Both Budden, who works for the Fiji-based Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, and Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission information communication technology adviser Siaosi Sovaleni, said the issue in the Pacific is not just getting technology to people, but people’s ability to make use of it.
“It’s not just about telecommunications companies,” said Budden. “I’m concerned with the capability of people to use it (Internet and computers).”
“There’s no point to having a computer if you can’t use it properly,” said Sovaleni.
Access to Internet can improve business opportunities and government administration through so-called “e-commerce” and “e-government,” Budden said. “This can make a difference to isolated islands,” Budden said.
But after surveying islands ranging in population from just 1,200 to several million, Budden said he is concerned that as improved telecommunications technology becomes available, “do countries have the human capability to manage and use it?”
A critical issue for many island countries in the region is that elementary school children have virtually no access to the Internet and little access to computers, Budden said.
In many smaller islands, only a small percentage of schools even have computer laboratories many of them privately run and typically they are under-resourced with two-to-three students sharing each available computers.
At the largest public high school in the Marshall Islands, 860 students compete to use just 10 computers with Internet access. “While this is an improvement from nothing at all, it is still severely insufficient,” said Marshall Islands High School teacher Richard Li. “In the year 2008, having a computer without Internet access is like having a car without gas.”
Li confirmed Budden and Sovaleni’s concern about capacity of students to use telecommunications technology. Graduating seniors “can word process but very few can elegantly perform an Internet search or send an e-mail,” said Li, who has taught in the country for five years. “Many have aspirations to attend college off-island. Yet when the time comes to apply, many are unaware of how to even find a college, let alone navigate an online application form.”
The lack of computer awareness is a hurdle for educational advancement and therefore national development because island students heading to the United States, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere to college are way behind other students who’ve had computer/Internet access since gradeschool, Budden said.
In rural villages in the Solomon Islands the government is now promoting a “one-laptop-per-student” policy that is seeing children teaching their parents how to use computers, Budden said. This is the type of computer literacy that can make a difference, he said.
“If computers are not available in schools, students are missing out,” he said. “It’s essential for capacity building and for career paths of students to college and beyond.”
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Giff Johnson
Quelle/Source: Marianas Variety, 28.05.2008
