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We have recently learned that 98% of British youth aged 14 – 22 attending school full time use the Internet at least one hour a week. According to the results of a European survey conducted in 2001 on the use of information and communications technology by young Europeans, almost 9 out of 10 (87%) used a personal computer at least once a week. And Seymour Papert, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, goes even so far as to predict that in less than ten years, all children in nursery schools in the United States will have a portable computer. In light of these statistics and predictions, one might think that the much discussed “Information and Communications Society” is about to become a reality. But let’s make no mistake: a gap certainly exists between affluent schools and the rest. And outside of educational establishments, the use of computers is largely tied to family income. Therefore in the United States, according to the 2001 data from the Department of Commerce, 83% of children between the ages of 10 and 17 whose families have an income in excess of $75,000 have access to the Internet at home; in families with income of less than $15,000, the percentage falls to 8%. Knowledge of information technology requires more than the simple possession of a computer connected to the web: the increasing appearance of the Internet in private homes can not equal that of the other media as long as there continue to be difficulties in mastering the technical tools which are necessary to access information, as is underlined in a recent report by the French authorities.
In a pedagogical file prepared by Swiss NGO’s and entitled, “Discover the numerical divide”, it is noted that only one person in 150 uses the Internet in Africa, that the monthly cost of access to the Internet as a percentage of average monthly income is 1.2% in the United States and 191% in Bangladesh, and that nearly three-quarters of Internet users in the world have a high income as against less than 10% for people with a low income. It adds, “apart from the question of income which limits access to certain communication networks and their contents, the levels of illiteracy and of education constitute a limitation on the use of the skills and the exchange of the information”.
The reduction in inequalities of access to information and communication technologies is largely linked to political will. But that supposes, as is noted by the “Human Rights Caucus in the Information Society”, that one recognise and affirm that information, its means of production, administration and diffusion, are common goods towards which different social actors have rights and responsibilities, aimed at assuring minimal conditions of fairness for general development and intellectual creativity, technical innovation, effective use of techniques and successful participation in the information society.
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References:
Benhamou, Bernard (2003). “The Proxima Project. Towards the appropriation of the Internet at school and in families.” Report submitted to the education minister-delegates.
Human Rights in the Information Society Caucus (DHSI) (2003). Towards a society of information and communication respectful of the civil and political rights of citizens and of their economic, social and cultural rights. http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/smsi/hr-wsis/hris-caucus-input-fr.pdf
European Commission. “Young Europeans in 2001” Euro barometer.
Education Week. (2002). “E-Defining Education”. Volume XXI, No 35. http://www.edweek.org/tc02/
Education and Development Foundation, Action de Carême, Community of Work, the Bern Declaration, Bread for the Future, Terre des Hommes Switzerland (2003). “What Information for What Society?” http://www.globaleducation.ch/francais/pages/SMSI/index.html
ACDE (2001) “The school of tomorrow. The new technologies at school: learning to change”
Centre for the research and innovation in teaching.
UNO (2003). Third meeting of the preparatory Committee for the world summit on the information society. http://www.unog.ch/news2/documents/newsfr/m0323f.htm
Oxford Internet Survey (2003) “Results of a nationwide representative survey of Britons aged 24 and older”: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~oxis/Presentation.pdf
Illustration tirée du site de Christiane Vienne
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