The rest of the shares are held by a group of Bangladeshi Americans. The village phones are no charitable add-on. Within two years, Grameen Phone plans to expand across Bangladesh, using the bank's presence in 40,000 villages and a fibre-optic cable that was laid along the national rail line years ago but rarely used. Each of the villages is to get a cellphone, and by 2000 the network plans to have 500,000 subscr ibers. Few believe the inefficient and highly corrupt state phone company is up to t he challenge.
Cellphones are the answer.
When I spoke at the Canadian National Library in Ottawa back in April, a woman named Marita Moll introduced herself to me. Yet research has shown quite clearly that the desired skills are common outcomes of the much cheaper, much more inclusive, just as interactive, coll aborative and effective, music and arts programs. The explanation for this discordance lies not in the objectives of education but in the politics of technologies. Streets clean, dustless, and odourless, with light rubber-tired vehicles moving swiftly and noiselessly over their smooth expanse, would eliminate a grea ter part of the nervousness, distraction, and strain of modern metropolitan life. So you might want to look to the Canadian Teachers' Federation if you're needing some moral support for the struggle within your own, more faddishly inclined organization.