Is there anything better that a university lecturer can use to transfer an idea in an hour or 2? Putting it up on Slideshare for free afterwards gives the most return to the government education budget. A creative common license makes it easy for lecturers to borrow the best slides from each other. Over time constantly updated "crowd-sourced" education decks will emerge that beat any text book easily. Better teaching material, no cost.
Related: a post on the Duarte blog on how presentations could mark the end of the boring press release.