New Models

According to statistics from the Garissa District Education Office, the enrolment rate of girls is just half that for boys. In 2003 when FPE was introduced, the total number of boys enrolled in primary schools was 11,397, compared to 5,539 girls.

Successive years have seen enrolment of boys continue to tower over that of girls. In 2006, the enrolment of boys stood at 13,214, while that of girls was 7,120. A similar scenario was evidenced last year when 14,867 boys enrolled in schools, compared to just 8,071 girls.

"This is serious. We cannot afford to continue losing any girl from school in North Eastern at a time like now when there are all efforts to attain universal education," Abdi said. He was referring to the second Millennium Development Goal (MDG), which expects countries to achieve universal primary education by 2015. Certain initiatives are under way however, to improve enrolment of girls in Kenya's North Eastern region. These include the establishment of mobile schools to cater for nomadic children. The schools, according to Abdi, have been established at water-points where families gather for purposes of getting water and pasture for their animals. The timetable of the schools is flexible in that the schools move with the families.
However, this type of rather optimistic trade report raises the question: What exactly can be prompted by mobile ads, and to what extent? Intuitively, mobile ads should be able to work as attention getters. They can stimulate and improve attitudes toward an advertised product or brand or even affect the formation of intentions to purchase such items. However, it seems naïve to assume that users always open text-based mobile ads in the first place, without considering security issues. Users are unlikely to open and read ads unless they are thoroughly convinced that not only is the message source safe and trustworthy but also that the content will provide information that they will find useful, credible, and valuable in their everyday lives. Perhaps for this reason, many firms seem to be shifting from text-based ads to mobile-based promotional campaigns, in which mobile communication is only part of a more holistic marketing strategy (Okazaki 2008).

In general, applying traditional theories to mobile devices seems to make little sense, for two reasons. First, the mobile phone is a ubiquitous device. Unlike the desktop or laptop PC, it enables users to access diverse functions in any place and at any time. For example, the recent introduction of iPhone 3G in 22 countries-as of July 11, 2008, and in more than 70 countries by December 2008-may change the views of many academics who-regardless of how mobile devices continue to evolve-still mumble "Are they really all that different?" With the iPhone, a variety of applications, including games, business, news, sports, health, reference, and travel, function not only over cellular networks but also via Wi-Fi, "automatically switch[ing] between them to ensure the fastest possible download speeds" (Apple 2008). Second, and perhaps more important, in the real world, mobile ads that lack referents in other communication channels, such as promotions, events, experience, direct marketing, or even public relations, may be meaningless, because mobile communication provides a "tool" rather than as a "goal." In this vein, many firms have begun to integrate mobile devices into their strategic marketing planning and execution as practical communication tools.