Furthermore...
Not only are these calculators expensive - they're also so badly designed that they thwart the development of mathematical understanding. The linked paper above was published in 1999 but none of the problems it describes have been fixed to date.
Considering the general imperfection of all the products, the emphasis on specific marks and models could be seen as an attempt to indoctrinate future consumers with arbitrary brand recognition, whereas the true function of education is not merely to instil the ability to get the right answers to specific problems but the cultivation of independent thinking as the basis for lifelong autonomous learning.
There is of course a more uncharitable view - that it saves the teachers having to think too hard if everyone is using the same kit and following the same instruction manual. When I was teaching, the "course materials" included even the answers to the multiple choice test papers, so in principle you didn't have to know the subject to "teach" it.
So this might conceivably be a way to accommodate weak teaching skills, but ultimately the last thing either corporate behemoths or governments want is a population that thinks for itself - that could lead to lost profits and social chaos. In general in the "democracies" they don't actively suppress it, but there's a loose and probably subliminal confederacy of thought between the two that paternalistically assumes they are the arbiters of good for an incompetent populace. The result is nevertheless effectively the same as that of active suppression, except that it's more durable by virtue of being covert. The acid test of successful brainwashing is that the victim doesn't realise anything untoward has happened.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
