Workshop on ICT Strategies for Islands and Small States
(Malta, 17-19 March)

 

Session 2 : Human Resources Development

Dr Sunday Ojo (University of Botswana) focused on the significance of human resources development in ICT in small states. In particular, he stressed the importance of avoiding dependence on foreign personnel. Among the prerequisites for an effective ICT human resources strategy are the development of a quality educational system, adequate ICT policy and human resources support. ICT professionals should be encouraged to develop operational, contextual, and strategic capabilities.. The strategy should be aimed at promoting the capability for ICT systems re-engineering, and ICT resources deployment, as well as providing systems user support services for promoting innovation, education/training, research and development . The strategy also focuses on the needs of ICT- User Professionals, such as teachers, and

ICT-literate citizenry. The key issues related to capacity development are identifying HR needs, by carrying out an assessment; to pinpoint strengths to reinforce and gaps to be filled; developing objectives and a focus and planning. It is important to develop the appropriate policy framework reflecting the socio-economic and political reality and focusing on local HR capacity development as a key policy issue.

Appropriate education/training programmes must be developed which focus on the trainers/trainees, curricula, the infrastructure, methodology, the media and quality assurance. It is important to devise retention measures to avoid sectoral and national brain drain. One way of dealing with the dependency syndrome is to look internally and find more long-term solutions rather than short -term perspectives of foreign consultants. In order to keep up with the rate of ICT change, the dynamics of responsiveness should be enhanced through continuous learning. States need the right socio-political and economic context as well as the will to implement ICT solutions. Important considerations are universal access, equity vs. quality; access for the disabled and aged, and inculcating a culture of continuous learning, through different programmes targeted at schools, colleges and on-the-job training.

In developing cooperative strategies, the key players are government, industry, professional bodies and academia. Each have their specific role to play in developing and implementing the national ICT HR strategy. There are different types of cooperation at the national and international levels that may be deployed to promote the national ICT HR strategy. The main recommendations for developing the national ICT HR strategy are :

Carry out National ICT HR needs analysis and planning

Formulate ICT HR policy and capacity development focus

Establish fora for stakeholders

Make ICT local capacity development a cardinal policy issue

Promote primary school level use

Develop an ICT awareness campaign in the media and create an ICT culture

Establish special ICT facilities centre for disabled people which can assist them with work and social integration

It is important to nurture a local IT skills capability. but the cost of IT training is exorbitant. The old topdown Fordist approaches to training are no longer valid. Young people have a great aptitude for IT. We have to use civil society and youth networks in tracking where the innovation and expertise is and tap into it to train the others. We must develop new training models based on this framework. It is important to note that E-commerce did not develop as a result of training but because applications were made available and then training had to orient itself accordingly. Developing indigenous IT skills requires a long -term perspective and planning across curricula.

Dr Godfrey Baldacchino (University of Malta) posed the question as to whether from a management perspective, there is such a thing as a small islands theory. In the small islands context, it is difficult to define indigenous skills, as in most small islands, there is no indigenous language or culture generalized, as most commodities like ideas, food etc are imported. Do small islands have a distinct human resource problem ? He argued that in larger countries, what goes on inside the country, is much more relevant than what comes in from outside, whilst with small states, the opposite is the case. Thus, those small states that adopted ready-made solutions from outside, are having to re-examine their strategies and come to terms with reality. Dr Baldacchino proposes that small states should shift from an "inside-out" to an "outside-in" approach, and focus less on value producers and more on value attractors; less on manufacturing and more on services. Islands are attractors or magnets in terms of what they can attract from abroad. By focusing on the service economy, small islands may usurp the issue of scale and raw materials and all those areas where islands are at a disadvantage This shift also involves less emphasis on scale and more on scope, i.e. referring to breadth rather than depth; and less on self-reliance and more on integration, in terms of privileged links with outside world.

Dr Baldacchino quoted Solon "Nets are only cast to catch middle-sized fish. Big fish will break through the nets; while small fish will swim right through them, unperturbed".. Small states have the option of either making a case for special treatment and legalizing their differences or aiming for best practice, international standards and level playing fields. The required credentials for adopting the latter option are an international recognition for safe investments a state-of-the-art hub and spoke infrastructure; an enterprising labour force; polyglot and cosmopolitan workforce; and strong links with the Diaspora. The brain drain should not be viewed from a short-term temporal perspective as in the long-term, it may prove to be an advantage, as the expertise of these migrants may be tapped, .if one stays in contact The implications of this approach are that educational policy should be aggressive, change-driven, technologically-friendly; flexible and dynamic labour markets and multi-skilling; multi-lingual competence - computer languages; diplomatic and negotiating acumen and strategic opportunism are the key components of the HR strategy.

The Diaspora is very important and must be seen as something positive, as these migrants can now be virtually present too. As yet, there have been no studies on the returns to the homeland of the Diaspora, but S.Korea and India have both gained from the brain drain, either because of the return of well-qualified migrants or because of investments by migrants in their home country. Thus the returns from brain drain far exceed the initial investment. Ghana in developing its computer literacy programme, published its expert needs on the Internet, and 40-50 people responded.

Dr Michel Arnaud (Consultant) focused on the development of telecentres and the importance of adopting a user-centric approach. But in order to define your needs, you have to know who you are. How can we adapt this message to all cultures ? How can we empower people ? We have to be selfish, we have to live our own lives and we have to be real. Information is not knowledge. Local knowledge means a change in living conditions, it is the knowledge which touches the individual and helps him to change his life - it is based on personal experiences and the individual must be directly involved. Telecentres need political leadership and backing to develop and survive. There is rivalry between organizations as they each want to take over the telecentres. The Director of the telecentre has to have a strategy. In telecentres, the role of the teacher is changed as old people are trained by young people. The key question that must be addressed is how to subsidize telecentres. Telecentres are based on knowledge exchange networks where the roles of teacher and pupil are exchanged. In this system, what are the evaluation criteria ? Traditional teachers argue that there is no need to change to this new form of teaching as to date, the traditional system of education has worked well.

Dr Arnaud then focused on the issue of virtual classrooms and on how to overcome the filters between the teacher and the learner. He identified a number of differences between the traditional classrooms and the virtual classroom, e.g. students can only handle one hour of video-conferencing. With virtual study, the burden is on the learner, as the latter has to be organized to manage his/her own studying time. People get discouraged if they have to be organized to study on their own. Thus, the traditional classroom situation is still the most productive It is important to provide micro-finance training and just-in-time training , linked with job creation . People are not reimbursing the loans because the management is not very good. Training should be provided to make the managers more productive. Micro-loans to people are one way of linking training to jobs.

Key points emerging from the discussion :

All of us have certain skill sets. in IT but it is not easy to identify a set of basic IT skills. It would be useful if small countries could find out what basic skills set they require. e.g. the EU has developed the concept of an IT driver’s license. which is obtained by developing a certain level of knowledge in IT. Computers are lent to those who are learning and on passing the test, they are allowed to keep the computer.

Poverty was defined as being related to not knowing one’s own identity. Those with the least resources, have to learn to manage what they have very well, e.g. .S. Africa has a well-developed social capital. The poor have well developed social capital but no resources. The Open University has done very well with distance learning by providing education for women and . people who are time poor and cannot manage the 9-5 routine of study.

In distinguishing between information and knowledge, a hierarchy of types of information can be identified, starting from data which is processed into information, which is in turn interpreted through knowledge and managed and applied through intelligence. To date the focus of knowledge has been too much on the fibre optics side rather than the content. The knowledge skills of the smart community require a fundamental change in approach, particularly in relation to IT in education and how pupils are taught. .

In identifying realistic options for small islands and states, the telecentres providing access to the Internet are important but this access in itself does not create jobs. The incentives have to be linked to something. The poor have to be given direction to use the minimal resources they have to drive themselves forward. There must be small IT applications relevant to local needs which facilitate this. Norwich Direct provides the community with easy access to information. this project was not based on using the most sophisticated technology available but rather ensuring that the technology is highly user-friendly and as easy to use as telephone.

Learning is now becoming a buzzword. In seeking to improve education and learning, the key may be the teacher. Children are often faced not with lack of information but information overload and they need help to identify the real knowledge. In this respect, it is important to help children to learn how to learn , by focusing more on content. In this global process of change, teachers and experts have to accept that they have to learn from children rather than the other way around. Research on variants affecting learning in schools focused on teachers, facilities and home background and gave them a value. In the US, teachers accounted for 40%, textbooks and logistical factors 20% , and home background 40%. In contrast, in Europe, the home background was 60%, and in some countries as high as 80% (Norway). This raises the question whether in countries where the influence of home background is high, up to 70%, education should focus as much on the teaching of parents as on the children. The potential of this technology to be used to reach parents as well as children should be noted. The Black and Decker example highlighted the fact that the objectives of learning and IT have to be clearly defined and utilizing the best tools, but not necessarily the most advanced technologies.

It is important that learning is based on transdisciplinary approaches. However, small the community is, it will not be homogenous and this means that competing interests have to be reconciled. through democracy. One constraint is that we all tend to seek out like-minded persons as we do not like to have our opinions challenged. In order to seek a consensus, these tendencies and aptitudes have to be transformed. Another constraint is the belief in the old paradigm that one’s gain is the other’s loss (zero sum theory). This has resulted in the hoarding of information and the protection of one’s territory to the detriment of the country and the community as a whole. This has affected the development of the National Strategy for Information Technology in Malta. It is important that new approaches of sharing information to jointly create new knowledge are encouraged. Rather than copying wholesale the models in other small islands, it is important that states develop internal learning processes by developing their own strategies, as each country’s circumstances differ. For example in Malta, the strategy was deployed also at the community level through the people, as this was the way to reach the politicians, by exercising the power of the vote at election time.

A recent EU-sponsored study under the TSER programme distinguished between tacit knowledge and codified knowledge, the latter being information which may be published on the Web, Tacit knowledge is the skills and expertise required to interpret codified knowledge and this is not easily transferred because it is embodied in persons and organizations. This tacit knowledge includes intuitive or indigenous knowledge and by the fact that it is country-specific, countries should tap to create a competitive advantage. For example, Malta’s indigenous knowledge is rooted in its multicultural history which provides it with both a specific set of inter-cultural communicative skills and unique historical knowledge. Through the application of IT, this indigenous knowledge may be tapped to produce specific products and services.