Harnessing ICT strategies for ACP agriculture

The 2003 and 2005 World Summits on the Information society called for the development of ICT strategies for all sectors. But more is needed for effective e-agriculture strategies in ACP countries

Sri Lanka virtual villages: a socio-anthropological and technological study on the “Last Mile”

This project served two pilot “virtual villages” in Sri Lanka, studying key socio-anthropological and technological issues, while ensuring a ‘last mile’ ICT delivery and information sharing at the rural community level. Through telecentres, Sarvodaya has pioneered ICT4D engagements with rural communities in Sri Lanka since 1996. Since 2003, state sponsored (World Bank funded) eSriLanka program started scaling up telecentres around the country. Leadership and caste differences became a deciding factor in villagers accessing the Telehut. Innovative connectivity options were used to overcome barriers in setting up WiFi hotspots (technology which was not available in the country at the inception of the project)

Bilingual education classrooms in Sri Lankan schools: A social space for ethnolinguistic reconciliation

Decades of an ethnolinguistically segregated Sri Lankan school system along Mother Tongue Instruction (MTI), compounded by a 30-year-long ethnic conflict, has had significant consequences for ethnic relations among the diverse population of Sri Lanka. The recently introduced Bilingual Education (BE) - English and Sinhala/Tamil, has enabled some core subjects to be taught using English Medium Instruction (EMI), bringing together students of different ethnicities in multiethnic, bilingual schools. This has created a new social space and, thereby, new possibilities for changing social relations. In this chapter, we explore BE students’ ethnic identity orientations through analysis of their expressed feelings and perceptions towards ethnically diverse “others”, before and after joining multiethnic BE classrooms. Using the Bourdieusian conceptual triad of habitus, capital and field, we present analysis of data collected in two, multiethnic schools in Sri Lanka. The findings show that during early socialization in ethnically exclusive institutions, such as family and mono-ethnic classrooms, students acquire insular, ethnocentric dispositions that undergo reorientation towards more supraethnic, inclusive dispositions when students get to know each other and study together, in multiethnic BE classes. Learning through English as a common language and cross-linguistic flexibility, a growing positive inclination towards people of different ethnolinguistic backgrounds, and recognition, respect, and increased acceptance of diversity and heterogeneity was made possible. The findings are highly relevant to post-conflict, ethnolinguistically heterogeneous societies, especially in terms of how language in education could be utilized in promoting national solidarity