Tuesday, March 31, 2009 at 5:43PM Generators donated to schools in Rwanda. And fuel?
From Rwandan daily, The New Times (by way of AllAfrica.com):
"Many schools lack electric power and with the newly introduced ICT education on the curriculum, the generators will definitely have an impact," Mutsindashyaka said.
Twenty head teachers from some of the remotest schools attended the ceremony and their schools will be among the beneficiaries.
OK, a used generator worth $10K is going to have high output, 80KW, for example... and high consumption of diesel. Even if the value of these machines is overstated, they are coming from one of the largest private-sector consumers of power in Rwanda. They are way bigger than schools need.
(For purposes of comparison, telecenters in Indonesia frequently run generators in the 10-13 KW range.)
Electricity in Rwanda is a problem that cripples computer and Internet use in schools. When I last visited, head teachers reported that they were shutting down or radically limiting use of their school computers labs--not because they didn't have generators (most of the schools that i visited had 5.0 KWh versions), but because they couldn't afford the fuel to run them.
This was in 2005. Perhaps the situation has changed. But for me to believe that the MTN donation to "definitely have impact," I'll need to hear that MINEDUC will definitely pay the costs of fuel.
