Education

Education is one of the most critical building blocks for societal transformation in the global network society. Two of the Millennium Development Goals relate to education, and the linkages between ICT and education have also been recognized in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). ICT for education (ICT4E) can support a number of vital functions including: educational administration and management; student access to quality education; professional development of teachers; and, development of locally relevant content. Yet in many developing countries, education is one of the most under-resourced sectors in society, often characterized by ineffective administration, insufficient access and poor quality, scarcity of trained teachers, and lack of adequate teaching and learning tools. At a time when global developments are increasingly influenced by ICT, these educational shortcomings are bound to have disastrous consequences for future generations.

ICT can be used to improve education in a variety of ways:

Education Management: ICT offers tools and systems that can improve the planning, administration and management of education, at local, regional and national levels. Mobile applications, data bases and electronic networks can be used to gather, store and distribute educational data, thus enabling more efficient and effective management of the education system. Communication tools are equally important to ensure that policies and directives are followed through at all levels of the education system, while greater interaction within the administrative system can improve its responsiveness to local realities. Many developing countries have some sort of Educational Management Information System (EMIS) in place, but more often than not these systems are inadequate or outdated, and very little has been done to explore the potential of M4D and Free and Open Source Software (FOSS).

e-Learning: ICT enables the development of new forms of learning, such as flexible, blended and collaborative learning, combining innovative technological tools with student-centered pedagogical models. ICT can also be used for more inclusive education, from lifelong learning for adults and training programs for out of school youth to learning resources for people with disabilities. In a developing country context, the technological tools must be carefully assessed to fit local circumstances, while paying close attention to financial, social, and cultural constraints. Seeing that e-learning is still at an experimental stage in many developed countries, it is important to avoid immature technology transfer, while the risks of misusing scarce public funds must be minimized.

Digital Literacy: No society can fully utilize the potential of ICT unless sufficient numbers of the population have the requisite skills to explore and exploit technological developments. Access to ICT is but the first step in a long process of capacity development, the overall aim of which should be digital inclusion. Some social groups are more prone to acquire digital skills, e.g. young people, students, and professionals, while others are likely to fall behind, e.g. elderly, uneducated, and unemployed. Digital literacy gaps tend to reproduce discrepancies between urban and rural areas, while reinforcing the socio-economic vulnerabilities of marginalized groups like women, children, and people with disabilities. So unless a concerted effort is made for digital literacy, the introduction of ICT is likely to widen rather than narrow social inequalities.