No smart phone for you!

From 4 March edition of The New Vision (daily paper in Uganda) by way of Digital Learning:

EXPENSIVE mobile phones are a liability to teachers, information and communication technology (ICT) state minister Alintuma Nsambu has said. Nsambu encouraged teachers to instead invest in cheap computers that would help them move with the modern technological trends. 

“That flashy phone can have more features than a computer but cannot do certain things. It can also be easily stolen and you go back to zero,” he said. (snip) "Students are learning via the Internet. It will be difficult for a computer-illiterate teacher to stand in front of such children,” he cautioned. 
...

Robert Ssebukwu, the education ministry commissioner for ICT, said teachers had been offered refurbished computers at sh300,000.

300,000 Ugandan Shillings is about US $150. A Blackberry Curve is available for about US $325, WITH pay-as-you-go pricing or a monthly subscription of about US $45.

The MOE-subsidized computer doesn't seem like that bad a deal, until you factor in connectivity costs ($174 set-up for broadband, with monthly costs of $2,300 for 512 Mbps*) and whatever you need to do to keep your refurb running. And you still need to have a phone...

* I do realize that individuals in Uganda won't be signing up for broadband. Teachers make a little more than US $100 per month. Uganda's overall Internet pricing, however, is among the most expensive in Africa.