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The Basic Freedoms of Information and Expression

::17 November 2005

UNESCO

16-18 November 2005

World Summiton the Information Society

and the

Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development"Measuring the Information Society“Session on “ICT Indicators in Education and Government”

Challenges for measuring the use of ICT in education

by Abdul Waheed KhanAssistant Director-General for Communication and Information, UNESCO

15 November 2005

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The Basic Freedoms of Information and Expression

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Introduction

Need to take stock on current global data with regard to both traditional and new ICT

Need for concrete measurements for global community to measure progress

A particular need for more data on social aspects and impacts of ICT on the development of Knowledge Societies, including education

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The Basic Freedoms of Information and Expression

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Measuring the use of traditional technologies

Radio = an important medium for education and service delivery in rural and remote areas

Ability to combine technologies e.g. local radio broadcast of recordings taken from the internet

Need to talk about availability of electricity in remote rural areas before talking about computers

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The Basic Freedoms of Information and Expression

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Measuring usage

Need to go beyond numbers of web pages to email and chat rooms

Maputo province in Mozambique: 12 times as many people have email addresses as direct access to the Internet

Need for clear household surveys on different paterns of usage (applications, hours) by gender and age

Services in health, education and finance by country:

available on the Internet, but

not always well used or usable

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The Basic Freedoms of Information and Expression

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Measuring language use

Language = first potential barrier or conduit to learning and usage

Ability to read the web page or talk in the chat room = ability to learn

Importance of language for the transmission of cultural values

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The Basic Freedoms of Information and Expression

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Developing content indicators

Lack of information about who in a household or business is using technology for what

Need for content indicators

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The Basic Freedoms of Information and Expression

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Measuring ICT use in education

Key factors:

Pupils need a lot of time to use ICT

Teachers need thorough training

Why are we bringing technology into schools?

marginal impact on school achievement (even in USA), but

essential skill for everyday life, lifelong learning, access to information, employment opportunities, etc.

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The Basic Freedoms of Information and Expression

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Examples of indicators assessing use and impact of ICT in education

Basic groups of indicators aimed at assessing the use and impact of ICT in education: Policy

Infrastructure and access

Budget

ICT use in the curriculum

Professional development

Student outcomes

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The Basic Freedoms of Information and Expression

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Existing data for cross-national comparisons

Informative data on the use of ICT for education at the primary and secondary levels

Lack of data on the use of ICT for the tertiary level of education

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The Basic Freedoms of Information and Expression

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Existing data for cross-national comparisons (Example 1)

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA): Important source of information on ICT for

education at the primary and secondary levels

2000 cycle: 28 OECD and 4 non-OECD countries participated

2002 cycle: additional 11 countries participated

The PISA 2000 Technical Report: the first to provide a good picture of access, usage and impact of ICT in schools

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The Basic Freedoms of Information and Expression

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Existing data for cross-national comparisons (Example 2: Information collected under the PISA programme)

Graph 4: Percentage of students that use computers at least a few times a week by gender for a selection of countries, 2002

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The Basic Freedoms of Information and Expression

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Existing data for cross-national comparisons (Example 3)

The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA):

Information on the availability and use of ICT through background questionnaires distributed to students and school administrators

School surveys on: infrastructural ICT conditions (hardware/software) organization and management teacher qualifications place of ICT in the school curriculum

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The Basic Freedoms of Information and Expression

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Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development

Excellent initiative

Key agencies: OEDC, ITU, InfoDev, UNESCAP, UNCTAD, UNDP, UNESCO/UIS, ECLAC, etc.

Partners having grown together

Baseline international data produced

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The Basic Freedoms of Information and Expression

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Need for stronger co-ordination

Need to co-ordinate statistical activities between regulators, Internet Service Providers, phone companies, ministries, and national statistics offices

Need to build ICT data requirements into existing surveys

UNESCO’s help to countries in this major task

UIS statisticians permanently stationed in Africa, Asia and Latin America

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The Basic Freedoms of Information and Expression

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Way forward

Need for the Phase 2 of the Partnership to consider how to measure usage and benefits of ICT as well as supply of technology and content

Need for the Partnership to adopt more of a ‘bottom up’ approach by listening to countries priorities