Affordability and Sustainability
This section includes related areas that schools need to consider when planning for their use of ICT, with a specific focus on Affording and Sustaining the use of ICTs for education.
Here you will find materials and links to a variety of ICT development strategy documents, and information on the use and application of ICTs in education.
Internet prices in Africa
This report is comparison and analysis of costs to access the internet across Africa in order to create awareness to customers, ISPs, regulators and telecom operators.
Source: AFRICT. [1282]
Internet_prices_in_Africa.pdf
AfriCT
This web site is dedicated to discussions about Telecom prices and ICT costs in Africa. There is a universal problem with these costs and prices: They are too high! [1129]
http://www.africt.org/pages/1/index.htm
Cost analysis of information technology projects in education
Despite significant cost reductions in recent years, information technology,as presently designed, is not going to be affordable for wide-spread use in most countries and school systems, any time soon. However, in a growing number of countries, policy makers and educators are still launching new pilot education technology projects, usually with the help of external and/ or extrabudgetary resources and strong community support [682]
Cost analysis of information technology projects in education.pdf
Ensuring Sustainable Solutions
In this discussion paper four broad themes were discussed with issues, recommendations and case studies explored under Content, Training and Capacity Building, Political buy-in, Policy and Stakeholders, Cost, Financial Aspects and Technology. [681]
ensuring sustainable solutions.pdf
Computers in secondary schools in developing countries: An analysis of costs
Including original data from South Africa and Zimbabwe
Andy Cawthera [679]
Computers_in_Secondary_schools.pdf
Refurbished Computers: An Analysis of Risks
Limited budgets have forced K-12 educators to search for creative ways to acquire educational technology. The idea of using refurbished computers has become especially attractive because it addresses many important issues. Before examining those issues, we must first create a definition for refurbished computer. For the purpose of this report a refurbished computer is a previously owned computer which has been diagnosed for possible problems, repaired to ensure proper functioning, and possibly upgraded to provided certain computing capabilities. This is in contrast to computers which are provided "as is" and which may or may not work properly. [677]
http://www.ksiinc.com/refurb.htm
Recycled Technology
The imperative to secure affordable access lead us to look at the refurbishment/remanufacturing option. The digital partnership surveyed 20 global corporations in Europe and the US and discovered that more than 1m PCs are being decommissioned in the next three years. Based on our research, the acquisition cost of these computers was possibly more than $1.5bn but they are likely to have a residual value of less than $60m and a book value that is significantly lower still. [676]
http://www.digitalpartnership.org/about_model.htm#recycled