Private Sector Backs Projects Around Globe

Washington

The technology giant Intel Corp. has trained 3 million teachers around the world in how to integrate technology into instruction. Starbucks Coffee Co. is investing $1.5 million in bilingual education for children of coffee-growing communities in Guatemala. Cargill Inc., a Minneapolis-based supplier of food ingredients, has paid for trying to get the message out in farming villages of Ivory Coast that girls should be educated and children shouldn’t be exploited in agricultural work.

At a conference hosted Sept. 11-12 in Washington by the Conference Board in collaboration with the Washington-based Academy for Educational Development, representatives of multinational corporations preached the value of investing in such education projects. The conference focused on global public-private partnerships and was financed by Intel, Hewlett-Packard Co., and Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. It attracted 160 participants, including high-level business executives, officials of education ministries from various countries, and education specialists from international-development agencies.

Some company representatives were frank in saying that their spending in education is tied...