly think

how

to teach rather than just spoon-feed

the children through these computer scripts. You must go to a Teachers College

to learn how to teach and then you can create lesson plans that connect you, the

teacher, to the pupils. If someone just brings an iPad and everything is already

there, then that person is not prepared to teach. (Interview)

Bridge claims, on the other hand, that by linking up community members with tablet compu-

ters containing scripted instruction, ‘...we’re giving our pupils access to the types of teachers

they would never be able to aford’ (BIA, 2016e). The company, therefore, markets the ‘Bridge’

brand as qualitatively superior to what would be found by those in poor villages and slums,

reflecting the company’s power-laden and Western-biased discourse.

In contradistinction to the claim that Bridge is ‘giving’ pupils access to a superior ‘type of

teacher’, in the words of one District Inspector of Schools, teacher-computers used by Bridge

efectively ‘...destroys the relationship between the teacher and the child’ (Interview). Techno-

logy cannot replace genuine teacher-pupil interactions, which is especially acute when dea-

ling with early childhood education. John Dewey, the influential thinker of education, claims ‘...

the reality of education is found in the personal and face-to-face contact of teacher and child’

and the ‘...conditions that underlie and regulate this contact dominate the educational situa-

tion’ (1901, p. 338). Hence, technological conditions that regulate teacher-pupil interactions,

such as teacher-computers, ‘dominate the educational situation’ in Bridge classrooms. Howe-

ver, the results of an unprecedented global study on the efects of technology on education by

the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found:

...no appreciable improvements in student achievement in reading, mathema-

tics or science in the countries that had invested heavily in ICT for education.

And perhaps the most disappointing finding of the report is that technology is of

little help in bridging the skills divide between advantaged and disadvantaged

students. (OECD, 2015, p. 3)

Hence, the use of teacher-computers and ICT in the Bridge model is unlikely to Bridge the lear-

ning gaps in communities where it operates. But rather, as the OECD study reveals, ‘...building

deep, conceptual understanding and higher-order thinking requires intensive teacher-student

interactions, and technology sometimes distracts from this valuable human engagement’

(OECD, 2015, p. 3).

In contrast to the educational standards established in the country, curriculum used by Bridge

is not accredited by the National Curriculum Development Centre in Uganda. A Senior Oficial

with the MoES, aware of the social and developmental importance of education, described the

gravity of the situation, by stating:

Curriculum that is approved by the National Curriculum Development Centre

reflects our values, our norms, our beliefs and is aware of the Ugandan human

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being. But the curriculum that is used by Bridge is not approved by the National

Curriculum Development Centre...It is a major breach of the law for [Bridge] to

go outside the curriculum that is approved in this land. (Interview)

Bridge teachers and Academy Managers have described the curriculum as ‘mixed’ in that

it draws from both Uganda national curriculum but also an ‘international curriculum’ (Inter-

views). For instance, one Bridge teacher explained that, ‘...in primary 3, for the case of Social

Studies, it is more international; they ask more international questions like questions which

are not applicable to primary 3 children in Uganda’ (Interview). The relevance and alignment

of Bridge’s curriculum to Uganda’s national curriculum was frequently called into question

by Bridge teachers, managers, and parents during the course of this research. As one Bridge

teacher shared:

When we asked a Bridge oficial who visited our academy if the work we are gi-

ving is part of the Uganda curriculum, he said ‘yes’ but we cannot check for our-

selves because we don’t even have access to a copy of the national curriculum,

nothing is here, so we cannot compare.

Curriculum that does not align with national standards represents a serious challenge for lear-

ners intending to sit for national exams such as the Primary Level Examination (PLE) in Uganda,

which is necessary to pass in order to move onto secondary education. Bridge teachers, mana-

gers, and District Inspectors of Schools frequently raised this issue in relation to the curriculum

used by Bridge. As one Bridge Academy Manager expressly remarked:

The real teachers I have here who have trained in colleges and taught in other

schools for some years, they come and tell me ‘this is nothing...whatever we

are teaching here this is not helping our pupils to prepare themselves for PLE

and this is not helping our pupils to be able to compete with other pupils who

are being taught using the other methods’...I will not sit idle no more. I have to

speak out about it...they are sending things that are irrelevant, that are wasting

pupil’s time. Children don’t learn things, they don’t have notes, they don’t know

where to read from. And you expect that child to sit for PLE? No, I don’t think so.

We are only leaving our pupils’ futures up to fate. Something needs to change.

(Interview)

Hence, in the analysis of Bridge’s use of teacher-computers, both the technical device (in rela-

tion to pedagogy) and its contents (in relation to curriculum) reveal a number of serious impli-

cations for teachers and learners.

Teacher-computers employed by Bridge embody processes that facilitate the commodifica-

tion and marketisation of education at the bottom of the pyramid by lowering operational

costs and increasing standardisations. In practice, they reflect a form of control—over what

is taught, how it is taught, and how it is learned. They severely undermine both teacher-pu-

pil interactions and the legal standards established by the government of Uganda regarding

schoolteachers. And they serve the corporate interests of profit-making, rather than the right

to quality education. Teacher-computers, therefore, are the epitome of the Bridge approach to

education in Uganda.

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6. Closing remarks, closing Bridge

Shannon May, co-founder of Bridge, once claimed that programs designed

for

someone else,

rather than with their collaboration, are ultimately set to fail (Buchanan, n.d.). In what can now

be seen as a foreshadowing of recent events with Bridge in Uganda, May’s proclamations are

insightful. In just over a year of operating in the country – first opening in February 2015 and

rapidly expanding to 63 schools – the company has been ordered by Janet Museveni, Minister

of Education and Sports, to halt its operations and indefinitely close down its schools. Noticing

the

failure of Bridge to bring afordable, quality education, to hire trained and licensed teachers,

and to abide by basic educational requirements and legal standards,

the Ugandan government

began to take steps towards confronting Bridge. By April 2016 the Permanent Secretary of the

Ministry released a letter of concern regarding the ‘legality’ of Bridge schools in violation of

the Education Act of 2008, citing ‘quality of the infrastructure, teacher issues, methodology,

curriculum, etc.’ (MoES 2016b). The letter instructed the company to

...halt the expansion of the Bridge International Academies forthwith, until the

Ministry establishes that these schools and those yet to open later are in confor-

mity with our Basic Requirements and Legal Standards. (MoES 2016b)

Following the decision by a District Inspector of Schools three months later on July 11th, all

Bridge schools in Jinja District were ordered to close. The District Inspector’s report mentioned

the company’s failure to ‘recruit qualified teachers, secure licenses [and provide] appropriate

infrastructure’ (EI, 29 July 2016). That same day, Member of Parliament Margaret Rwabushai-

ja, also the National Chairperson for the Uganda National Teachers Union (UNATU), raised the

same concerns in Parliament (EI, 29 July 2016). Finally, on August 11th, Minister Museveni had

ordered the closure of all Bridge academies in Uganda for the company’s failure to meet the

country’s educational and legal standards, efectively shutting down the largest chain of com-

mercial private schools in the country. The company is currently contesting the government’s

decision in the country’s High Court.

Prior to this research, no independent study had been conducted on Bridge’s operations in

Uganda. The findings of this research, which are indebted to the collaboration of the research

participants – including Bridge teachers and Academy Managers, district school inspectors

and oficials in the MoES – fully corroborate the initial findings of the Ministry’s Permanent Se-

cretary, the observations of the District Inspector of Schools and the conclusions made by the

Ministry for the closure of Bridge academies.

In investigating Bridge’s operations in Uganda, this research has found that the company’s pro-

fit-driven, low-cost, and academy-in-a-box approach to educating the poor contradicts the mo-

ral and human rights-based imperative of providing quality universal education. The quality of

education the company does provide, relative to the country’s educational standards, is greatly

compromised by the lengths it is willing to go in order to drive down its operating costs and

achieve economies of scale for profit. Classrooms have been constructed poorly, untrained

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and underpaid teachers merely read of a curriculum that is designed by someone else, and the

role of teacher-computers threatens the very teacher-pupil relationships that are conducive to

learning and child development. These methods employed by the company, for cost-efective-

ness and profitability, are in clear violation of Uganda’s educational standards. As concerning

is Bridge’s apparent disregard for the country’s legal integrity and state sovereignty. The com-

pany has entered Uganda and quickly expanded its business operations, on its own accord

and by its own terms, while avoiding the proper legal processes, as if operating in a state of

exception or colonial territory. In defense of the country’s educational sovereignty, a Senior

Oficial in the MoES proclaimed that:

If [Bridge] comes here thinking they can make

profits from education, then they should come

and open exceptional schools and not provide

education in this substandard way and expect

to get profit. It’s not fair. It’s neocolonialism. It’s

slavery. (Interview)

Although the Bridge approach for schooling the poor, profitably, is marketed as ‘innovative’ it

also involves serious deprivations for teachers and learners alike. The educational, commer-

cial, and political operations of this transnational for-profit education company represent a

form of neocolonialism in Uganda, and its education system. Hence, the operations of Bridge

in Uganda provide a cautionary case study for investors and states (potentially) working with

the company.

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7. Epilogue

On May 30, 2016 an interview with the National Director and a Regional Manager of Bridge in

Uganda was planned for the purpose of understanding the operations of Bridge in Uganda,

from the perspective of its senior management, with full disclosure as to the identity and inten-

tions of the researcher. However, events at this meeting took a drastic and unexpected turn that

would have serious implications. At a café in Kampala, at a date, time, and location prearranged

according to the requests of Bridge, this researcher (Curtis Riep) sat down with the National

Director and Regional Manager of Bridge. Moments after the National Director and Regional Ma-

nager arrived, and before any research questions could be asked, a police detective in civilian

clothes and two police oficers in militarised uniforms approached the table. The police ordered

that I accompany them to a police station for questioning related to criminal allegations made

against me by Bridge International Academies for (1) criminal trespassing and (2) impersona-

tion. Escorted by police, I was taken into custody for criminal allegations made by Bridge. In the

police car, a lawyer who worked for Bridge also accompanied us to the police station where I

was informed about a ‘wanted advertisement’ printed in the New Vision newspaper on May 24,

claiming that I was ‘wanted by the police’. The notice encouraged the public to immediately

report my whereabouts to police. Following the events, it was found that Bridge paid for the

wanted ad and had it printed in the national newspaper, and that it was not mandated by the

Ugandan police authorities whatsoever. The allegations made against me by Bridge are comple-

tely false, have been proven to be false, and recognised by the Ugandan authorities to be false.

In response to the allegation of criminal trespassing, I explained to police authorities that my re-

search involved full-disclosure and informed consent, having called each Bridge school ahead

of my visit to seek permission to visit the school, explain the purpose of my visit, and confirm the

availability of Academy Managers and teachers for consultation. In the event that an Academy

Manager did not answer my call I explained that I would approach the school with care and state

clearly at the onset who I was and why I was there. Before conducting and recording interviews,

taking photographs, observing lessons, or reviewing school materials, informed consent was

established. At every Bridge school I visited I was welcomed warmly by the Academy Manager

or senior staf person on site. The second allegation made by Bridge accused me of impersona-

ting an employee of Bridge named ‘Michael.’ This accusation was also proven to be false after

Ugandan authorities investigated the matter. Visitor books from Bridge schools were collected

by police authorities to determine if I had identified as someone other than myself at schools

where I had visited, which I clearly had not. The closest admission of any wrongdoing on the

part of Bridge came two weeks after the incident when the new Head of Public Relations at Bri-

dge clarified in an email to an international journalist investigating the matter that: ‘Regarding

Curtis Riep, I went back and confirmed that there were no signed visitor books under a dife-

rent name’ (G. Brown-Martin, personal communication, 14 June 2016). By this time the Uganda

authorities had already cleared this researcher of any wrongdoing as both allegations brought

forth by Bridge were dropped the next day on May 31, 2016. The lengths at which it seemed

Bridge was willing to go to afect the outcome of this research convinced me to leave Uganda,

two weeks prematurely, for my well-being and security.

URU, Alm.del - 2016-17 - Bilag 216: Henvendelse af 12. juni 2017 fra Danmarks Lærerforening om Bridge International Academys arbejde i Kenya og Uganda

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