Bridging higher education's technology gap in Africa
John L. Hayman · T.H.E. Journal Technological Horizons in Education · 1993
Africa, continent we believe was birthplace of our species and therefore home to us all, continues to be among least developed and poorest areas of world. Faced with massive needs, leaders of region look hopefully to information technologies to improve their lot. As director of an informatics research project in Africa for International Association of Universities (IAU), I share this fragile hope, but also realize magnitude of challenge. An account of this work is appropriate for T.H.E. Journal. * Origins IAU, headquartered in Paris, was rounded in 1950 at initiative of UNESCO. It began with 150 members and currently has about 800; 56 are from U.S. and 63 are from Africa. IAU has associate status with UNESCO, from which it receives a small proportion of its budget. Original purposes of IAU were to serve as an international center of cooperation among universities and to act as an information clearinghouse for higher education. Through years, more of a service orientation has evolved, a trend formalized when organization was directed at its 1990 General Conference to focus on outreach and cooperative endeavors. It was also directed to institute an informatics program. Informatics is a French term, exact meaning of which is vague. We in IAU use it anyway, defining it as formal study and application of information in decision making and control and in scientific inquiry. It includes computing, networking and communications technologies, plus their various subfields. * Dimensions of a Growing Gap Before discussing work in Africa in detail, stage should be set. Readers of T.H.E. Journal are aware that, as age of high technology unfolds, informatics is more and more a determining factor in economic competitiveness. September 1991 special issue of Scientific American, Michael Dertouzos noted that, by fusing computing and communications technologies, we are creating an infrastructure that is profoundly reshaping both economies and society itself. Unfortunately, benefits of new age are not equitably distributed. The technology gap between industrialized and developing countries is very large, and Dertouzos predicts that, unless wealthy countries see it as their duty to help developing nations in this area, one effect of information age will be to widen gap still further. The range of living standards between richest and poorest is appalling, and to use a cliche, social dynamite. The first reason for doing something is moral. We ought to help our fellow humans, particularly when so many are in such misery. We ought to--but few of us stay motivated very long to do good works, particularly if our pocketbooks are touched. I plead guilty with rest. The second reason, however, is entirely pragmatic and will appeal even to least idealistic. Unless something is done, poor are going to bring their problems to us. Thorvald Stoltenberg, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, published an article on this topic in October 1990. In decades ahead, says Stoltenberg, the mass, uncontrolled movement of refugees across globe will be one of principal threats to international security. Today, an explosion of 'poverty refugees' far exceeds number of 'traditional refugees' fleeing persecution and war. Stoltenberg maintains that world refugee problem must be redefined in terms of security rather than charity. Unless root cause is addressed, he says, a new kind of catastrophic global violence is likely. Recent news reports of problems in France, Germany, England and elsewhere caused by an influx of large numbers of emigres from poorer countries lend dramatic support to his belief. Like it or not, we are all connected. Africa * Higher Education's Response IAU's work in Africa traces back to 1989 International Congress on Education and Informatics, convened by UNESCO to consider technology inequity problem and recommend ways to address it. …