Archived Newsroom • Press Release |
|
Broadband the key to bringing ‘education to all’, says
UN Broadband Commission
Mobile broadband devices could be the solution to bringing ‘first world’
educational opportunities to planet’s poorest communities
Paris, 27 February 2015 – Mobile phones, tablets and
e-readers with broadband connectivity could prove the long-sought panacea in the
global effort to bring quality, ubiquitous multidisciplinary educational
opportunities to people everywhere, especially the world’s poorest or most
isolated communities, according to the UN Broadband Commission for Digital
Development, which held its
11th meeting at UNESCO headquarters in Paris today.
A report by the Commission’s Working Group on Education, led by UNESCO,
indicated that, worldwide, over 60 million primary-school age children do not
currently attend school; almost half that number never will. The situation
worsens as children get older, with over 70 million not enrolled in secondary
school. And while classroom computers can help, lack of resources remains
critical. If an average of eight children share each classroom computer in OECD
nations, in Africa teachers can struggle to share each computer among 150 or
more pupils. But with increasingly sophisticated mobile devices now packing more
computing power than the famed ‘supercomputers’ of the late 1990s, the
Commission believes broadband-connected personal wireless devices could be the
solution.
ITU figures show that mobile broadband is the fastest growing
technology in human history. The number of mobile phone
subscriptions now exceeds the world’s total population of around seven billion,
and active mobile broadband subscriptions exceed 2.1 billion – three times
higher than the 700 million wireline broadband connections worldwide.
Even more encouragingly, most of this progress has taken place in the
developing world, which has accounted for 90% of global net additions for mobile
cellular and 82% of global net additions of new Internet users since early 2010.
“Education is one of the most powerful uses to which broadband connectivity
can be put,” said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. “For the first time in
history, mobile broadband gives us the chance to truly bring education to all,
regardless of a person’s geographical location, linguistic and cultural
frameworks, or ready access to infrastructure like schools and transport.
Education will drive entrepreneurship, especially among the young – which is why
we must strive harder to get affordable broadband networks in place which can
deliver educational opportunities to children and adults,” he said.
Established in 2010, the Broadband Commission is a top-level advocacy body
which focuses on strategies to make broadband more available and affordable
worldwide. It is chaired by President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Mexico’s Carlos
Slim Helú, with ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao and UNESCO Director-General
Irina Bokova as co-Vice Chairs. As the deadline for the Millennium Development
Goals fast approaches, Commissioners are now focusing on ensuring broadband is
recognized as a fundamental pillar of the UN Sustainable Development Goals,
which will be agreed at the forthcoming Sustainable Development Summit in New
York in September.
Today’s meeting of the Commission was held in conjunction with UNESCO’s
flagship ICT education-focused event, Mobile Learning Week (MLW), co-organized
this year with sister agency UN Women. Broadband Commissioners participating in
the MLW High-level Policy Forum of “Leveraging technology to empower women and
girls” took advantage of the opportunity to interact with Ministers of Education
and senior representatives of international organizations on the uses of mobile
broadband for education.
“Every day, everywhere, women and men are inventing new ways to use
broadband, mobile telephones and computers to be empowered, more autonomous and
free,” said UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova. “We need to tap this
inventiveness to improve education, especially for girls and women. But we have
a long way to go. Two thirds of illiterate adults are women, and two thirds of
the world’s out-of-school primary-age children are girls. This is a huge
injustice, and a gap that we must fill. The continued expansion of broadband
combined with technology can help us make giant strides towards this.”
Speaking at the opening of the Commission session earlier today, President
Paul Kagame stressed that broadband should be regarded as a basic utility, like
water and electricity. “In Rwanda, investing in ICTs has been indispensable to
the attainment of our development goals. Broadband enables business and social
entrepreneurs to find ways to offer world class education at low cost, to
populations that have never had access. These centres of knowledge already
exist, but in order for developing countries and isolated communities, to access
and use them productively, they will need faster, more reliable, and more
affordable Internet. The same principle extends to government more widely,
particularly in delivering essential services. Broadband technology can enhance
public administration efficiency and accountability to citizens, no matter where
they live.”
President Kagame was joined by co-Chair, Carlos Slim Helú, who asked
Commissioners to consider whether the power of ICTs was being sufficiently
exploited in today’s school environments. “Broadband and ICTs are now available
in many schools around the world – but are we seeing a concrete impact in the
quality of education? We need to be sure that the potential of broadband for
education is fully leveraged so that successful initiatives, such as new online
course platforms, and many valuable education and training contents, become
quickly available to people worldwide. Technology should be used for inclusion,
and we should make vigorous efforts to ensure this.”
The Broadband Commission first tackled the key issue of education in 2013
through a special Working Group on Education, led by UNESCO. At the morning
session of the Commission earlier today, important reports emerging from ITU’s
m-Powering Development and Smart Sustainable Development Model Initiatives were
also presented to the group. The m-Powering Development Initiative report,
developed by a multistakeholder Advisory Board led by ITU’s Telecommunication
Development Bureau (BDT), finds that technological innovations and initiatives
that use mobile phones can potentially bring exponential benefits to entire
communities and make a valuable contribution to the global development agenda.
The report by the Smart Sustainable Development Model Initiative, also led by
BDT, focuses on the link between ICT for Development (ICT4D) with ICT for
Disaster Management (ICT4DM) and their role in sustainable development
processes.
The key findings of the Broadband Commission Working Group on
Education can be downloaded
here. An Executive Summary of the report can be found
here, and the full report is available
here.
To learn more about the current state of broadband connectivity worldwide,
read the 2014 edition of ITU’s
State of Broadband Report: Broadband for All,
featuring country-by-country rankings based on broadband access and
affordability for over 160 economies.
Photos of the full meeting of the Commission can be freely downloaded from
Flickr at: http://bit.ly/1AXQD7P.
For more on the Broadband Commission, visit:
www.broadbandcommission.org
Follow the Broadband Commission on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/broadbandcommission
Follow the Broadband Commission on Twitter:
www.itu.int/twitter
For more information, please contact:
Sarah Parkes
Chief,
Media
Relations
& Public Information
|
Sue Williams
Chief, Media Relations
|
For the Government of Rwanda: |
|
Stephanie Nyombayire
Director of Communications
|
|
|
|
About ITU...
About UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization works to
harness the power of knowledge and information, particularly through Information
and Communication Technologies (ICTs), to transform economies, create inclusive
knowledge societies, and empower local communities by increasing access to and
preservation and sharing of information and knowledge in all of UNESCO’s domains.
For UNESCO, such knowledge societies must be built on four pillars: freedom of
expression; universal access to information and knowledge; respect for cultural
and linguistic diversity; and quality education for all. See more at:
www.unesco.org