World Telecommunication Day 1999 |
While thousands of high-tech jobs go unfilled in Europe and North America because potential employees have not been trained in the required skills, the world's poorest nations struggle with a more pressing educational deficiency more than 1.5 billion illiterates, by conservative estimates.
Even in affluent societies, there are pockets of illiteracy. Altogether, 70 percent of the world's population is functionally illiterate, and only 1 percent has a college education. Robert Chase, an economics professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a consultant to World Bank development projects, says: ''Information haves and have nots exist within countries as well as between them; what development professionals are trying to do is widen the reach.''
When talking about ''technology for education,'' it helps to be precise about the context and the objectives. Martin Burack, executive director of the Internet Society, observes that at his organization's annual conference, ''An American was giving a session on 'training at the speed of change,' while another session talked about how the Internet helped two Ph.D. candidates in Nigeria with their class work.''
Access to telecommunications can be instrumental in reaching both kinds of objectives - straightforward information to educate large numbers of people who might otherwise fall between the cracks and an enriched educational experience for more fortunate students who already have access to classrooms, teachers and books. The latter might include collaborative learning within the classroom or links between school and home to encourage parental involvement.
In either case, the telecommunications media used can be higher-end equipment like GSM phones, satellite link-ups and the Internet, or very basic media like television, fax, radio and the telephone. The more sophisticated media are often found in projects for universities, continuing education for technical specialists and scientific research.
University students are more likely to be ''motivated, to possess language skills and - at least in developed countries - have prior computer experience,'' notes the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in its 1999 report ''Internet for Development.'' In another study, called ''Interactive Technology and Electronic Networks in Higher Education and Research,'' authors Michael Crawford, Thomas Eisemon and Lauritz Holm-Nielsen reported to the World Bank that ''selective use of interactive technology in universities in developing countries can potentially overcome the resource shortages which are responsible for the decline of quality. Intelligent tutoring systems, interactive distance education, computer-mediated instruction, data retrieval and electronic libraries have a combined potential to close the gap in learning and research opportunities between universities in developing countries and those in the developed world.'' The ITU cites the success of such programs as the Virtual University of the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Mexico and the African Virtual University, both of which deliver some of their courses by Internet.
Potential benefits
The advantages of the Internet, says the ITU, are lower cost, greater reach and interactive capability. The ITU developed its own Virtual Training Center and is developing the Global Telecommunication University/Global Telecommunication Training Institute (GTU/GTTI). The Virtual Training Center offers more than 400 courses on-line, primarily to telecommunication organizations from developing countries. The GTU/GTTI is starting to provide distance learning programs at university level in continuing education and at supervisory level in task-oriented training, also to the telecommunications organizations from developing countries. The latter provides distance learning programs at university level in continuing education and at supervisory level in task-oriented training. For primary and secondary education, the most pressing need in the world's most impoverished regions, the jury is still out on how best to harness the power of telecommunications technologies.
Some ambitious projects have been launched, such as the World Bank's World Links for Development. This program expects to reach an average of 160,000 students and teachers per year in 40 developing countries and again as many in advanced countries. Schools from advanced and emerging economies are partnered - with supporting Internet connectivity - to create opportunities for intercultural learning. Success in such programs is measured against benchmark standards for use of technology, reasoning skills, cultural awareness and pedagogical strategies, explains Robert Hawkins, an education technology specialist with the World Bank.
Measured by such criteria (as opposed to anecdotal evidence), not all programs are successful, in spite of their good intentions. The ITU Internet for Development Report says: ''It is still quite unclear up to what point the availability of Internet in primary and secondary education of developing countries is a viable endeavor. It is even less clear whether networking schools will have any tangible impact on the educational achievements of children and teenagers in countries where education suffers from structural deficiencies, such as few teachers with poor training, scarcity of schools and other material resources essential to provide educational services.'' Mr. Hawkins lists other obstacles, such as resistance at high government levels and lack of local content. To overcome ministerial objections, he suggests stressing all the positive aspects of telecommunications for education: access to information, markets, ideas and expatriates (to reverse a country's brain drain, often a problem for emerging economies), and enhanced ability to deal with change and development and cultural differences.
Local content is important, he says, ''and we are encouraging its development.'' A base for local content is formed by e-mail exchanges, access to the information of colleagues, resource sharing among libraries and group projects. Mr. Hawkins recalls one high school in Peru where the students developed Web sites on subjects of importance to them - their oral traditions, their environment and hygiene. Such traditional knowledge can help ensure the relevance of new technologies and ease the transition of developing economies to the digital world, say education specialists.
Claudia Flisi