How Digital Has Affected Script Writing

There are three definitions that come to mind when using the word “script”, first the word is often used in the place of prescription, when referring to doctor prescribed medications. Second the word script is used by computer programmers and web designers referring to a list of commands executed by programs of scripting engines used to generate Web Pages and automated computer responses. Lastly the word script is short for all the details of a screenplay for film, television or video game. It entails everything from movements, dialogues to expressions and tonal quality and the writer’s vision. This will be the version of script we will be referring to in this article.

When we think of a screenplay or reading a script at a table read (when actors sit around a table and practice lines prior to any filming), we think only of the words on paper. Todays script writers must have an array of mental processes taking place simultaneously to consider when writing a script for any digital platform. This article will discuss some of the processes a writer needs to be aware of when working on a project.

Digital tools and technology have altered the process of the script writing process by making use of the interned and a multitude of edition tools. The Interned has allowed script writers to forward their work to potential cast members and fellow writers for peer review. There are online forums such as screencraft and scriptmother where writers can go for ideas and reviews from other writers and even collaborate with other talented writers thousands of miles away.

There has been an amazingly significant increase in the last decade in low budget digital cameras that have enabled low-budget films to produce some very good quality cinematography. The editing in post-production has cut film production by almost ½ the time of what it was when film was actually on film i.e. 35mm. If someone wants a grainy look of the 1970’s you can’t beat film, but you better budget in the cost of transferring your grainy film to a digital format running at a minimum of 4K. Script writers must take into account their vision and the cost effects of production.

Film also has other disadvantages over digital like it is impossible to re-use film. Once it is shot that image is there for good and can not be written over or recorded over. This means that a day of shooting must contain the footage the director is looking for or that day and the recourses consumed that day are of no use and bust be re-shot or that scene deleted from the final cut.
With digital multiple cameras can run the same shot at the exact same time all with different angles then seamlessly blended in post-production. This is not something the script writer is concerned with but should be able to corroborate with the director should a question arise.
When writing a script in the past it was an idea, a notebook and a pen. All scripts were hand delivered and when collaboration with other writers took place it was usually a meeting around a table over a couple of days or weeks. Today the script will transform from the pen and paper to a computer where it will then be forwarded to many different people for review with just a couple mouse clicks. Each person that collaborates on a project doesn’t even need to get out of bed to have their contribution noted.
A major downside for the film industry is that piracy of copyrighted material is significantly less expensive than original works. This has led to many lawsuits against peer-to-peer networks and individuals as a result of the copying and distribution of materials. Screenwriters should be cautious of whom they send their scripts to for review and have a legalities and copyrights in place to ensure their work remains their work. This is something screenplay writers didn’t worry about in the past because they could easily just take their scripts and notes and keep them.
With the rapid modifications of movies every year the industry has forced the script writer to become somewhat of an audio and video enthusiast as well because these aspects are incorporated into film, television, and video games. This is an ongoing process that evolves almost daily in some industries, one example is postproduction and the constant upgrades of tools and software which lead to continual training and production costs.
Editors in different countries can now edit film for quality, wording, and sound by accessing digitized media on a server and working in real time with other editors across the globe each specializing in a particular field to create a script that had never been dreamt of a decade ago. Digital archives are also easy to save and store. Pixar had an incident when creating Toy Story 2, where one of the animators almost deleted the entire film while he was working on it at his house. Thanks to digital and the ease of backups this multi-million-dollar catastrophe was avoided.
A script is now sent to an effects department so the team there can begin the process of laying out a blueprint for background work and special effects. The script writer needs to be very proficient in his or her description of what they are trying to convey in each scene. It is clear there has not been an area of screen writing that has not been affected by technology and the digital platform. The major impacts for pre-production stage have been script writing tools and the learning curve of the digital age.
Script writing is no longer just merely a dramatic array of words and method actors like Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with The Wind. A script writer must envision the entire production and have the actor’s reactions and movements constantly on mind when writing. The screenplay writers in the future must have skillsets that far supersede that of even todays writers. Scripts have expounded to consume all aspects of the digital world. While the writer may not necessarily need to know how to apply the concepts of a green room effects and wire work coupled with a 3-D image of a bullet screaming past the actors ear, they must be able to envision the process to accurately convey this in the words they are writing.

Tasty Proves That You Can Have Your Cake and Eat It Too

Founded in 2015, Tasty is an online food blog with a global reach across the US, UK, and numerous European countries that is best known for its viral food videos of trendy, unique, and easy-to-follow recipes.

Buzzfeed, one of the leading digital media companies specializing in news and entertainment, originally published Tasty as an effort to expand its digitized content strategies to resonate with its millennial audience. Buzzfeed quickly learned that the fastest way to its online audience’s loyalty was through their stomachs. Within fifteen months of its creation, Tasty collected a staggering 1.7 billion views from its recipe videos and became the leading revenue generator for Buzzfeed.

Tasty’s success in the food blogging industry relies on making seemingly complex recipes simple and available to the average person. Itsfun and creative dishes continue to wet the appetite of an increasing number of millennial readers, providing them with a sense of culinary success previously offered only by professional chefs.

Ashley McCollum, Tasty’s former general manager and vice president, explained the reasons behind the company’s popular digital presence:

Our point of view is that 99% of food media is made by food professionals, but 99% of food is made by amateurs. So what is the [difference] between food media and real food? We think that massive gap between media and reality is what we’re filling. I think that’s why we’ve been so successful and why we have a lead in this emerging space.

By focusing on audience desires to be creative in the kitchen, Tasty continually expands the recipe index for its readers.

Some of the top Tasty recipes include Churro Ice Cream Bowls, Mozzarella-stuffed Slow Cooker Meatballs, and a Cinnamon Roll French Toast Bake. All of Tasty’s recipes come with a 60 second video, allowing the reader to fully immerse in the culinary side of digital content. Sliders Four Ways, its most popular recipe to date, has amassed over 200 million views on Facebook.

This unique approach to food blogging has positioned the brand ahead of its competitors as it consistently innovates its content to fit its consumer’s needs. McCollum told the New York Times :

Really what we’re seeing is how to make a business out of massive intellectual property that was built digital-first. It’s the same model as old-media networks—you make a movie that people love, and then you build a theme park and extend that to products and everything else.

Through this method, the brand has even established a leading position among the top 10 food pages on Facebook.

The brand’s proven success of folding in a standard recipe blog with a video has enabled it to expand past its original digital platform. Tasty took the unique step of reverse-publishing and expanded from digital content only to traditional print via cookbooks.

Its first cookbook, Tasty Latest and Greatest: Everything You Want to Cook Right Now , sold more than 100,000 copies in the first month of publication. Due to its outstanding success, Tasty soon dished out two additional cookbooks, as well as a Tasty-branded line of cookware at Walmart and a snazzy new seasonal subscription service with LG Electronics called LG Tasty Cookie Club.

The LG Tasty Cookie Club subscription service provides readers who have a sweet tooth with seasonal boxes of cookie baking kits. Each box contains pre-measured ingredients and baking tools that allow customers to easily recreate their favorite online recipes from the comfort of their own home. The box for the fall season includes The Pumpkin Spice & Everything Nice Cookie Kit, followed by The Ultimate Mini Gingerbread House Cookie Kit, which will roll into subscriber’s kitchens just in time for the holidays.

Tasty has also launched more niche-focused content in its foreign versions, including Proper Tasty for its British audience, and Tasty Miam for the French readers. Recipes include Hash Brown Benedict and Risotto Pissaladière. By incorporating foreign cuisine on its blog, Tasty adds a personal touch to its marketing strategies. As Buzzfeed’s CEO Jonah Peretti said, “We’re always thinking about not just generating traffic but reaching [our audience] in a real way.”

Tasty has raked in a lot of dough from this authentic approach, earning nearly $3 million in revenue from its viral recipes alone in 2018. Frank Cooper, Buzzfeed’s former chief marketing officer, talked about the success that comes from Tasty’s unique content, saying, “It taps into a simple truth: People love tasty foods and the kind of foods that remind them of their childhood, comfort food, or food that reminds them of an experience.”

Tasty’s digital strategy of combining traditional blogs with media content delivery has spiced up the digital publishing market focused on food. The brand provides its 500 million monthly viewers with virtually unlimited access to easy recipes, thanks to its multiple digital platforms.

Four short years ago, Buzzfeed launched Tasty as an online experiment, not realizing that it would rise to the top of revenue generation for its company. Since then, Tasty has certainly satisfied the internet’s insatiable appetite for food content by making simple and creative recipes available to online users everywhere.

Data Analysis for the Publishing World

The digital publishing environment has transformed into a business that requires authors and publishers to explore data capture tools to stay relevant. Kevin Petrie, Dan Potter, and Itamar Ankorion, authors of the free e-book Streaming Change Data Capture: A Foundation for Modern Date Architectures found on Qlik write:

Data is creating massive waves of change and giving rise to a new data-driven economy that is only beginning. Organizations in all industries are changing their business models to monetize data, understanding that doing so is critical to competition and even survival.

A good bit of the data analysis explored in this text focuses on big businesses, such as Ford or Fanatics. But digital publishing is a business in and of itself.

The data collected by big business matters for the small business entrepreneur as well; they need the same information to intelligently navigate the field. Although curated analyses such as these are difficult to access for the average Joe, one could take a single Google search and transform it into usable data easily.

Publishing Parameters

The content authors release should fill spaces that are most likely to host the author’s target audience; whether the author writes textbooks on Medieval literature or high fantasy fiction novels, each topic requires its own audience.

The audience’s age, profession, education, and interests form the foundations of publishers’ data analysis. All of these factors contribute to what each reader wants and where they will retrieve the content from. An academic audience might be less likely to search for textbooks for an e-reader but would rather search on Chegg Books, whereas high fantasy seekers might search Amazon or Barnes and Noble for these novels.

Keep in mind that publishing for specific e-readers (like the Kindle) isn’t smart either, though, seeing as “sales of e-reader devices are falling rapidly.” However, Amazon provides a free Kindle app for smartphones, and according to Derek Haines people are using their cell phones to read e-books more than ever. While e-reader sales decline, e-books continue to rise in popularity for this reason. Amazon’s e-reader might not be declining, but their free app is readily available for the few who might loyally continue using the device.

The Methods of Data Collection

Most publishing services provide a dashboard for screening published material’s visitors. Adobe’s Audience Manager also offers a popular data management service. Otherwise, a tracking pixel, or a graphic that tracks user behavior and other information, can be activated on the publisher’s website to gather this sort of data. Facebook also provides a way to create a pixel to add to the publisher’s website.

Minute details such as how the audience will read their e-books are important factors of data analysis. Given these findings, the author must consider font, type size, and other features that they otherwise would not have because their audience is more likely to be reading on a smartphone.

Uses for Data in Digital Publishing

In an interview between the head of Global Automated Monetization at Watson Advertising and eMarketer’s Ross Benes, they discussed how “few publishers have created new revenue lines out of their data, even though the digital publishing industry is struggling during a time when data is alleged to be the new oil” Rather than just selling the information to publisher’s advertising clients, as many already do, it should be used to strengthen their own business

SailThru provides guidance on how to use the 1^st party data that comes from the audience to create a better publishing business.

Develop ownership of an audience
Personalize content that people will pay for
Sell a better audience to advertisers
Use a subscription model

All of these ideas can be implemented at the self-publishing level and higher.

The collection of data is also beneficial for the consumer because the content they will receive will be more tailored to their interests. Consuming this content will be more worthwhile, worthy of precious time and money: both publisher and consumer benefit from this collection of data.

Proceeding with Data Incorporation

With Facebook’s recent data breach breaking headlines, it is in the user’s best interest to carefully vet the institutions privy to the collected materials. Along the lines of best practices, usually, publishers decide what to do with the data they receive from their audience.

They can easily put the information out onto the internet for any advertiser to purchase, but they should be selective with who the information is shared with and who it is purchased by so that the audience does not end up finding out that their information was spread on the internet and feel betrayed.

With these best practices and publishers can make data analysis into an incredible tool for identifying the biggest source of income. People want to feel like their money is serving them well, and investing it into a business that prioritizes things that interest them will make people feel better about spending their money on the publisher’s product and content.

The Economist gets “Snappy”

Since 1843, The Economist has released weekly print editions of their magazine-style newspaper. In October of 2016, the publication took a leap towards rejuvenation and began publishing on Snapchat, one of the most popular apps in the world.

The Economist has been on Snapchat’s Discover page for three years and has paved a new way for print publications to reach the “tap generation.” The Snapchat Discover page is “all about keeping you up-to-date on current events, pop culture, and more.”

Snapchat Discover is where users can find stories- short videos or pictures- from their friends, other Snapchat users, TV shows, and publishers. Publisher stories “are Discover content that is from publishers and other media partners that partner with Snapchat.” Some companies that can be found on the Discover page are The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, The Washington Post, and The Economist.

When The Economist made its Snapchat debut in 2016, reaching out to an audience via Snapchat wasn’t common for such an established and respectable news company. When Lucy Rohr, the Snapchat editor for The Economist, was met with some questioning from her colleagues, she responded:

How does a 173-year-old publication, known for its global analysis and read by every American president since JFK, fit on a messaging app whose unique selling point is bite-sized, disappearing videos? But think about it for a moment. Snapchat Discover’s audience is forward-looking, globally curious and highly engaged with liberal causes. So The Economist is actually pretty well aligned.

So how does a roughly 80-page news magazine convert its material to fit this new medium? To Rohr the answer is quite simple: it doesn’t. The goal for the Snapchat extension of The Economist was not to put out another digital form of what they’ve already written. Instead, the idea was to hit a themed subject with each new weekly release.

“Themed editions are an ideal way for us to serve up our analysis in a fun and concise package that’s easy to consume anywhere. It’s what The Economist is known for, and we think this sits well on Snapchat Discover,” Rohr says.

Snapchat is an app that relies heavily on the visual aspect of its content, so Rohr and her team work to create a harmony between the youthful and interactive nature of the app and the professionalism of The Economist’s brand. According to Rohr, the perfect blend is achieved through “crisp, clean layouts, a couple of specific fonts.”

The Snapchat editions of The Economist are formed from a script, which is broken down into a minimum of 14 snaps, or 10 second looping videos or animations, and the visuals for each snap are then planned accordingly. Each individual snap is predominantly an image with highlighted text over it. The text often plays as a teaser, which gives the reader enough information to understand what is being addressed, but leaves them wanting more.

The interactive feature is brought into play when links to find more information pertaining to a particular snap are added through the “swipe up” feature. Then on the final product, users can swipe up on a snap to follow links that will lead to articles that give readers an in-depth analysis that the teasers hinted at.

According to Rohr:

The design team really nailed it. They came up with a visual treatment that really brings our journalism to life, and brings levity to some of the heavier stuff we’re covering. As much as I want our journalism to set us apart, I think our design does too.

Rohr knows that the task of producing Snapchat editions is not an easy one. “Plenty of what we do can’t be readily translated into a ‘Snappy’ format. We have to take the time to really think about each edition and each snap and how to do it best,” she says. An example of what Discover stories from The Economist look like is on their YouTube channel.

When The Economist made the leap into the world of Snapchat, consumers were concerned that it would be detrimental to the prestige of the company. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, “78% of American internet users between the ages of 18 and 24 used Snapchat in 2018.” The statistics of active Snapchat users in the UK are similar to those in America. The age demographic is rarely a concern of The Economist.

Having a young audience does not worry The Economist’s Snapchat team, though. At the Digital Innovators Summit, Rohr addressed the new demographic saying:

We had to translate our very specific editorial voice to the platform, but we did not ‘dumb ourselves down’ – we realised that to underestimate the intellect of the younger audience, and their discernment, is a real mistake.

Rather than fitting their journalism to the demographic, Rohr and her team prep the demographic for their journalism. Rohr referred to Snapchat editions as “the ultimate cheat sheet ” to being able to comprehensibly read full length articles from The Economist. One of the goals is to provide readers with the vocabulary, context, and “toolkit” needed to understand the company’s specific style of journalism.

As of 2017, The Economist had an average of 7.1 million users visiting their Snapchat stories. Deputy editor and head of digital strategy, Tom Standage, claimed the addition of Snapchat to their repertoire was “the biggest step-change in the audience of The Economist since 1843.”

The Fleeting Nature of Technology

The internet and technology are either extremely permanent or uniquely fleeting. Your Facebook post from that cute diner a week ago is still there, but the odds of anyone ever needing or wanting to find it again are practically zero. However, efforts like Project Gutenberg strive to preserve literature in a digital format so that generations will have access to it without having to worry about the physical decay of printed books.

Nonetheless, technologies are always fighting each other for dominance. If someone said the greatest movie in the entire world was only available on HD DVD, and I would probably never make any effort to see it. Blu-ray won the race and proved to be the dominant format. It would be inconvenient to find, buy, and set up an entire piece of technology just for the sake of one movie. Any HD DVD specific art films are lost to the annals of obsolescence and the impermanence of digital content. The world of digital publishing has been and certainly will be affected by the obsolescence of technology: for every preservation project, there’s an art form lost.

Lost Formats

Adobe Flash Player has been a staple of internet playback since its release in 1996. It helped revolutionize the way we view content online. It opened up a whole world of games, animation, and multimedia content that has become a staple of the internet. In its early days, YouTube used Flash Player to display videos. As such, it was a safe bet to use Flash Player to create content. Things like “Faith” require Flash to display the E-Poetry, which is fine in a world where Flash player is everywhere. However, time marches on, and technology changes at a rapid pace. CNN Business states the following:

But the software has been plagued with bugs and security vulnerabilities in recent years. Modern browsers support open web standards like HTML5, allowing developers to embed content directly onto webpages. This has made add-on extensions like Flash mostly useless.

Flash player is being phased out. Its whole deal, as an add-on extension, is becoming obsolete. YouTube moved off of Flash in 2015. HTML5 is simply better than Flash for the purpose that it serves. However, things get lost in the transition. What happens to “Faith” when Flash disappears in 2020? Unless the author/artist or someone else takes the opportunity to recreate, port, or record it, it’s just gone. E-Poetry commonly uses Flash. Some interesting poems are going to simply disappear as a result. It’s not worth it to resurrect a buggy, and vulnerable software just to read/watch avant-garde poetry.

E-poetry like “Girl’s Day Out” and “Pentametron” bring other interesting questions into play. They are files that can be downloaded. However, they only have versions tailored to Mac or Windows operating systems. That’s completely fine, for the most part, but what about other operating systems? For example, 30 million students and educators use Chromebooks as of January 2019. These files will not run on Chrome OS.

Most e-poetry does not have the cultural impact of William Shakespeare or Shel Silverstein, but they will be lost to the annals of obsolescence if Mac and Windows go the way of the MS-DOS. Many books are available as PDFs, as well, but we are not guaranteed that PDF will be the primary file type forever. What happens if PDFs disappear? Digital publishing inevitably loses some interesting comics, articles, books, etc. when new technology takes over. Your favorite e-book may be unreadable on your computer ten years from now.

Corporate Issues

Planned obsolescence is another tactic that has companies like Apple dodging lawsuits: “Italy’s antitrust organisation is also investigating both Apple and Samsung for the same issue.” The biggest tech companies that make most of the market share’s worth of smartphones no doubt operate like businesses with a bottom line rather than preservation efforts. Tech marches on organically like in the case of the swap from Flash to HTML5, but it also happens when companies need to meet deadlines.

Entire marketplaces may become obsolete in the future. It has already happened as Rachel Ward points out:

Microsoft’s discontinuation of their e-bookstore means that consumers will no longer be able to access and view Microsoft’s e-books. Customers who purchased the right to view the e-books within the past two years from the company are now unable to read them.

Microsoft created the store and limited it to the Edge browser to try and boost its use in the market. It didn’t garner enough traction, and now the store disappeared. With no physical trace, the entire store simply disappears. If you don’t get to your library in time for whatever reason, those books are gone.

The only thing that Microsoft offered was a full refund and an extra $25 if you added annotations according to Brian Barrett. He goes on to point out the cold reality: “And because of digital rights management—the mechanism by which platforms retain control over the digital goods they sell—you have no recourse.” The books are gone.

While things like Project Gutenberg release books freely to download forever, the big companies like Amazon are tied to digital rights management. You simply license books from Amazon’s digital marketplace in the same way that you did from Microsoft. If those stores become obsolete, you’ll likely lose access to any purchases that you’ve made past a certain point.

Amazon has quietly removed books from libraries before. They were missing the proper rights to a version of George Orwell’s 1984, so therefore, readers were missing the proper rights, as well. It was removed from the store without fanfare. The interesting thing is that it wasn’t only removed from the store—it was deleted from readers’ devices.

Consumers are inextricable from the services they use. This connectedness is useful and handy so long as the services continue to operate. In the case of e-readers, we have instant access to thousands upon thousands of books. However, this necessitates that consumers are left crippled if the service is discontinued. We’ve seen it in the case of Microsoft discontinuing their store, and one day, Amazon’s library may be removed, as well. It will have been obsolete for a long time, by then, but many books are published only through Amazon—they will be gone.

Technology is a business, primarily. Consumers, readers in particular, depend on this technology to consume art old and new. Due to the evolution of technology, companies pushing new products, and the fact that digital rights do not physically exist, obsolescence has been and will be a permanent problem in the world of digital publishing.

Digital Publishing in the Developing World

In developed countries, the Internet provides a sufficient medium for digital publishing. The transition from print to digital has changed the way consumers receive and circulate different forms of content. In developing countries, however, the transition is considerably slower. Constraints (e.g., pricing, government opposition, and limited readership) on publishers based in developing countries leave them to play catch up with rest of the world.

The shift from print to digital serves as a reminder that the progression of the digital market drives change in society that helps to shape “the future of publishing.”

The Publishing Market

Digital publishing is a lucrative business, if done correctly. According to Jens Bammel, author of From Paper to Platform: Publishing, Intellectual Property and the Digital Revolution, “the global book market is worth approximately 145 billion US dollars, making publishing one of the largest creative industries in the world.” Two-thirds of the world’s “global publishing business” is attributed to the six world’s largest markets.

Bammel writes that the largest publishing market is found in the U.S., worth more than $37.25 billion. China comes in at second, worth more than $22.25 billion. Third is Germany at more than $10 billion then the UK at $6.5 billion, Japan at $6 billion, France at $4.25 billion, and India at $3.75 billion.

The facade of large nations being able to support the publishing industry is uncanny, as the markets have been declining. However, the substantial growth in countries, such as Brazil, China, and India shows the dependence on “the economic middle class” and their values in “education, reading, self-actualization, intellectual discourse and culture.”

Government Opposition

Governments, worldwide, control different aspects of the lives of the people they are meant to serve. The education system, for example, is an important aspect of a functioning country. Likewise, having adequate textbooks should be a priority. According to Bammel:

High-quality textbooks are vital to education in developing and emerging economies. Education is one of the first areas of investment for any emerging economy, but where resources are limited, qualified teachers are in short supply and classes are large, a good education depends on textbooks.

For some countries, such as Norway, Greece, Poland, and Switzerland, textbooks are published only for their exclusive use. The exclusivity sparks debate about a lack of diversity and how it can lead to the enforcement of the government’s agenda on young and impressionable audiences. Similarly, some countries alter history textbooks to portrays their country in a positive light, as can be seen in American textbooks.

William Wresch, writer of “e-Commerce Innovations in the Book Publishing Industry: Opportunities for the Developing World” states:

Governments can be significant aids to publishers by sending school textbook contracts their way, but they can also become quick enemies of publishing houses if local despots begin to feel the books being published threaten their lifetime reigns.

Brazil, Africa, China, and several other countries are under strict guidelines for publishing. Wresch notes that “The most significant barrier to publishing recently has been the imprisonment, exile, or murder of authors.” As a method of combating strict and unforgiving governments, some authors have taken to micropublishing.

In “What Is Micro-Publishing? A Thorough Definition,” Christina Katz writes, “Micro-publishing means that every person is a publisher.” In short, it is self-publishing. Though content will most likely only spread locally, producing several volumes should be relatively safe if the government of the nation is left unaware.

Limited Readership

Readership can be affected by poverty, illiteracy, and a language barrier. Countries that share one or more languages can guarantee a wider spectrum of people reading their content. In countries where the first or second language is English, it is easy to publish in English and know there will be a readership present, within the country and around the world. Wresch states:

Publishers in developing countries can follow suit and publish in English, but then they may have very limited local readership. Or they can publish in the local language and forego any chance at international sales.

A possible solution is teaching young children their mother tongue and another language, to increase readership and give publishing companies more business, thus promoting literacy. Technology continues to advance, giving way to the promotion of different textbooks and leading to a broader international audience.

Though digital publishing in the developing world is temporarily stunted, the transition from print to digital shines a light on the developing countries’ prospect of growth. For accessibility’s sake, developed countries should aid in the publishing endeavors of the developing countries, to encourage growth of the country and educational opportunities for its people.