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IT
Literacy High on Govt Priority List in Malaysia
By Anil Netto
Inter Press Service
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 PENANG,
Malaysia, Mar 24 (IPS) - A bus rumbles to a remote school. When
it stops, 20 excited pupils and their teacher clamber aboard.
The bus looks distinctive. It is futuristic, grey with a rainbow
painted on it and it remains stationary. |
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Inside
the bus, however, under the supervision of trainers, pupils
click on mouse and keyboards and launch themselves on an unforgettable
journey into the World Wide Web.
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In
an effort to narrow the gap between those with access to information
technology (IT) and those without, Malaysia has embarked on
a series of pilot projects to bring new technology to rural
areas.
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With
only 2.5 million PC owners out of a population of 22 million,
the PC penetration level in Malaysia is just 11 per cent.
That, according to officials, is below the world average of
35 percent. What's more, only 5 percent of Malaysians surf
the Internet, compared with the world average of 30 percent.
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Thus
far, officials have focused on the Multimedia Super Corridor
project, aimed at turning a huge fibre-optic wired high-tech
zone south of Kuala Lumpur into a ''second Silicon Valley''.
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The government is also turning schools into computerised 'Smart
Schools' to promote IT literacy. By the end of 1999, 90 schools
were due to have been converted into Smart Schools. Malaysia
has some 7,000 primary schools and 1,500 secondary schools
nation-wide, many of them in rural areas.
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There
is growing awareness that rural areas are likely to be left
out of the high-tech push, creating a digital divide.
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Enter Mimos Bhd, an Internet Service Provider, and its pilot
project, the Mobile Internet Unit, which is basically computers-on-wheels
or Internet buses that visit schools. The United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) provided a grant, and a private firm chipped
in with the bus, which Mimos and a coach-building firm then
refurbished.
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Launched
last August, the unit now comprises three buses. The biggest
of the three buses, equipped with 20 PCs, visits 20 schools
without computer facilities in central Selangor state while
the two smaller ones, with 12 computers each, visit another
20 schools in the capital.
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''The
response is fantastic, very positive,'' says Kang Wai Chin,
the MIU project manager in Mimos. The buses visit a school
once a fortnight and spend the whole day on site, says Kang.
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A
typical morning session sees five groups of 20 pupils and
teachers, spending one hour each on the bus. A couple of trainers
from Mimos provide the groups with hands-on training on the
basics of PCs and the Internet. Afternoons are reserved for
open sessions for another 40 pupils, teachers and parents.
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The
buses make 10 fortnightly visits to each school, apart from
pre-training briefing and post-training evaluation visits.
Each pupil in the group is thus given about ten hours hands-on
exposure on the computers. ''Our objective is to reach as
many people as possible,'' Kang said.
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It
may just provide a taste of the Internet, but Kang says the
excitement and enthusiasm it generates is infectious. At the
end of a series of training sessions in a school, it is common
to find the school head and the parent-teacher association
chipping in to buy more PCs to add to the Internet-ready PC
that the project team leaves behind.
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Critics,
however, argue it is more pressing to resolve basic rural
needs before going for high-tech projects such as Smart Schools
and mobile Internet units.
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A
reader wrote to a national daily and cited the cases of schools
in interior areas in parts of Sabah state in north Borneo
that lacked basic amenities such as proper blackboards, chairs,
tables and, in some cases, even electricity and piped water.
He described the poor nutrition among pupils and the below
par living quarters for the teachers.
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''My
question is: how can a country such as Malaysia have inadequate
funds to provide the basic requirements needed for its rural
children to be educated,'' the reader asked. ''I am not against
IT but the Education Ministry should first ensure that all
schools have the basic necessities to allow comfortable learning
before diverting these funds to other projects.''
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That
is a genuine concern. Recently, an opposition politician pointed
out that 1,000 schools in the country did not even have electricity.
Others say that it would be far better to use state funds
to provide schools with free computers of their own so that
each pupil will have more hands-on time on PCs.
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That
does not deter Kang, who says that for schools without electricity,
portable electricity generator sets could be set up to enable
pupils in remote areas to access the Internet.
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Across
the South China Sea, in Sarawak state, communities in remote
areas are even more cut off and bringing IT to them poses
bigger challenges. But one highland community in Bario is
getting its first taste of new technology.
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In this remote mainly ethnic Kelabit community, the University
Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) is carrying out a project dubbed
'e- Bario'. The project is organised under three areas: the
school, the community and communications.
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The
challenge is formidable. Located 1,000 metres above sea level,
Bario is surrounded by mountains and has no road access; so,
the only practical way of reaching it is by air.
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First,
Internet access will be introduced to the school in Bario
along with greater use of computers. The project will use
the government's Smart School concept, so far only applied
in urban settings, to guide the application and use of Information
and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the school.
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The project will also study the community's information needs
and design innovative applications of ICTs, which can be delivered
via a community telecentre with access to the Internet. Suitable
arrangements on how the local community can manage and operate
such a telecentre will be tested.
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Tests
will also be carried out on various technologies for providing
improved telephone access and Internet connectivity. This
will include associated technologies for the supply of electricity.
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''Genuine interest in IT can be generated if computers are
used to perform some useful function for the community,''
said Dr Roger Harris of UNIMAS Faculty of Information Technology.
These may relate to the electronic marketing of local produce
or the promotion of tourism to the area of the research site.
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According
to Harris, the project will define the opportunities for social
development that are available from the use of ICTs within
remote rural communities in Sarawak. Through action- oriented
measures, he hopes the project will demonstrate how significant
and sustainable social development can be achieved through
the implementation of such ICTs.
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The
project, said Harris, ''will dispel the myth that computers,
telephones and the Internet are artifacts of urban life. Instead,
it will demonstrate that they represent the most potent means
of rural empowerment and renewal that is available and that
a programme of rural digitisation should become a priority for
State planning.'' |
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This article
is free of copyright restrictions and can be reproduced provided
that Inter Press Service is credited. |
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