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Why some nations cannot develop

If there is underdevelopment in most developing countries it is largely for two reasons. The first is the virtual absence of information networks. Without these networks, the simplest of information - about where to buy or sell anything, even second-hand goods - becomes extremely difficult.

Not surprisingly, price spreads are the largest in such countries especially when it comes to agro-products and handicraft items. The producer gets paid a pittance, and the consumer pays far too much. The eventual loser is the economy - where fewer goods get bought because of the high price the eventual consumer pays.

It cripples purchasing power on the one hand, and creates extremely skewed income demographics on the other.

The second factor that blights these countries is the virtual absence of quality education. In India, for instance, illiteracy has been pegged at 40 per cent of the population.

But this figure is quite misleading because literacy has been defined as anyone who can read or write his own name - never mind the fact that he may not know or be capable of identifying the other alphabets in the script.

Moreover, education becomes meaningful if, in addition to providing the basic elements of literacy, it also provides students with skills - of communicating properly in any language, of thinking logically, mathematical skills and work culture.

If such skills are not developed, the person becomes unemployable. It is when one recognises this fact that one begins to appreciate that India's problem is not unemployment.

The real problem is unemployability. Advertise for a secretary and you will get a thousand applications. Start interviewing them, and you will find 95 per cent of them (even more) unemployable. They have the right certificates, but lack the above skills.

If there is a skill set within a group of people, a shrewd businessman will find ways to exploit these skills and create a marketable product. But if the skill set is missing, he cannot create a market opportunity.

There is a limit, a saturation point, to creating jobs for unskilled workers. When people ask the government to create jobs they often forget that development of skills must precede the creation of jobs. Trying to create jobs first is always a self-defeating exercise.

To make education relevant it must achieve the following:

• A reasonable guarantee that passing the course will make him employable
• The course must be rich in course content.
• It must have the best teachers as the face and the presentation have a great deal to do with motivating students.
• It must be interactive, preferably with a human face at the other end.
• It must be reasonably priced.
• It must, ideally, be encouraged by the existing educational system.
• It must offer a system for certifying qualified candidates in such a manner that the certificates are recognizable globally, and they eliminate the risk of fraud or forgery.

These are the reasons why distance learning, with a great deal of live interactivity, becomes critically important. Distance learning allows several things to happen - especially for a capital- and resource-starved country like India.

First, it allows good education to be availed of by students even in areas where the numbers of students wanting to pursue a particular course do not justify the commercial viability of a private brick-and-mortar tuition centre or coaching class.

Consider, for instance, the possibility of one student who wants to study Java programming in a small town in eastern India.

No businessman can open a coaching class just for one student, unless the student belongs to a very powerful or rich family that can afford private tuitions. Distance learning allows even this one student to become part of a virtual classroom, and thus benefits him tremendously.

No longer is it necessary for the student to travel to a large town to study the course there.

Second, distance learning allows students to get the best teachers to teach students. And good teachers are hard to come by. Even with the best brand names of private teaching institutes, you will find an exceptionally good teacher at one centre but a mediocre teacher at another.

This is true even in large cities like Mumbai and Delhi where, theoretically at least, there are scores of qualified people looking for jobs. Thus, even though branding of the teaching institute is the same, the teaching standards differ.

The sad part is that teaching is highly dependent on the quality of teachers. If a teacher is good, the student learns faster, even pursues the subject more passionately. If a teacher is bad, the student may not end up by just disliking the teacher.

Even the subject may get abandoned. Distance learning allows for a good teacher to become available across the country.

Third, distance learning can help reduce the cost of training and development. This is because, in a virtual classroom, the numbers of students, once they exceed a certain minimum requirement, can help the cost of the course to be reduced.

This is not possible in a brick and mortar classroom where the number of students per teacher is meant to be limited. Violate this norm, and the effects of overcrowding begin to manifest themselves.

In a virtual classroom the numbers are invisible. The approach appears to be individualised, the teaching quality standardised, and the evaluation process rigorous and impartial. And interactivity makes the entire difference.

The reason why interactivity is of paramount significance is not hard to discover. Many people overestimate the value of content, but underestimate the importance of interactivity.

But take the most popular of training institutes like Brilliant Tutorials as an example. It trains students through correspondence. It sends notes and questions to students who must then solve the questions and return them to Brilliant Tutorials by post.

Theoretically, the notes are available for anyone to use and even photocopy. If the threat of piracy of content were really that important in businesses relating to teaching and training, Brilliant should have been out of business a decade ago. But that has not happened.

The reason for this is that the student not only wants course content but also guidance on where he has made mistakes and how to resolve them. If interactivity were not important, any student could go to the local bookshop and buy a book that costs a few hundred rupees and save on the thousands he pays to private training institutes.

However, distance learning is plagued by one problem - impersonation and fraud. Without a proper examination system, the entire edifice of distance learning can crumble. What is desperately needed are methods for promoting examination centres at learning centres that can:

• Minimise the possibility of impersonation, and
• Reduce the potential of forged certificates doing the rounds.

Unfortunately, Indian educationists and promoters of business as educational centres have not yet been able to address these issues as yet.

The writer is the promoter of an education infrastructure company, E-Convergence Technologies Ltd, engaged in interactive distance learning

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