Despite real improvements in access to, and use of, information and communication technology around the world, there is a wealth of evidence to suggest that the digital divide between and within countries is growing. In response to the significant challenge microsoft had launched its global initiatives called the Partners-in- Learning Programme. Vincent Quah, Regional Academic Programs Manager, Asia Pacific Public Sector, Microsoft, gives an Asia pacific overview of this programme and Microsoft’s visions in a conversation with Rumi Mallick of Digital Learning.
? Can Public-Private Partnership as a framework address the challenges in education in Asia?
If you look at a lot of government and the kind of investment they are putting into education it can be pre-daunting and can be unsustainable. For example, in a populous country like India, how do you try to address the education
divide in India, will the country be able to put the necessary investment to support and ensure that many children can access quality education and technology? Therefore, the whole notion of Public Private Partnership as a possible framework for sustainable manpower development, is now even of more important consideration than before. And so Microsoft is one such example of Public Private Partnership to work with government to understand the major, more important priorities of countries so as to help them to begin addressing the challenges in education.
? What are the other challenges to education in the Asia Pacific?
The same challenges faced by Asia pacific is also faced by Europe, faced by Africa, in Latin America, in US. The challenge is that people have not problem has to be addressed from the core. Not only the teachers, the school leaders and the policy makers as well need to be digitally literate. You have to ensure maximum results out of implementation.
? When you refer to ICT enabled education, what kind of innovation will you highlight?
We need to start changing our terminology here, putting emphasis on ICT-enabled education, not ICT integrated. It is an assumption that it is the foundation. May be we should not think about the kid. ICT one day will become like a calculator, like a pen and paper, where we should really focus in the innovation, and the change in the pedagogy and curriculum, the change in the
assessment system, the change of learning and relearning and applying lessons learned into the system.
? What are your future visions for the rural area?
The future is like envisioning what the school can be like. That picture, that vision could be different for different schools and different regions. The future of a rural school can be, how am I going to be relevant to the rural been able to benefit from the impact and the investment the government is making in technology. We keep learning the good practices, great examples how teachers and students really blossom as a result of technology, though we have not seen the widespread, cyspanic, embracing use of technology and how technology has impacted, that is one challenge. The other challenge is having something at
the country level that will enable to become comparative work force, enable them to have digital literacy and helping them with an improved quality of life.
? Why Microsoft has been focusing on teachers’ in most of the programmes?
Teachers are very keen in the education sector. With technology, teachers are no longer going to be relevant, but on the contrary teachers are becoming more important, have very different role, of an expert, a manager and a facilitator. Teachers are the key for students. So it will be a much easier approach to make the students learn and understand if the teachers are properly trained. Students are digitally literate where as the teachers are digitally illiterate. The children to ensure that they can have a good career in future and so they can design the school around that vision. Important is what is a great, mighty or important thing in one country need not necessarily be
applicable in your own context.
? What is your experience so far in working with the Asian countries?
I think the governments in Asia Pacific are in a real high demand stage. It is not actually a question of over-supply; it is a question of overdemand. So much that has to be done at the country level; they embrace different programmes including Microsoft into part and parcel of their overall national strategy. And our experience working with governments is very very positive. The partnership learning initiative has been the most successful programme of Microsoft. We never had so many partnerships; as of today we have 101 countries on this programme.
? You might have faced some challenges working with Asian governments. Can you relate a few?
Working with Government is all about establishing trust during relationship. When we started in some countries, government was little concerned and skeptical as organisations like Microsoft want to make partnership with them. But I think when they see that we meant what we say, we meet the commitments, we do the things we are going to say, that is where the change, the trust begins to grow, that is when they become more prepared to have more in-depth discussion about some of the things that are working and some of the things that are not working in the country.
? What is the Microsoft vision of education worldwide?
Microsoft vision of education worldwide, not just for Asia is that we believe technology can play very important role in the whole business of education, in the teaching and learning area as well as meeting the lifestyle of the students and teachers. We believe the technology can help them fulfill their potentials, that is Microsoft’s ultimate vision.
? What do you think has been your major achivement?
If I can see a sparkle in the eyes of the students, in the eyes of the teachers, in the eyes of policy makers with whom we work. At the end of the day it should be about creating better opportunities for them, it’s about impacting positively.
? Any specific achievement in last few years?
Wherever I travel I always meet up schools and teachers, educators, senior level officers, ministers. We run a conference for senior government people in the ministry so that we can understand their problems, at the same time we help them realise that this is how the world is moving, technological advances are happening, they need to be aware of some of these things as well. So we
make the relationship and make it grow and I think this is one big area that I can count as my achievement in helping develop this trust and this relationship between government and Microsoft.
? How do you see Asia in ten years from now?
Asia will experience very explosive growth. Hopefully in ten years time we will be looking to new challenges rather than focusing on old challenges which we would have overcome by then. The people who are involved in the education
sector would be much more savvy with what the current fence of the world. The students we are teaching are going to experience very different lifestyles after 20 years from now.
In this article we introduce a new concept – university ICT4D – that refers to the university as a producer of ICT4D knowledge and engaged actor in ICT4D practice – understood as the teaching, research and outreach activities of universities that link ICTs to the development needs of their communities and advance the transition to the knowledge society. Experience has shown that successfully leveraging Internet technologies for economic, social and political change demands new models and new technologies, and depends upon multi-disciplinary and multisectoral approaches. In most developing world contexts, complex problems are paired with limited institutional capacity and scarce funds, making essential the efficient and creative use of available resources. One powerful and oftenoverlooked piece of this puzzle is academia, which has substantial relevant capabilities to offer as investigator, consultant, educator, convener, evaluator and more. Indeed to perform these functions is to achieve the very mission of the university. When speaking of ICTs, we know universities as producers of ICT skills and knowledge in areas ranging from computer literacy to high-end programming. We posit, however, that while there are real barriers to university engagement in ICT4D and the broader revolution in cademia it requires or fosters, there is already more happening than many of us realise. As the following examples briefly illustrate, there are a number of less well-known but critically important ways that developing world universities are already making strides towards teaching, conducting research and integrating outreach programs in this field of ICT4D. The La Salle Institute of Governance (LSIG) at De La Salle University in the Philippines is a research and training institution that aims to produce new knowledge, strategies and tools that promote transparent, accountable, participatory, and effective governance. Recognising the growing interest in ICT, in 2002 political science professor Francisco Magno and his colleagues began to study ICT’s contribution to good governance. From this modest start, today they boast an active egovernance program that has a wide range of activities cutting across teaching, research, and community engagement. LSIG conducts workshops for local and national policy makers; produces a quarterly magazine for the League of Municipalities; hosts conferencessuch as Civil Society and Rights- Based Governance; produces research studies on such topics as “Good Governance and Anti- Corruption: A Term-End Performance Assessment”; introduces new courses into the university general curriculum and specialised courses for graduate students; and maintains partnerships with governmental and nongovernmental organisations. From a donor perspective, there are numerous organisations available to implement ICT4D programs across any fields – rural development, health services, e-government, women empowerment, policy reform, NGO capacity building – but surprisingly little academic quality research that analyses the results and implications for future efforts and policies. There are many case studies that are closer to collections of anecdotes written to showcase success, rather than the more painfully learned (and earned) lessons. What has been missing is high-quality, comparable, analytically rigorous, and dispassionate research and evaluation that will allow everyone to learn from past experiences and improve future program designs and implementations. As a Philippine colleague told us, “if you ever find someone doing research on programimpact here, it’s someone rom another country.” This situation exacerbates deeper-seated problems, impeding our understanding of the interactions between ICT and poverty alleviation, business generation, improved governance, gender equality and the other issues we care about – it’s essential for developing world researchers to help develop the supporting ideas and methods. In the area of teaching, we encountered widespread agreement that every country needs professionals in government, industry and civil society who understand the dynamics and challenges of ICTenabled socio-economic development. Unfortunately, relatively few developing world universities are adequately preparing students with the knowledge and skills for crafting better telecommunication policies, developing sustainable telecenters that meet the needs of underserved communities, or promoting effective use of ICT by small and medium enterprises. This is made even more ifficult due to barriers to elective coursework, cross-listed courses, and ther national and institutional policies that limit capacity and incentives for new pedagogical and programmatic approaches. Finally, in the outreach arena, few developing universities engage their students and faculty meaningfully with their communities. Developing educational and beneficial internships, community service, course projects and other programs that offer university expertise to local communities is a complicated affair. Yet these forms of engagement promise both substantial real-world learning opportunities for the university and real results for the communities in which they reside. Until universities effectively engage their communities, both groups will forego valuable fruits that would help advance the university mission and promote social well-being challenges? Many bservers ncluding people within academia) have deep reservations, ranging from doubts as to whether universities should take on these issues in the first place, to dismissing universities as being incapable of fulfilling these expectations. Critics claim, rightly in many cases, that universities are ossified institutions, largely incapable of the internal reform and innovation needed to make them more relevant to the changing needs of society. Or, they point to external constraints such as higher education policies that, for example, have a five-year process for introducing a new course, hardly the appropriate environment for curricular innovation. Or, they comment on systemic challenges such as disciplinary rigidities that make it difficult to conduct interdisciplinary work. There is general agreement among ICT4D scholars that one needs to bring a diversity of disciplinary tools to this field, yet universities and the journals where scholars need to publish in order to receive promotions reinforce the very disciplinary boundaries we need to overcome. Indeed, getting technologists to work effectively with social scientists and the professional disciplines is a central question of ICT4D research.
