Education for Development: Can Technology Help?

Abstract

Education for Development: Can Technology Help? Public Lecture, The Vancouver Institute, 5 March 2005 by: Sir John Daniel, President & CEO, Commonwealth of Learning // I have chosen as my title Education for Development: Can Technology Help? One of Vancouver's best kept secrets is that it is home to the world's only international intergovernmental agency devoted exclusively to the use of technology in learning. I refer, of course, to the Commonwealth of Learning, or COL, which I am now privileged to lead. It has been based here in Vancouver since its creation in 1989. In this lecture I shall place COL's work in the context of world development. // I shall begin by asking what development is. This will lead me to describe the framework in which the international community is trying to promote development, in particular the Millennium Development Goals agreed by the United Nations. As we examine these goals, familiarly referred to as the MDGs, we shall find that they call for action on a variety of fronts. But what they all have in common is that their achievement will require a massive increase in human learning. This is self-evident in the case of the goals related to education, but it is equally true for the health goals, the poverty goals, the hunger goals and all the others.