UN's GVU Opens With Little Fanfare

The United Nations University announced the opening of the Global Virtual University this week. The new online university will specialize in programs related to sustainable development with a "particular objective to meet the educational needs of the developing world." A UN press release called the GVU a "pioneering, online global university", and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was confident that it would help bridge the digital divide:

The Global Virtual University under the auspices of the United Nations University and the United Nations Environment Programme is a fine example of building digital bridges in an area of crucial importance to human security and prosperity: environmentally sustainable development. As such it can make an important contribution to efforts to achieve the objectives set out at last year’s World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. It also offers the prospect of constructive international cooperation, not only between rich and poor countries but also within the developing world.

Dr. Hans J. A. van Ginkel, Rector of the United Nations University and deliverer of the Secretary-General's speech at the opening ceremony had this to say:

The GVU is a major pilot project that shows how we can reach out across the world in practice, and how we can present the best knowledge in an optimal combination of the high quality audio-visual learning materials with face-to-face support. Using Internet broadcasting and stimulating at the same time intense human interaction, the GVU aims to be the learning institution for a sustainable future with a worldwide reach.

Announcements like this should have ripped through the media and the blogosphere. Titles like "New Online University to Bridge of Digital Divide" and "Pioneering Online Global University to Meet Educational Needs of Developing World" came to my mind, but I failed to find them. A search on Daypop for blogs and news sites covering GVU came up with just 12 hits, most of them duplicates. What it boiled down to was 3 sites that even commented on it and the rest giving it a cursory mention like the announcement of a new blog or a new Wal-Mart opening. No, I'm sure the Wal-Mart would have generated more publicity.

What gives? This is transnational ed of critical life-saving importance to people who are trying to participate in the so-called information society. Why the apathy? On Connectivity: Spike Hall's RU Weblog, the message is that this initiative is much too late.

"University-trained harvest [natural resources --metals, minerals, lumber, shrimp, etc.] managers bringing planning and management concepts to control the removal of [whoops, oh yeah!] the last small fractions of what's left."

In other words, natural resources have already been annihilated, so why are we educating people on how to manage and effectively use them?

Even AllAfrica.com, which posted a nice summary had no commentary on this event. The rest of the articles came from Norwegian sites, which I haven't found out how to read yet. (Side note: Ever tried to translate Norwegian to English on the web? Don't.) The number of articles from Norway reflects the roots of the university. Agder University College in Norway is one of the "core partners" and the Norway government pitched in US $2 million to help create the GVU.

Is the UN too late to provide online education on sustainable development? I don't think so. There will always be a need to better manage the earth's resources, especially in areas of the world where water and other crucial materials are tight.

Perhaps the apathy then comes from the fact that those who do the most talking online feel they have the least to gain from this online university.

50 Metric Tons of Learning, Part III

In its request for bids, USAID said the educational system in a post-war Iraq must "lay a foundation for democratic practices and attitudes among children and educators."

Creative Associates International. Inc. (CAII), which was the sole bidder (please see Part I) and will thus be laying that foundation, (please see Part II). This is what CAII does -- stabilization of post-conflict environments, with a focus on primary and secondary education.

How exactly does one get into that line of work, I wonder?

This is Transnational Ed at the highest level. Professionals from one country rebuilding the educational system of another country. I am certain that there is a helpful way to do this, an approach which facilitates and does not impose. I also have no doubt that there is a way to do it which controls the process by eliminating options and steering it in a preferred direction with money.

I don't know which way Creative Associates International, Inc. plays it. But I do know that the company is a survivor. According to the CAII Fact page, they have administered 400 contracts over more than two decades. They have handled major projects in the conflict or turmoil of Angola, El Salvador, Guatemala, Lebanon, Liberia, Montenegro, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Peru, Serbia, and South Africa. CAII has security clearance to handle classified work/information; no surprise there. If they are not intelligence agents themselves, CAII personnel must be accustomed to working closely with them.

CAII put itself in the position to win large government contracts with no competition by reliably serving the agenda of the people who hired them.

. . . . . . . .

A Green publication from Australia claims that, "CAI's past clients include the military junta that overthrew the elected government of Haiti in 1991, in a US-backed coup." If this is true, it raises questions about CAII's fundamental commitment to democracy, as opposed to a more narrowly conceived support for U.S. interests. Before examining the claim further, let's do a quick backgrounder on the early 90s in Haiti, starting with facts which can verified anywhere:

- December 16, 1990, Haiti held the first democratic elections in the country's history. Jean Bertrand Aristide, a Catholic priest, received 67 percent of the vote and assumed office on February 7, 1991.

- September, 1991, military personnel with financial backing from neo-Duvalierist sectors and led by Lieutenant General Raoul Cedras and Colonel Michel Francois surrounded the presidential palace, seized Aristide and sent him into exile.

- After he was expelled him from the country, Aristide's diaries and personal effects were searched, and the military investigation concluded that Aristide was a "psychotic manic-depressive with homicidal and necrophiliac tendencies."

It is not a verifiable fact, but most journalists regarded these charges as part of smear campaign conducted by the Junta in order to help legitimize their power grab.

Now for a far more speculative step. According to John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, in their book "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry,"The junta transmitted these charges [i.e., the charges about Aristide] to the US news media through an array of hired lobbyists and PR representatives, including George Demougeot, who also represented a US apparel firm with an assembly plant in Haiti, and Stephen A. Horblitt and Walter E. Faunteroy of Creative Associates International Inc." CAII does have an office in Haiti and did in 1991. The company has been actively involved in projects there for years. None of this means that CAII participated in a character assassination campaign conducted by an illegal military government. It only means that it is possible and that it bears further research. And that maybe we shouldn't be giving out big no-bid contracts until we understand a little more about Creative Associates International, Inc.

. . . . . . . .

The Bush Doctrine, otherwise known as The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, takes the perspective that the best defense is a good offense. For all sorts of good-sounding reasons, the Doctrine allows the US and the US alone to take pre-emptive military action anywhere in the world. In this regard, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is a well-known advocate of "new military thinking" which relies on surprise, flexibility and precise munitions, to paraphrase U.S. General Tommy Franks, rather than overwhelming force. Win fast and start rebuilding immediately, in a manner which fits within parameters established by the victor.

Creative Associates International, Inc, is an enabler. Regardless of what you think about using this form of warfare as an explicit instrument of foreign policy, it is obvious that the overall package must include the right sort of folks to clean up after the main fighting is done. Why invade some place without a strong interest in a specific post-war scenario? Helping to achieve that scenario, which may or may not be democracy, is CAII's mission.

But it is also a humanitarian mission, even if some of the prevailing misery was created by the people who hire the humanitarian missionaries. I have had a hard time with this series of posts, because there is still a part of me that wonders why I can't just accept CAII as a successful and hardworking relief organization with its heart in the right place?

In the end, I think it is the audacity of the social engineering which most concerns me. Wars can be fought when the US wants to and can be won quickly and nearly painlessly. Then bridges are re-built (Bechtel), ports are re-opened (Stevedoring Services of America) -- why can't educational systems be hammered into place on the same fast track? Just draw up the work plan, have a crack Procurement Services Agency at your side, and do it.

This is the language of the RFP, note how blandly these monumental undertakings are stated:

- facilitate rapid universal enrollment and retention through quality improvement at the primary and secondary levels.

Universal enrollment and retention! They'd be leading the world.

- produce more positive attitudes and behaviors toward schooling and improved practices in basic education

- put in place a series of short-term interventions that will stabilize Iraq?s education system and get all children back in school

- coordinate with other entities engaged in textbook production, needs assessments, teacher training, and distribution of materials and school kits with textbooks.


I don't think educational systems are like bridges. I think that the industrial view of education reflected in these fast-track rebuilding programs is designed to turn out a product, a generic worker capable of gaining employment in the new info-tech world.

This is where I acknowledge that Jan Oberg came to similar conclusions before I did. I tried hard not to let his earlier writing influence me, but it's inevitable.

I liked it when he wrote: "It's not that I expect the American occupiers to introduce Paolo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed or the convivial de-schooling thinking of Ivan Illich. But there could have been a hint (about the underlying philosophy of learning) - provided, of course, that CAII does not see education as a purely technical, tooling problem, a standard package that can be air-dropped anywhere American interests are at stake and USAID funding therefore available.

CAII does see education as a purely technical, tooling problem. Maybe in the world they work in, it has to be that way. How can I talk about teaching models best employed after a civil war when I've never been anywhere near a civil war? For 62.7 million bucks I think the responsibility is CAII's to be considerably more transparent. What is Accelerated Learning and how is it actually implemented? Why don't they publish and share their methodologies with the instructional design community?

According to the Pew Foundation's Global Attitudes Project, distrust of the United States is increasing all over the world, especially in Islamic countries. You'd think that a transnational education company coming from a country that recently invaded their new clients would see that the burden is on them to demonstrate how their models work and how they show respect for the culture and values of their customers. Especially when they win big non-competitive contracts.

Hey, CAII! Are you creating something which is substantive and sustainable? Or are you dealing out lots of trivial learning objects that can be measured easily and represent through-put masquerading as results. Textbooks can be measured in metric tons, but learning cannot. What are you doing?

I issue you an invitation to The Instructional Technology Institute at Utah State University in late August. It is an international conference with distinguished academic and corporate representation. Come and present your pedagogy.

Help us make informed judgments.

50 Metric Tons of Learning, Part II

Charito Kruvant gets things done in the most difficult venues imaginable. She is the founder and President of Creative Associates International, which is about the take on the task of rebuilding Iraq's educational system, (please see yesterday's post on TNE Blog). This is in addition to getting Afghanistan's up and running. In a recent Washington Post interview, she calmly described her company's niche: "We work in areas where conflict is about to end and turmoil is about to begin, and we love it."

She is well-connected and a high achiever. She was last year's Women's Business Center Entrepreneurial Visionary Awardee. In 2001, Washington Magazine named her one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in Washington. Other positions and awards include: The U.S. Small Business Administration's Women Business Owner of the Year; Avon's Women of Enterprise Award; The National Association of Women Business Owners' Top Women Business Owners; Chairperson of the SBA WMADO Advisory Council; and The National Association for Women in Education's Women of Distinction Award.

And there's more. Including the fact that she was born in Bolivia and raised in Argentina, and that she started CAII in 1977 in her basement.

So what's not to like? I don't know, maybe it's the fact that I have read everything I could on the CAII website and I still haven't gotten beyond wonderful sounding rhetoric and I still don't have a clue what they actually do.

Maybe it was something I read in one the inspiring Charito Kruvant thumbnail bios you can find easily on the web: "Perhaps Charito’s most exciting story is that of the time when this petite, soft-spoken, intense woman was lowered from a helicopter near the mountain retreat of Nicaraguan guerillas. She was on a US government mission to convince the Contras that it was time to put down their weapons and prepare themselves for more peaceful activities."

How the heck did she think she was going to convince the Contras of anything, and who hired her to try?

. . . . . . . .

As I continued to follow leads and links around the web, I came upon another researcher who had looked around in the same areas that I was, but about 6 weeks earlier. Jan Oberg described his intuitions and partially formed ideas about CAII in an article titled Burger Philosophy to Quick Fix Iraq's Education System, dated April 24, 2003

I saw right away that we had a similarly skeptical attitude, and I decided that I didn't want to get too influenced by his efforts. I scanned his article quickly, then put it away. I would look at it again once my own perspective had taken shape.

I was encouraged, however, that someone else saw the potential for something not quite as good as it appeared in can-do Charito Kruvant and her Creative Associates International.

Part of the picture began to crystallize for me when I found the transcript of her interview on Fox's The Big Story With John Gibson, April 16, 2003. It wasn't what she said, which was the same old pablum I'd been reading everywhere:

JOHN GIBSON, HOST: Where do you start?

CHARITO KRUVANT, CREATIVE ASSOCIATES INTL: We start by communicating with the Iraqi people. One of the things that we have learned in our work is that the education belongs to the people in the country.

It was the questions he asked that No One Else Was Raising, as far as I could see:

GIBSON: Sure, but explain something. Why should any outsiders be going in to help the Iraqis? They do have schools, once they get the ammunition out of the cloakroom and let them return to being schools ... Is there some problem with the Iraqis just educating kids on their own?

Good question. I guess that's why he gets paid the big bucks.

This is a good one too:

GIBSON: I think everybody supports whatever help the Iraqi schools need, but the biggest fights you can find in America today over school policy, school board elections are the most hard-fought elections in the country. I can't imagine it's much different in Iraq. What are Iraqi parents going think when see outsiders coming in saying, “OK, we're going to help you with your schools?

Her answers? The online transcript is edited, but the heart of her response to the first was: "What we're going to be doing is going to be there with them, helping them decide what comes first." And to the second, she said: "I don't think we're going to involve ourselves… we've been asked to be there with our tools."

It's not that simple.

. . . . . . . .

The factoid you run into over and over about the on-going Afghanistan project is the 50 metric tons of new, revised primary textbooks.

Textbooks are not just tools, especially not revised primary ones -- more than 10 million of them all at once, distributed to schools all over the country. Textbooks always presuppose an ideology and a world view that determines what is even worth knowing. Charito Kruvalt expresses the public version of that ideology when she tells John Gibson: "What we have found in the process of democracy is that school matters, that children do matter. And for the United States through the Agency of International Development, we're going to be there helping the Iraqi people with our educational tools."

She sees herself and her company as an instrument of US policy, what is referred to as "bringing democracy to the world," but might be more appropriately described as "bringing stability and consumerism to the world."

CAII educational rebuilding is all about things. Some entity has to do the heavy lifting and supply all those things -- and that entity is another women-owned small business, headquartered in Houston and specializing in procurement and logistical services. American Manufacturers Export Group (AMEG) got all those textbooks to Afghanistan as CAII's partner. They are partnering again in Iraq. Their website is as bland and unrevealing as CAII's, but I did notice that two of the three corporate officers' thumbnail bios included phrases like, "has been involved in numerous sensitive programs worldwide," and "other turn key managerial aspects of routine and highly sensitive operational activities.

I was starting to get it.

The current administration in Washington is bent on force feeding what they call democracy everywhere. Sometimes that involves conflict and turmoil, ("we love it ..." Charito). Kids going to school is positively correlated with turmoil abatement. Who you gonna call? No, not Ghostbusters -- Creative Associates International!

It's easy to parody what CAII is attempting to accomplish, and presumably has been accomplishing in hot spots for decades. It's also easy to describe CAII's work in glowing terms that could not possibly warrant criticism.

Then why do I scratch my head when I read something like this: "Clearly, one of Kruvant's greatest assets is the ability to understand and simplify complicated political and social issues. Since 1998, she has been a leader in the Project in Search of a National Security Strategy, an effort that focuses on U.S. interests and values through the promotion of legitimate governance and economic opportunities at home and abroad. It involves the integration of concepts of democratic freedom, the rule of law, human rights, free markets, and American idealism."

[to be continued]

New Blogger Joins TransnationalEd

The day has come for my first post, and I don't know why I've been dragging my feet. I guess I've just enjoyed reading Tom's posts so much and wondered what I could bring to the table that would measure up. I'm new at this. I'll say it upfront. The words 'transnational education' were completely foreign (no pun intended) less than a few months ago. But I take courage at something Tom told me a little while back: "We're all new to this."

So here I am. Tom invited me to join in on this blog to take a closer look at what's going on in TNE on the European front. I'm a bit backwards in some regards, one of which is the way I approach Europe. My personal experience living and working abroad to this point has been with Eastern Europe, Central and East Asia. So my inclination is to look from East to West.

I suppose a little personal background would be useful. I've always enjoyed exploring and attempting to understand different cultures. Some of my best friends growing up have been those of different ethnic groups and nationalities. They were the ones that presented the world in ways I had never imagined.

After high school, I had the opportunity to live in South Korea for two years, and not long after, I took a one-year stint in Uzbekistan working at an international school (K-12). In 2001, I finished my bachelor's degree in technical writing at USU with minors in Korean and Russian and started a master's in instructional technology.

Instructional technology was the crossroads of many things I really loved: technology, education, information design, simulation. What I didn't know when I started was that TNE would add to the mix one more of my favorite ingredients: international relations and culture. It riveted me. Tom jokes about how I've heard all his lectures a dozen times, but to me they never get old. The sign that you are really interested in something is when you can hear it again and again, and not grow tired of it.

The past few months I've been trying to get my mind around this new and exciting field. I'm not there yet, I have a lot more questions than answers. But I'm ready to start and I'm glad to be on board (at last).

50 Metric Tons of Learning

The main Iraq Educational Repair contract was awarded on April 17, 2003 to the tune of $62.7M -- with options for two one-year extensions which could raise the value to as much as $157M. It is formally referred to as the Revitalization of Iraqi Schools and Stabilization of Education (RISE) program, and the recipient was a for-profit, woman-owned business named Creative Associates International, Inc. CAII has to make an national assessment and act on it in time to have schools up and running by September, that's all. This, apparently, is the sort of thing they do. Steve Horblitt, a Creative Associates spokesman, described the initial focus: "We're looking at backpacks, pencils, paper, blackboards, furniture, real basic stuff."

For some reason, this project didn't catch my attention at the time. Maybe the blatantly opportunistic deals for Bechtel and the Haliburton subsidiary obscured everything else. It wasn't until last week, June 9th, when Senator Joseph Lieberman used a June 6 memo from the USAID Inspector General to criticize the CAII contract: "The inescapable conclusion is that there was essentially no competitive bidding at all," said Lieberman. It is not a very difficult conclusion to draw. There was literally only one bid, which included three of the previously invited bidders as sub-contractors to CAII. Technically, however, that was not the problem which the Inspector General's Office (OIG) reviewed. OIG's findings involved two areas of pre-bid activity:

1) "USAID Did Not Comply with Federal Regulations for Conducting Market Research to Identify Prospective Contractors"

2) "Insufficient Documentation to Determine Compliance on Exchanges of Information with Prospective Contractors"

Translated, I believe these findings mean that the agency didn't work very hard to get anyone else to bid, and CAII "may have helped shape the proposal it was then asked to bid on," as the Washington Post explained it.

I finally started a modest, Google-based effort to learn more about Creative Associates International, Inc. and the juicy transnational ed project that had dropped in its lap.

I learned from the CAII homepage that the company had already received a similar contract to rebuild primary education in Afghanistan, (the Iraq contract includes secondary education as well). There's nothing wrong with that, of course -- but it sure demonstrates the strength of CAII's connections. They are clearly the Bush Administration's designated post-war educational SWOT team.

According to CAII's description, the Afghanistan Primary Education Program (APEP) has three basic goals:

- Providing learning materials to classrooms,

- Preparing teachers to better serve the learning needs of their students, and

- Accelerating the educational process of hundreds of thousands of overage learners to age-appropriate grades.

Again with the learning materials. The ten million new textbooks rush ordered and distributed was described on one webpage as: "50 metric tons of new, revised primary textbooks ." That must have been a nice order for the lucky publishing company's regional sales rep. I wonder who it was? I haven't figured it out yet.

And what about the Accelerated Learning? CAII says that: "APEP partners will work with the MOE to design and implement an accelerated learning program to quickly and effectively bring overage students to the appropriate grade level, before they are forced to drop out for economic or early marriage reasons."

Wow. All this in Afghanistan. I'm not sure I'd be so confident.

[to be continued]