Cross-Sector Value Propositions for Scaling School Connectivity
Scope
Team
Overview
The project explores how scaled school connectivity creates value beyond education and infrastructure. Through a multi-country comparative study, it examines the ecosystem, governance, and institutional conditions under which connectivity contributes to broader outcomes such as digital inclusion, public service delivery, workforce development, and local economic participation.
Background
Research on school connectivity has largely focused on infrastructure deployment, financing, access, and educational outcomes. Meanwhile, research highlights that scaling involves mobilizing resources, coordinating actors, and sustaining value creation over time (Jansen & Tippmann, 2026). Yet little is known about how different value propositions emerge around school connectivity, how they become aligned across ecosystem actors, and how this alignment enables initiatives to evolve from pilots into sustainable, system-level models.
Research Questions
How do different value propositions for school connectivity emerge, become aligned across ecosystem actors, and enable the scaling of school connectivity as a platform for socioeconomic development?
Key insights
Because schools are geographically distributed anchor institutions, these value propositions can extend beyond education and generate benefits for surrounding communities, public services, and local economies. Multiple value propositions create the potential for scaling, but sustainable scaling depends on ecosystem alignment, coordination mechanisms, governance arrangements, and mutually reinforcing incentives across actors.
Potential value generated by school connectivity includes:
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Education value – learning outcomes, digital pedagogy, curriculum delivery
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Infrastructure value – network expansion, last-mile connectivity, public digital infrastructure
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Economic value – market creation, entrepreneurship, economic participation
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Social inclusion value – access to services, reduced inequalities, inclusion of underserved populations
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Civic and institutional value – public sector capacity, digital public services, citizen participation
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Because schools are geographically distributed anchor institutions, these value propositions can extend beyond education and generate benefits for surrounding communities, public services, and local economies. Multiple value propositions create the potential for scaling, but sustainable scaling depends on ecosystem alignment, coordination mechanisms, governance arrangements, and mutually reinforcing incentives across actors.
Quotes
“Schools are somehow everywhere in the country. Once you are able to connect schools, you are connecting everyone else within that community.”