Rote learning

Just to correct your image of what teaching or [education http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Talk:Educators#What_education_and_teaching_in_developing_regions_REALLY_is.2C_looks_and_feels_like] can mean:

1. rote learning: shouting over and over again what the teacher speaks out ... just type it into youtube and you'll get the idea.
2. it is a real problem to retain real teachers in developing countries. Salaries are soo low, teachers go to the private sector within their first year. Leaving the kids/village with a pseudo teacher stand in who has probably not finished primary education him/her self. With maybe very strange concepts of what teaching and kids are. And to make things worse, that person has to deal with a class of 45 to 240 kids who have ... no books. Fortunately some have a pen and no paper.
3. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xkwysl_egyptian-teacher-beats-children-students_news

As these school kids give in their homework in this Egyptian school, they receive a beating with a ruler on their hands and a pulling on their hairs if they dare to pull their hands away. It rained thousands of emails when this appeared on youtube (it's been even banned from youtube) by people being shocked by this ... but what will be even more as an eye-opener is that the thousands of emails were drowned in hundreds of thousands of emails by Egyptian parents who thought this was the way to raise and transform kids into disciplined and responsible, docile young adults ! In MANY parts of the world, teaching and kids is to be understood as animals that need to be trained.

Maybe you want to read up about:

1. Change Management
2. Transformational Change