Destined to Leapfrog: Why a Revolution in Learning will Occur in Brazil, Russia, and South AfricaPeter T. Knight Paper prepared for the Second International Conference on Distance Education in Russia, 2-5 July 1996, Moscow, Russian Federation. Earlier versions were presented at the World Bank Conference on Information Infrastructure: Challenges and Opportunities for Developing Countries, 12-13 July 1995, Washington, D.C, USA; the National Forum on Communication Technology for Effective Learning and Information Exchange, 27 March 1996, Foundation for Research Development, Pretoria, Republic of South Africa; and the Seminar on Distance Learning in Brazil and South Africa, 4 April 1996, Fernand Braudel Institute of World Economics, São Paulo, Brazil. The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily represent the views and policies of the World Bank or of its Executive Directors or the countries they represent. Abstract The stagnation of productivity in conventional education has contributed to financial stress and inflationary pressure. But the increasingly knowledge-based global economy requires increased coverage, improved quality, and increased duration of education and training for individuals, firms, and countries operating in global markets. The information revolution offers the means for redesigning education to achieve these objectives. Brazil, Russia and South Africa are particularly well positioned to leapfrog into twenty-first century learning systems. This paper analyzes why this is so, and provides examples of programs by which these countries are seeking to realize this potential. The Challenge In many countries the relative price of conventional education is rising. The reason is simple. For hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, the basic technology of education and training has remained essentially unchanged. A teacher goes to the front of the classroom, talks, puts material on the blackboard, distributes written materials, and conducts written and oral tests. In recent years some video or computer instruction may be added, but it is usually just that, added. The underlying student-teacher ratios change glacially if at all. While productivity rises in many other sectors of the economy, in education it has stagnated. We now realize that knowledge is the most important economic resource, vital for the competitiveness of individuals, enterprises, and nations. But we are also facing an economic challenge. How can we afford simultaneously to increase the quality of education, increase its coverage, and make it life-long? And how can we afford not to? The answer is clear. The information revolution has been decreasing the cost of processing, storing, and transmitting information by 50 percent every 18 months, with no end in sight. This technological wave is making possible major changes in the way education is produced and delivered. At the heart of this change is the convergence of the once-distinct media of image, sound, books, and computer networks into digital multimedia. This is making the world's knowledge base available anywhere on the planet, any time, and before long in any language through satellites, coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, and even conventional copper wire. Now new wireless technologies are making it possible to leapfrog bad or non-existent telephone systems to reach workplaces and homes. While technology already makes it possible for students in an African village to access the world's knowledge base, the 'hardware', and perhaps more importantly, the 'software' of social, political, economic, and organizational arrangements to permit this are lagging well behind the technological potential. Education and training systems need to be redesigned if the potential is to be realized. This is not easy. Brazil, Russia, and South Africa— The Potential for Leapfrogging Brazil, Russia, and South Africa are, I believe, in a political, economic, and technological position which offers them unusual challenges and opportunities to leapfrog into the learning systems of the 21st century. Why? These three countries all have large masses of people who, for very different reasons, didn't learn something they need to know to be effective in today's and tomorrow's economy. In Brazil, the reason was social injustice. Brazil's income distribution is one of the most unequal in the world, and access to education has been distributed in rough proportion to income. Even today, less than 40 percent of the relevant age cohort is enrolled in secondary education, and the quality of this education leaves much to be desired. The number of adult illiterates is estimated officially at some 28 million, and many more are functionally illiterate. In Russia, the problem was ideology. The Russians, like others living in centrally planned economies, were simply not taught how to live and work in a market economy. But in the Soviet Union, the problem was more severe than in all the other formerly centrally planned economies: there were virtually no living members of the labor force with these skills when market reforms began—unlike in China, Indo-China, and Eastern Europe. While the literacy rate in Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union is very high, almost all the relevant age cohorts enrolled in secondary school, and the level of technological and scientific skills is impressive, there are major lacunae in the areas of business administration, accounting, auditing, financial sector skills, public finance, and tax administration. In South Africa, the problem was political. Apartheid was a system which deliberately marginalized most Blacks and many Colored from the educational system. While educational levels for the white population are quite high, even for Whites, many years of isolation from most of the rest of the world has left certain deficiencies. Now all three countries have governments committed to change, democratically responsive to constituencies badly needing training or education to acquire needed skills. An attempt to meet these needs fast using conventional education and training would break the fragile macroeconomic balance prevailing in each country, setting off an inflationary spiral of which the poor would be the greatest victims. And all three countries have strong technological capabilities which make a breakthrough in distance education/training possible. The World Bank and other international organizations can play an important role in stimulating the development of distance education/training systems in these countries, and in promoting cross fertilization between the different national experiences. The possibility for direct partnerships in the case of Brazil and South Africa to work to extend these systems to the English and Portuguese-speaking countries of Africa is obvious. Russia's experience will of course be closely watched in other countries, especially those of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe where there are many Russian speakers. I have had the opportunity to help develop some projects in this area and to promote intellectual interchange between Brazil, Russia, and South Africa. Of course this interchange can and should be extended to other countries, and draw on the experience of all countries. But the potential for synergy between these three great countries is particularly high, and they each enjoy positions of influence which virtuly assures that their experience will be shared with other countries. A 27-minute video on supporting the main points of this paper and entitled Virtual Schools and Global Classrooms: A Revolution in Learning through Telematics is available from the Film and Video Unit of the World Bank's External Affairs Department. A 16-minute version is also available. They contain footage from producers in Brazil, Russia, and South Africa, but also go beyond these three case studies. Brazil—A Breakthrough Led by the Private Sector In Brazil the lead in tele-education has been taken by the Roberto Marinho Foundation (FRM), with some 15 years of experience with various telecourses and other educational programs. FRM is the non-profit arm of the Globo TV network, the fourth largest private TV network in the world, known outside of Brazil largely for its telenovelas, which have been exported successfully to Europe, Latin America, Africa, and even Russia. Over 70 percent of Brazilian homes have television sets. The latest educational initiative of FRM is the Telecurso 2000, on the air since the beginning of 1995.1 It is providing primary, secondary, and vocational education targeted on the 50 million victims of what I call informal apartheid—those who dropped out of or never got into Brazil's formal educational system. What is unique about the current effort is that it is financed by the private sector—FRM itself and the Federation of Industries of São Paulo (FIESP), supported by the National Industrial Training Service (SENAI). Telecurso 2000 is innovative, and provides for the use of telesalas, ((special training rooms with trained monitors) in workplaces (with employers giving time off for training), community centers, churches, and even buses, ships and prisons. It is broadcast by the Globo TV network from 6:15 to 7:00 AM, before the popular "Good Morning Brazil" program, rebroadcast during the day on educational networks, and supported by print materials available from newsstands throughout the country. Accreditation through certified examinations has been negotiated with state governments. Telecurso 2000 staff, in collaboration with the Instituto Aqua, are now exploring interactive, Internet-based provision of training services, which could provide an important interactive element now missing as well as provisions for updating training materials, standardizing testing, and many other services. A lead in this area has already been provided by the Escola do Futuro (School of the Future) at the University of São Paulo, which in April 1995 organized the First Latin-American Forum on Use of Electronic Networks in Education and Culture, with over 300 participants. At the same time, a very important round table discussion on Telematics and Education was organized by the Fernand Braudel Institute of World Economics—there were 22 participants largely with leadership positions in tele-education, but also two key participants from the Electronic Networks in Education and Culture Forum (an objective was to bring the TV and electronic networks people together). FIESP's contribution to Telecurso 2000 is significant—a commitment of US$43 million has been made to supplement over US$20 million contributed by FRM. While the program is still relatively young, the number of participants is expanding rapidly, and now includes telesalas in hundreds of industrial enterprises, industrial training centers, community centers, and federal penitentiaries. As of end-March 1996, organized telesalas with teaching assistants trained by FRM totaled 1,517 with 40,423 students. An additional 575 telesalas with 14,720 students were scheduled to begin operation supported by the Bradesco Foundation (linked with a large private bank).2 There is no record of the number of students studying at home or in informal groups. A major pedagogical principle underlying the Telecurso 2000 is the "contextualization" of education and training, putting concepts into practical life-like situations. Another characteristic of the series which makes it attractive to viewers is the participation in the programs of skilled and popular actors some of whom are known to viewers from their roles in telenovelas (soap operas) and films. Telecurso 2000 viewers relate to the training better than to conventional education. What is important here is that the Brazilian private sector has taken seriously the call of Brazil's President Fernando Henrique Cardoso (a sociologist by profession, and an internationally renowned one at that) for a "Revolution in Education". And Brazil has the technological infrastructure to make it happen. President Cardoso has said that education is his highest priority after economic stabilization. That makes a lot of sense, and it will be important to see how the government translates this into policies and programs. The federal Ministry of Education and state Secretariats Education are moving to use distance education for teachers training, and there is talk of having satellite dishes on the roofs of every school. But the private sector and NGOs are leading the way—their experience has much to offer the Brazilian government, and also other countries, notably South Africa and its neighbors in Southern Africa. There is an obvious opportunity for sharing experiences and even education/training materls (Angola and Mambique could greatly benefit for a start). There are a number of World Bank education loans to Brazil which have not been fully drawn down, and others are under preparation. Some of them could be restructured to support the "Revolution in Education" if the Brazilian government so requests. Russia—Market Economics Through Mass Media and Distance Training For 75 years—more than three generations—the population of Russia was largely cut off from contacts with market economies. While reforms to create a market-oriented economy have been under way for several years, much of the population still lacks an understanding of how to live and work successfully in such an economy. Nor is there much knowledge of the proper role of the government and of business in market economies or of what kinds of economic policies have proved successful elsewhere. For large segments of the population the reforms have meant severe economic, social, and psychological difficulties. Real incomes of many voters have fallen, income inequality has increased, and a severe economic depression has raised the prospects of large-scale unemployment. After being told for 75 years that this is precisely what capitalism brings, it is not surprising that political support for reforms and reformers falls well short of what would be desirable, as is quite clear from the results of the December 1995 ections to the state Duma. The danger to the reform process is clear and is further increased by the urgent need to complete the stabilization of the economy if a solid basis for domestic and foreign investment and subsequent economic development is to be laid. In short, there is a need for massive education of the general population in the basics of market economics, not only to demonstrate the benefits of this system, but also to show how the populace can contribute to its success, for example, by embarking on private initiative, seeking self-employment, and capitalizing on opportunities for retraining. Many members of the labor force either lack motivation to acquire formal training or not know how to obtain it, yet they have daily contact with the mass media—television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and non-periodical press. To respond to these challenges, the World Bank, working with a wide range of Russian professionals, developed the Management and Financial Training Project through a complex and highly participatory process of consultation beginning 1992. The project works through the Russian National Training Foundation (NTF)—and its three associated Regional Training Foundations (RTFs) in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Nizhny Novogorod. These foundations finance training in business administration, finance, auditing, accounting, public finance, and tax administration, including through use of modern electronic distance education (EDE) such as satellite television, video and audio cassettes, and the Internet. While the principal current source of the NTF's and RTFs' funding is a World Bank loan, the Foundations can also receive funding from other sources, both Russian and foreign. These Foundations are still in the early stage of their operations, so there are as yet only a few projects to observe. But in the preparation process a working group on distance education was formed. The NTF will also provide funding for some pilot projects in market economics through mass media. Let us look first at this more unconventional approach to informal training through mass media, rather different from the more formal training provided in Brazil through the Telecurso 2000. The Role of the Mass Media Survey research has shown that negative or neutral attitudes toward economic reform are particularly characteristic of adults 30 years old and above. Excessive central control characterized the mass media in the past. But the absence of planning, programming, and targeting in coverage of economic reforms and the development and implementation of economic policy in the mass media still seems to be the rule in today's Russia. The principal exception is the area of privatization, where the State Property Agency (GKI) has made an effort to gain acceptance for its program, with some apparent success. The key to successful programming in this sphere is that it be entertaining and attractive while at the same time including accurate and effectively communicated economic messages. Combining good economics and good television or radio is a relatively rare skill even in leading market economies. Interestingly, in Russia a few production companies have begun to learn and practice it with some advice from leading practitioners in the United States and Europe. Key roles were played by the British Marshall Plan of the Mind a program run by the BBC, and meetings held by the World Bank in the course of developing the Market Economics through Mass Media Program of the Russia Management and Financial Training Project. There is already a limited amount of experience to report, some of it partially funded by the World Bank, in association with other Western and, very importantly, Russian sources. The video to which I referred above provides some clips from two such program series. The first is a two-program documentary mini-series on international and Russian experience with high inflation, hyperinflation and stabilization and its relevance to Russia Koshelok ili Ghizn which translates roughly as Your Money or Your Life and reflects the producers' view that inflation is a robbery). The first of the programs deals largely with the Brazilian experience, and was mostly shot in that country, the second ranges over the experience of Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Israel, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine. The second series is the first ten episodes of what is planned to be a 40-program teleroman (soap opera) called Dom (Apartment Building, or Home). Dom deals with defense industry conversion, privatization, launching new enterprises, the workings of markets, and fighting the Mafia. Most of the characters were drawn from classics of Russian and Soviet literature, transposed into a modern-day Moscow setting. Dom is a real apartment building on the banks of the Moscow River, one of the high-rises built in the style called 'Stalin Gothic'. It is in many ways the symbol of today's Russia, gigantic in size, in need of repairs, in danger of being taken over by the Mafia, and inhabited by people of different classes and nationalities facing great threats and at the same time great opportunities posed by the transition to a market-oriented economy. Another promising approach to training of the general public through mass media is indirect, through the training of journalists. The journalists who prepare TV and radio programs and write articles in the periodical and non-periodical press have had, with very few exceptions, no formal training in market economics. Thus coverage of economic matters in the mass media, at least outside the specialized financial press, suffers from the problem of the 'blind leading the blind' in that journalists for the most part lack training in the basic concepts and institutions underlying the working of modern market economies, including the role of the government in formulating and implementing economic policy. In reporting on economic and business topics, there is considerable distortion and error which is not the result of any systematic attempt to undermine the reform process, but rather of journalists' simple ignorance and lack of experience. Training of journalists in market economics may be considered as an investment in Russian human and intellectual capital which can facilitate the future delivery to the population of informative and accurate information on and analyses of the workings of the market economy. Developing short training courses on market economics and the presentation of market economics concepts and analyses for journalists from all forms of media is thus a high priority for the NTF and RTFs. Formal Training Using Electronic Distance Education The number of skilled trainers and well-qualified training institutions in the subjects for which the Russia Management and Financial Training Project provides financial support is still relatively small and concentrated in the major metropolitan centers of Moscow and Saint Petersburg. In addition to uni-directional mass media (including formal educational television), interactive media such as electronic networks directly linked to the Internet, videoconferencing, and—where the necessary connectivity for these media is not yet present—stand-alone computer-based instruction (especially interactive CD-ROMs) offer ways to reach the maximum number of learners with high-quality instruction. Given the vast territorial expanse of Russia and long experience with sophisticated satellites (many of them military), satellite-based rather than fiber-optic networks will probably be the principal transmission mechanisms for broadband Internet and videoconferencing services. The orderly and efficient development of a 21st-century telecommunications system in Russia requires development of an appropriate policy framework which does not yet exist, and the need for such a system for the development of a 21st-century learning system may help catalyze its development. But this the topic of another paper.3 A number of initiatives for developing modern electronic distance education are currently underway in Russia, and some of them, including the Morozov Project (which links some eleven major Russian training institutions and has affiliated training centers in 54 Russian cities),4 the Joint Center of Moscow State University and the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank, and Project Link (which has close ties with Britain's Open University Business School) are directly involved in the field of education for the market economy, and hence potential recipients of grants from the NTF and the RTFs. A key problem in developing these initiatives has been the relative unfamiliarity of the limited number of subject matter specialists with the technologies involved. Another has been the relatively high costs of setting up a system spanning such a large geographic space as Russia. In both cases inter-institutional collaboration for sharing the costs of satellite transponders and ground-based transmission mechanisms is critical.5 Since the 'pipes' through which information flows do not much care whether the content is music, mathematics, chemistry, auditing, accounting, market economics, or high energy physics, the collaboration and cost-sharing necessary to reap returns to scale need not be limited to institutions teaching directly market-oriented skills. But it does require significant organization to pool financial and technological resources. Recent developments in satellite technology offer even greater potential cost savings, and their applications in Russia and elsewhere are now being systematically explored.6 This is the greatest challenge facing Russian distance educators today in an environment of financial austerity and relative political instability. But there are substantial opportunities here for mobilizing the technological skills which have been concentrated in the military industrial complex, which is experiencing a major economic depression. These skills can be used to and using them to create a state-of-the art 21st-century learning system with the capability of exporting as well as importing education and training services. There are also important export possibilities for hardware and software developed in this endeavor. This could become a successful case of defense industry conversion to meet the needs of the civilian economy. South Africa—The Telematics for African Development Consortium South Africa's Government of National Unity faces a daunting task in bringing education and training to over 35 million people who were deliberately deprived of educational opportunities by the system of Apartheid. This need for redress, coupled with an extraordinary sense of national opportunity, has spurred an effort to mobilize the country's sophisticated telematics resources in collaboration with leading educational institutions. Television already has very high penetration in South Africa, reaching an estimated 50 percent of homes. Television has the advantage of being able to begin to deliver education and training services almost immediately, including informal education built into entertainment and news programs (to help build the motivation to take advantage of more formal structured learning). General broadcast television is good at helping form attitudes and motivate people, not so good for instruction, which requires motivated learners and more structure. A recent report7 clearly shows that South African broadcasters are aware of all these options and are prepared to use them. Optic fiber reaches within 100 km of almost everywhere in South Africa, CSIR, a leading research organization, has developed Internet interfaces and both spread-spectrum and infrared/laser wireless technologies. These make universal access possible for interactive Internet-based services, even for illiterates through the use of touch-screen monitors and audiovisual materials. And interactive compressed digital satellite television technology is also being enlisted in an innovative private initiative involving franchising of local small businessmen called Umbutu Edunet. The technological bases for a South African revolution in learning are in place and the roll out is coming on fast. Such a revolution has obvious political as well as economic benefits. It would begin delivering tangible services almost immediately, and the short-term investment costs are modest. I do not want to underestimate the longer-term cost in courseware development and delivery systems. But the point is that in a country like South Africa (and Brazil, and Russia) where the macroeconomic balance is at best fragile, one must look for ways to deliver tangible benefits which do not demand immediate huge investments of scarce capital. This is recognized in the 1995 White Paper on Education and Training put out by the Department of Education.8 This important document discusses open learning, distance education, technology-enhanced learning, and new funding partnerships including all organs of civil society—including organized business, community-based and non-govenmental organizations, and development organizations. South Africa has much of the needed telematics infrastructure already. Existing workplaces and community centers can be used without putting in a lot of bricks and mortar. And South Africa has skilled trainers/educators with experience in designing training materials for disadvantaged populations. What is unique about the South African approach is that it involves active collaboration of the country's leading broadcaster (SABC), telecommunications company (Telkom), research center (CSIR), a specialized distance education university (the University of South Africa—UNISA), and a leading conventional university (the University of Pretoria) working together with other universities, a leading secondary school (St. Alban's College), community organizations, and private sector enterprises. Together they have created the Telematics for African Development Consortium, which has decided to focus on distance education as its first priority. The World Bank's new infoDev Program—a special trust fund set up to promote telecommunications reform, develop national information infrastructure (NII) strategies, and demonstrate promising applications of information and communications technologies to promote economic and social development—has made one of its first grants to support part of the Consortium's work. If the telematics revolution in education and training involves the convergence of television, telephones, and computers, designing a revolutionary approach to South Africa's needs for education by involving the leading actors in a commonly designed effort is an excellent way to go. The matter is being looked into systematically now by an Investigative Team on Technology-Assisted Education organized by the National Department of Education and the South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE). The Telematics for African Development Consortium, which is represented on the Investigating Team, seeks to optimize and coordinate distance education projects to minimize duplication and wasted resources. The following paragraphs draw heavily on the documentation prepared for this project. A separate paper provides more information. 9 The initial projects of the Consortium are the first phase of a multi-phased project expected to last at least five years and reach out to other African countries. The first phase is intended to prove concepts and show what is achievable by starting with pilot projects to keep costs and overheads low while reducing technology and other risks, and benefiting people who have previously been excluded from educational opportunities, either through the Apartheid system or through lack of economic capacity. While eventually the Consortium hopes to reach the most disadvantaged, people living in rural areas and the illiterate. This is not feasible immediately: neither the infrastructure nor the methodologies are in place. To facilitate reaching large masses of disadvantaged people, the Consortium has decided to begin to address their educational needs where practical solutions can be developed quickly. Hence the pilots will be tested in peri-urban areas with the previously disadvantaged being the principal beneficiaries, but with the entire continent, including rural areas in mind. The project, if successful, can be replicated throughout Africa in an efficient and cost-effective manner as the risks will have been substantially reduced. Phase One Project Objectives
These initial projects are being executed by CSIR, UNISA, Saint Alban's College, and the Mamelodi Community Information Service (MACIS). SABC is supporting the Consortium initially through doing television programs on project activities and the development of the Internet in South Africa. Some footage shot by SABC on the Consortium's work is included in the video Virtual Schools and Global Classrooms: A Revolution in Learning through Telematics. Telkom provides the telephone connections and is considering the development of a tariff structure which will have promotional rates for disadvantaged groups and educational uses. Consortium Philosophy
The Consortium has started in South Africa but is not in any way limited to South African organizations or South African branches of international organizations. Any organization, from any country, interested in contributing to the solution of African telematics problems is welcome and the Consortium is actively seeking the membership of such Organizations. For example, the Telecommunications Foundation for Africa (TFA) based in Kenya, and the SADC Secretariat, based in Gabarone, are also involved, and recently negotiations began with the Informatics Center of Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, Mozambique. The Consortium also seeks to leverage its activities by active participation in national and international conferences and working closely with the media. For example, the first phase projects are intended to have prototypes ready in time for display in the Information Society and Development Conference being held in South Africa 13-15 May 1996 with the participation of delegations from the G7 countries, 35 developing countries (15 of them from Africa), and a large number of international organizations, including the World Bank, and the UNECA. Potential Collaboration between Brazil, Russia, and South Africa The potential for Brazilians, South Africans, and Russians to work together in developing distance learning systems is great. The South African infoDev project has built into it study tours to Brazil and Russia, and a system of virtual seminars using videoconferencing over the Internet is being tested to promote the interchange of experience between these and other countries and international organizations such as the World Bank. And every effort will be made to share the experience gained in Brazil, Russia and South Africa with others around the world who seek to promote this most promising revolution in learning. References
Information about the author Peter Knight is the Chief of the Electronic Media Center of the World Bank. He has 20 years of experience in that institution, working in operations (Brazil), policy, external training, and now electronic media. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University, and degrees in government (Dartmouth College) and politics, philosophy and economics (Oxford University). With long experience in Latin America, and more recently Africa and Asia, he began working with Soviet and then Russian economists and media experts in 1990 and has been actively involved in training of Russian economists, distance learning, electronic networking, and television production in that country in recent years. His experience with South Africa is more recent and involves training of South African economists, distance learning, and television production. |