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 Information and communication development has been one of the major concerns of the United Nations in general and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in particular, since their inception. In India UNESCO has supported many programmes and activities relating to development of skills and facilities in education, computers and information science. The role of UNESCO in India being more relevant today when there is a knowledge explosion distinctly visible here, Digital Learning is trying to see the responsibilities UNESCO is furthering from different stand points like, as a means of bringing about desired social change, paving the path for free flow of information, and institution building. Minja Yang, Director, UNESCO New Delhi Office and Representative to India articulates all the fine points in an exclusive chat with Rumi Mallick of Digital Learning.
  What are the most critical challenges of education in India?
Without any doubt, it is Education for All. Enrolling all children in school, and retaining them until graduation with quality education that will prepare them to be responsible, productive and above all, happy citizens are challenges before India. The number of school drop-outs and adult illiterates are increasing every year, close to 300 million citizens of this country is functionally illiterate, this is more than the population
of Japan, France and Germany
put together.
What is your vision for promoting education in India?
Education must be given top priority on the political agenda of the central and state governments. 3% of the national budget for education is clearly insufficient to make the great leap forward necessary. India’s productivity as an agricultural economy is now being matched by its industrial growth, and the IT-based knowledge providing services. So imagine, what India can become if the nation’s population become literate, and if the excellent quality of education already available to some can be made accessible to all! I dream of every corner of India, including
its geographically isolated regions, being connected, gaining access by Internet to the best possible
learners’ material in all the major languages of the country, and an
army of teachers in every hinterland of this vast nation imparting with the knowledge that can be gathered
from all the information now available on Internet, making learning an enjoyable exercise.
? What are the specific areas of education interventions by UNESCO-India?
The UNESCO New Delhi Office covers Bhutan, Maldives, Sri Lanka, in addition to India; so our limited human and financial resources are being put into promoting quality through teachers education and literacy. We are focusing on content development, particularly for distance learning material, in an “integrated” manner.
With reference to India, how is UNESCO addressing the issues of access to education services and information resources?
UNESCO’s interventions are based on its mission to promote the free flow of information, knowledge and data, and its major objective to build a knowledge society based on sharing such knowledge and incorporating all the socio-cultural and ethical dimensions of sustainable development.
In India, we are focusing on this in a number of ways: support in the development of enabling policies such as the community radio policy and the national broadcasting bill that are now under consideration; advocacy and awareness building in terms of the economic, social and political benefits that ICTs can bring; reinforcement of community media access models which we have been building over the past six years,
such as community radio and community multimedia centres (CMCs), and community
learning centres (CLCs), where
we experiment with a wide combination of low cost traditional and new media devices and the Internet for bridging gaps, overcoming barriers and accessing masses in their own local
languages and culturally and
context specific ways.
 Do you think rural schools in
India are ready for ICT–enabled education?
Yes, definitely. This may be a step-by-step process, taking into consideration the extent of the challenges, which prevail in each locality. There is relatively low computer penetration in rural schools in India. It is not only the mere insertion of computers into the classroom, but on a number of factors, such as the necessary infrastructure- electricity and Internet connectivity. Matters relating to software interface in local languages remain crucial to this exercise.
While much has to be done to improve connectivity and above all financial accessibility, rural India should not be considered different from its urban or semi-urban areas. There needs to be ICT “hubs” to enable access to information and the training of trainers, from where information can be translated into knowledge and disseminated. But ICT also includes traditional forms of communications too, such as radio. As a real fan of community broadcasting, I dream of these ICT centres becoming places where the local community can make their own video films and record their own music, so the creative genius in
every community can make life
more interesting.
What are those critical elements that need to be in place for an effective ICT intervention in Education and capacity building?
 Political will, good governance, and an “enabling environment”, to use UN
lingo to mean a lot of things! Basically, much depends on the government, both central and state, and now at the local level with decentralisation, allowing individuals-teachers and private citizens and companies, and NGOs and the many individuals working in the numerous educational institutions across this vast country to be permitted to think outside the box, and to take initiatives, and to be rewarded and recognised for innovative means to build human capacities, whether it be through formal or non-formal education or, through television or street theatre or through oral traditions. Most important is the political will and appropriate national policy to ensure access to information for all and to develop localized tools, technologies and methodologies in the ICT field. The element of capacity building of our trainers, teachers and managers of education services, depends heavily on infrastructure as well as connectivity at affordable costs, both in terms of the Internet as well as in community broadcasting. Our experiments the world over
have shown the positive impact of these forms of connectivity on educational and social
advancement. Distance education programmes beamed by radio to the most distant rural communities
have been known to have considerable impact on the pass
level in school examinations; The facility to develop relevant development content in health, education, environment, natural disaster, in local languages for exchange amongst schools and learning spaces is critical also to
this exercise.
How is UNESCO promoting local content creation in India?
 This question brings to mind an old African proverb:
“Until the lions have their own historians, tales of hunting will always glorify the hunter”
As we speak at this moment, a local content creation workshop within the UNESCO Cross Cutting project entitled “Finding a Voice” is currently in progress in New Delhi. Using the digital storytelling format, trainers from participating CMCs, Community learning centres (CLCs), and other ICT-related activities largely from Sri Lanka, Nepal and India are learning to put together stories affecting their own environments, health, education, disaster, scientific development, social struggles and challenges in multimedia format for radio and/or television broadcast, publication, exchange and dissemination by both traditional as well as new media means. They are also learning, through the application of Ethnographic Action Research (EAR) methodology, to examine the most effective ways of using the ICTs to empower the ‘voices’ of poor marginalised people; research opportunities and constraints for content created by and for specific local communities for the development and communication of ideas, information and perspectives appropriate to those communities; and by continued recording and posting to learn from their experiences on an on-going basis. The local content created is earmarked for exchange first amongst the participating trainers and their community based institutions within an international project network, then amongst other community based initiatives in India as well as on provincial and national networks. It is being carried out with our partners, the Queensland University of Technology, and the University of Adelaide (Australia); and UNDP (Indonesia). On return to their centres these trainers will continue to spread this methodology in their local content training programmes.
In India, UNESCO will continue working with the United Nations Country Team (UNCT), its partners, such as all those participating in the activities of Mission 2007 of which ICT4D is also a part, other national and international stakeholders, in promoting the development of local content material through capacity building, research, sharing and exchange, as well as documentation and dissemination on as many levels as possible.
Is India ready for an ICT in education policy?
Yes, certainly. Many interesting initiatives both by the Government and private sectors are already showing positive results. We now need to make sure, collectively that cooperation, rather than competition and sharing of results will lead to reaching the unreached through firm political commitment.
How do you see the role of civil society organisations in promoting and facilitating ICT-enabled education?
Mission 2007, Microsoft, Intel etc., such organisations have a crucial role to play in this field; existing CMCs and other ICT-related centres must be scaled-up to facilitate distance education in collaboration with IGNOU and local schools; local and national NGOs should all be encouraged to use ICT across their organisations and provide unified electronic services in becoming more service-oriented entities based on the life events of poor communities; increase networking, dissemination of information and access to knowledge; and creation of an enabling environment for democratic dialogue.
Having worked on culture, as a vector for local development
for close to 20 years, I am convinced that knowledge can be
imparted through culture. School education should be, in
fact must be, complemented by home education, which
today, also includes the television, and radio, DVD films, etc.
I am eagerly looking for a TV film producer and director
willing to collaborate with UNESCO to make a TV “soap
opera” to inculcate integrated values education to promote
democratic governance.
Which organisations in India is UNESCO partnering with or plans to partner for education?
National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA), National Council of Educational Research and training (NCERT), State Council of Educational Research & Training (SCERTs), SRCs, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS); National Council on Teacher Education (NCTE); Jamia Milia and other universities, Rama Krishna Mission, numerous schools and institutions of the National Literacy Mission (NLM), NGOs, and the CIIs in various regions. We are also in discussions to partner with Microsoft and Intel.
 In your role as the UNESCO representative and Director in India, what specific areas of concern do you want to address? What do you want to achieve in your role as the UNESCO Representative and Director in India?
Many, many things. Basically, do whatever possible to assist in the realisation of relevant ICT policies such as the community radio policy and the national broadcasting policy to better facilitate achievement of development as outlined in the 11th National Plan and the MDG goals within the deadlines envisaged.
Since most of my career has been
in promoting the cultural dimension
of development, I would like to see the power of creativity- that is, building on India’s rich and
diverse heritage to foster creative thinking in education, science,
culture and communications to improve the lives of people, to
learn to be, learn to do, and learn to live together.
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