Technology, Education, and Economic Development
Dr. Glen M. Farrell
Originally presented as a Keynote Address to the 13th Commonwealth
Conference of Education Ministers Parallel Convention, July 28
- 30, 1997, Gaborone, Botswana
In a forward to the 1996 annual report of the World Bankís
Economic Development Institute, President James Wolfenson makes
the point that the ability of nations and people to learn, to
adapt the lessons to their own context quickly, and to translate
learning into action, are the critical components of successful
development in a global economy that increasingly relies on knowledge
and information (World Bank, 1996).
The point is of obvious importance in a world characterized by
rapid growth in trade and investment; a dizzying rate of technological
change; increased economic integration among nations; an uncoupling
of natural resources from development as a result of new materials
and knowledge-based substitutes; globalization of industries;
and more open competition.
It takes on a particular urgency for developing countries, given
the reality that the countries that are benefiting most from the
global knowledge economy are concentrated in the northern hemisphere.
Learning and Development
Not to diminish the current critical nature of the linkage between
learning and development, learning has, in fact, always been at
the core of economic change.
The processes of economic transformation have been characterized
as an S-curve composed of four phases: an initial period of gestation
which begins in the previous economy; a second phase of rapid
growth during which the drivers of change move from incubation
to application; a third phase of maturity marked by stable but
less dramatic growth; and a fourth phase of aging in which growth
begins to fall off (Davis & Davidson, 1993).
This image of development gives rise to three observations. The
most obvious one is that with each wave of change, economies move
through these four phases more rapidly resulting in increasingly
shorter periods of time for learning and the application of new
knowledge. While some parts of the world have moved from an agrarian
economy to the global knowledge economy over two centuries, others
face that challenge within one generation. Try to imagine the
adaptive challenge facing people in that situation. It underlines
the need for learning that enables one to comprehend the nature
of a changing community and to make personal adaptive decisions.
The second observation is that the S-curve image provides a useful
framework for thinking about educational inputs and strategies.
For example, the concept of the gestation phase in the development
cycle suggests the need for investment in both education and research
which creates new knowledge. It may also imply the ability to
adopt development concepts and strategies from elsewhere and adapt
them for application in a different context.
A different set of knowledge diffusion strategies is usually needed
in order to move development activities from incubation to application
on a broad scale. The evolution of agricultural education strategies
around the world is an example. They often involved the provision
of consultative services, demonstration farms and the use of broadcast
technology such as radio and television. They were, however, both
labour intensive and relatively fixed in terms of both time and
space. These features of learning strategy will be less appropriate
in the knowledge economy where education must be diffused much
more rapidly and on a mass scale.
The third observation would be that, as an economy moves from
growth to maturity, the educational models that have emerged to
support development tend to become institutionalized. Their operating
and pedagogical procedures become relatively fixed and the organization
of the knowledge that is communicated ñ often called the
curriculum ñ becomes rather static (Dolence & Norris,
1995). This may have been appropriate in an industrial economy
in which labour force requirements were relatively predictable
in terms of the skills and capacities required for that economy.
However, they are being found wanting in terms of providing the
knowledge and the learning opportunities that are required in
todayís world, a point I shall return to later on.
Technology and Development
Technology, as we all know, has several facets, all of which are
powerful drivers of change. New materials, biotechnology innovations,
and robotics are but a few of them. However, the most profound
of all is what is often called telematics ñ the convergence
and explosive growth and development of the information and communication
technologies.
Breakthroughs resulting in rapidly declining costs of communicating,
exponential growth in the power of computers, and the transformation
from analogue to digital formats in the way information can be
stored and transmitted, have become the primary drivers of economic
change (Bond, Smith, Primo Braga, Fink, & Clotts, 1997). Together
they are rapidly leading to a convergence of the once-separate
industries of broadcasting and telecommunication, and in the process
they are creating a world where the differences in the devices
we have used to send and receive voice, video, text, and graphic
messages will soon disappear. The emerging network technologies
of fibre-optics, direct satellite broadcasting, wireless and cable,
together with the avalanche of new communication appliances, provide
both the context for the global knowledge economy as well as the
potential to meet the educational demands that result from it.
One of the ways to think about information and communication technologies
is in terms of the following categories:
Networks
These are made up of the wires, cable, fibre-optics, satellite
and wireless pathways by which information is moved among send-and-receive
points. Networks are, if you like, the information highways.
Appliances
These are the devices such as telephones, television sets, radios,
faxes and computers which are needed either to receive or send
information. Appliances can be thought of as the entry and exit
points to the highways.
Content
This is the information that moves via the networks between and
among send-and-receive points. In the case of education, this
may be the documentary you watch on television, the agriculture
program you listen to on radio, the questions you ask your course
tutor or fellow learners about on the telephone, the on-line course
you take via computer conferencing, or the information you acquire
from having done a search on the world wide web.
The development, design, and availability of these communication
and information technologies is having a profound effect on the
conduct of social and economic life. The development of these
technologies may not be synonymous with the development of the
knowledge-based economy, but they are, as the recent OECD Report
on Technology, Productivity and Job Creation pointed out,
closely inter-related (OECD, 1996).
However, huge differences exist in terms of access to information
and communication technologies among the different regions of
the world. There are, for example, more telephone lines in Manhattan
than there are in all of sub-Saharan Africa, and more than half
of the worldís population has never made a telephone call.
While the development of information and communication technology
infrastructure is not the purpose of this paper per se,
it needs to be mentioned here because of the inter-relationship
between the development of these technologies and the development
of the knowledge-based economy. Resolving these differences is
important. A failure to do so will mean further marginalization
of these economies from the mainstream of global development.
Governments will need to play a central role in bringing this
about because so much of the world simply cannot afford the supply-driven
approach to the development of information and communication technology
infrastructure that has marked the emergence of these technologies
in the developed world.
Technology and Learning for Development
It is ironic that on one hand we see the rapid deployment of technology
creating the need for the development of sustainable models of
life-long learning, and on the other hand to see that the technologies
used in our educational systems have changed very little over
the last fifty years. Where they have been used, it has typically
been to enhance traditional models of delivery and instruction
of education.
Clearly, increasing the capacity for learning within our economies
is critical. The recent Report to UNESCO of the International
Commission on Education for the 21st Century brings this into
focus by pointing out that one out of every five men, and two
out of every five women, remain illiterate (UNESCO, 1996). The
report also stresses that basic skills equivalent to secondary
school level and the maintenance of the relevant skills of the
workforce are critical to economic welfare. All of this adds up
to an increased level of demand for learning that cannot be met
through existing learning models. The Commission recommended the
utilization of the new information and communication technologies
as an important element in increasing the learning capacity of
nations and the productivity of educational systems.
Implementation of that recommendation must, of course, be appropriate
to, and sustainable in, the specific context. It must proceed
with the understanding that the application of the technologies
is as connected to learning as it is to production and work. In
other words, technological changes that affect the way production
and work are done in an economy has consequences for both what
skills and knowledge need to be learned, as well as for the way
they are learned. As the OECD report points out, human capital
and technology are two faces of the same coin ñ two inseparable
aspects of knowledge accumulation.
The utilization of information and communication technologies
for learning faces a number of development challenges ñ
the severity of these challenges being dependent upon circumstances
in a given region:
Access to Networks
The lack of network infrastructure is, as pointed out earlier,
a severe constraint in most developing countries. The development
strategies to overcome them must not only be affordable and sustainable,
but also culturally sensitive. However, the fact that these technologies
are increasingly scaleable (that is, capable of being adopted
on an incremental basis) together with the fact that they are
amenable to aggregated demand (that is, to use the networks for
multiple purposes such as health, business, public administration,
as well as education) will make investment in their development
more attractive to both the public and private sectors. Some argue
that countries with little existing network infrastructure may
be able to proceed directly to the use of wireless and fibre-optic
technologies, thus leap-frogging the older technologies that form
the infrastructure in most of the developed world.
Access to Appliances
A distinguishing feature of the new information and communication
technologies is the capacity to enable interactivity. From a learning
perspective this is critical because it enables learning formats
that were previously only possible in a face-to-face environment.
They also permit interactivity both asynchronously as well as
in real time, thus enabling to learning to occur independent of
time and place.
However, even in developed countries, access to the necessary
appliances such as computers, modems, and voice and video conferencing
equipment, is very uneven among socio-economic groups. If technology
is to be effective in meeting learning-for-development needs,
access to the necessary tools must be made available on a mass
basis as a matter of public policy. Otherwise, the fault lines
between those who benefit in the global knowledge economy and
those who do not will continue to widen.
In response to this need, the concept of the ìcommunity-based
learning centreî ñ a convenient location where people
can go to access these appliances ñ is likely to be a hallmark
of 21st Century educational systems. These centres can be created
as needs and available financing dictate and can be integrated
with existing physical infrastructure such as schools, community
centres, libraries, and within the workplace. The evolution of
the learning centre will meet another need ñ that of social
interactivity. ìHigh techî and ìhigh touchî
need not be mutually exclusive in the learning environment.
Development of User Skills
Clearly, creating access to the technologies for learning is necessary
but not sufficient. Those who must use them need opportunities
to develop the requisite skills. Indeed, the ability to develop
these skills has become another facet of the definition of literacy
and an important part of a foundation for development strategies
that are sustainable.
Educational Reform and Development
The OECD Report on Technology, Productivity, and Job Creation
noted that growth in productivity in OECD countries has been slower
in the last two decades that it was in the 1960s and early 1970s
ñ despite the increase in the knowledge base and the widespread
diffusion of information and communication technologies in the
1980s and 1990s. One of the reasons offered is that changes in
institutional behaviour have not occurred in a way that permits
potential benefits in productivity to be realized. The point is
highly relevant in the context of education and development and
the use of information and communication technologies. Simply
laying a technological veneer over curricula and institutional
models designed for an industrial economy is obviously inappropriate.
There is no shortage of suggestions as to how educational systems
can be made more relevant to the needs of the societies they were
established to serve. Certainly, making them more accessible is
critical. It is much of what this conference is about. However,
of equal importance is the question of ìAccess to what?î
The following thoughts should be considered:
- What is learned must be relevant to the needs of people in
an economy. Educational providers need to be in touch with labour
market requirements. And the spokespeople for those requirements
need to be included in the decision-making process through which
educational offerings are defined.
- Effective learning must be judged on the basis of the outcomes
that result rather than on the inputs required. Historically,
educational systems have held time constant and let learning vary.
We now have the need, and the opportunity, to change the variables
ñ we can hold learning constant and let time vary.
- Ways must be found to facilitate learning rather than to simply
supply instruction. As the development goal of creating life-long
learning as part of the foundation for a sustainable economy is
achieved, there will be a need for institutions, or perhaps new
organizations, to facilitate learning on an individual basis.
Individuals will need to have access to services which assist
them in defining learning goals, assessing and accrediting the
skills and knowledge that they have already acquired, develop
learning plans for filling in the gaps, and providing the necessary
certification on the basis of evidence that the requirements have
been met.
- The valuing of innovation within educational organizations
must be increased. Historically, innovation has been something
that has occurred on the margins of educational institutions.
For example, within universities it is common to find programs
being offered to meet labour force requirements that bear little
or no relationship to the standard curricula taught within the
institution. In the future, institutions that will be contributing
to the development goals of the economies within which they are
located will be those that have been able, through changing reward
systems and other core processes, to make innovation the core
of their mission.
- We need to accept that the boundaries are changing. The world
of education has historically operated with a number of boundaries
which make little sense in a continuous learning environment.
The demarcation between elementary, secondary and post-secondary,
technical vs. academic, formal vs. non-formal, education
vs. training, and graduate vs. undergraduate are,
for the most part, predicated on the assumption that learning
is for the young and largely occurs in a linear fashion. The learning
requirements of the knowledge economy will be more random, will
be demand driven, and will require combinations of technical competence
and conceptual understanding that will defy our past attempts
to label them as training or education.
Reforms such as these are likely to be traumatic for our educational
systems. Their decision-making structures, and the vested interests
that imbue them, make changing their product line, and the way
that product line is produced, very difficult. Unlike other sectors
of the worldís economies, they have, to date, largely been
protected from the realities of global competition. However, with
both public and private educational providers making educational
content accessible on networks that will be accessed from anywhere
in the world, that environment is about to change.
Governments know that what will make the most difference to their
development objectives will be the general education level of
the population at large and the skills and knowledge of their
labour force (Porter, 1991). Educational systems that are unable
to change to meet these requirements will leave their governments
with no alternative but to find new ways to make the learning
available. The global knowledge economy, and the information and
communication technologies that pervade it, provide the context
for global learning strategies and partnership models that were
unimaginable even a decade ago. The challenge will be to do that
in ways that are sustainable and culturally sensitive.
References
Bond, J. , P. Smith, C. Primo Braga, C. Fink, and F. Clotts. The
Information Revolution and the Future of Communications. The
World Bank Group. 1997.
Davis, S., and B. Davidson. 20/20 Vision. Simon and Schuster,
New York. 1991, in D. Cohen, and G. Stanley. No Small Change.
MacMillan Canada. 1993.
Dolence, M., and D. Norris. Transforming Higher Education:
A Vision for Learning in the 21st Century. Society for College
and University Planning. Ann Arbor, Michigan. 1995.
OECD Report on Technology, Productivity, and Job Creation.
OECD. Paris, 1996.
Porter, M.E. ìCanada at the Crossroads ñ the Reality
of a New Competitive Environmentî. A study prepared for
the Business Council on National Issues and Government of Canada.
October, 1991.
UNESCO. Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on
Education for the 21st Century. 1996.
World Bank. Annual Report of the Economic Development Institute
of the World Bank. 1996.
Other References
Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, OECD. Adult
Learning in a New Technological Era.. OECD Proceedings. Paris.
1996
Conference Board of Canada. Performance and Potential: Assessing
Canadaís Social and Economic Performance Annual Report.
1996.
Johnson, W. ìGlobal Workforce 2000: The New World Labour
Marketî. Harvard Business Review. March-April 1991.
Dr. Glen M. Farrell
President
Open Learning Agency
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
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