The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : ‘Greater decentralisation of ICT programmes needed’

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Oct 06, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

‘Greater decentralisation of ICT programmes needed’

Special Correspondent

Meet recommends cost-effective dissemination tools for adult education

Additional funding for literacy initiatives sought
ICT must not be confined to computer-based literacy, says Minister

BANGALORE: The international conference of E-9 countries on ICT (Information and Communication Technology) for literacy, which concluded here on Friday, made around 10 recommendations, including overall guidance and supervision of national policies and greater decentralisation of ICT programmes.

About 771 million adults in the world were illiterate. Of them, 304 million were from South Asian countries.

As such, development of cost-effective and easily replicable methods of dissemination using ICT media needed to be encouraged, supported and broadened within the E-9 countries that accounted for a majority of adult illiterates today, the conference said.

The speakers also appealed to the governments concerned to increase the incremental investment in ICT for literacy.

Priority

The governments should accord priority to this crucial area and commit themselves to additional funding for literacy initiatives.

They also felt that there should be greater bilateral and multi-lateral cooperation between the countries, so that successful initiatives and best practices in one country could be replicated in another and delivered to the beneficiaries.

Acknowledging the importance of civil society organisations and the private sector in modern-day development, the conference recommended augmentation of existing partnerships with these groups, so that government efforts could be supplemented and enhanced to deliver literacy services to last-mile recipients, with special emphasis on women, the deprived and those residing in remote places.

Experts from the three different working groups that charted the recommendations noted that there had been significant investments in the ICT media at the school level, with schools, both formal and non-formal, gaining greater access to computers and computer-based learning programmes.

Infrastructure

It was felt that the possibility of using such existing infrastructure, including that of open schools and distance education systems for adult literacy programmes should be explored, with a view to optimising the cost of such investment.

The E-9 countries should examine adoption of modern technology and school literacy programmes.

A certain degree of advocacy by the governments involved in the field of adult literacy had become imminent, the charter of recommendations stated.

Delivering the valedictory address, Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development, M.A.A. Fatmi, called upon educationists and policy-makers to find methods to bridge the digital divide using technology. ICT must not be confined to computer-based literacy, he added.

He suggested that the participating countries could institutionalise networking to exchange and promote ideas on ICT. This could be enhanced by mutual visits of literacy functionaries and officials. The system needed greater public-private partnership to promote ICT in literacy, he added.

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