The paper details the ITC context for México, which is characterised by a low, but rapidly growing use of ICTS, and then examines at the recent E-México policy initiative launched by President Vincent Fox, in the light of México's considerable experience in using ICT for distance education. Finally the paper suggests that, by benchmarking against Finland (a country with a high use of ICTs in both business and education), México would derive considerable social, economic and educational benefits from the use of ICT

Karran, Terence

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Part I. LATIN AMERICAChapter V.  GDLN Interactive Participations93When considering the growth and role ofinformation and communication technolo-gies (ICT) for capacity building in México,and its ability to meet the challenges of theemergent Information Society and the Glob-al Knowledge Economy, it is necessary toaddress the social and economic contexts ofthe country, which define the particularproblems of México and affect its ability todeal with them. By many standards, Méxicohas a strong economy. In terms of total GDP,the combination of a population of 100 mil-lion and GDP per capita over US$5,000makes México the tenth largest economy inthe world. With US$232 billion in trade in2002, it is the USA's second trading partner(after Canada), and far ahead from the thirdtrading partner (Japan with US$184 billion).Moreover, the OECD Economic Survey:México undertaken in November 2003,showed that México's economic perform-ance improved during the 1990s, with vig-orous growth in GDP, and steadily fallinginflation. Since the 1995 peso crisis, thefinancial system has been strengthened, sothat, when compared with many other LatinAmerica countries, the Mexican economyhas been stable. However, despite this improving situation,México's economic growth performance hasbeen poor, and potential GDP growth esti-mates have been revised down to below 4%,which is too slow for a country with lowlevels of income and productivity and highrates of population growth, and hence tooslow to narrow the gap in living standardsrelative to other countries. México's GDPper capita is equivalent to about one quar-ter of that of the United States. Over the1990s, it increased by only 1_% per year,preventing México from catching up withmore advanced nations. Over the same peri-od, GDP per capita rose by 3% or more inGreece, Portugal and Korea, three othernations with comparatively low income lev-els. Economic growth in México is con-strained by low levels of human capitaldevelopment, and additional finances areneeded to improve and expand the inade-quate physical infrastructure, and combatwidespread acute poverty that leads to poorhealth and social marginalization. Hence, inthe short term, targeted programs are need-ed to attack poverty and ensure that basicneeds are met, but in the longer run, pover-ty can only be addressed systematicallythrough improved access to a more effectiveeducational system, which will improve theskills base of the workforce and therebystrengthen human capital. However, despitemajor improvements over the past decades,especially in increasing basic school enrol-ment for a rapidly growing school-age pop-ulation, the level of the skills base of Méxi-co's human capital lags behind many othercountries. The quality of education servicesand training is below OECD best practice, sothat many school-leavers have poor literacyand numeracy skills, and the cost effective-ness of education programs needs to beimproved. However, data from the OECD InformationTechnology Outlook reveals that the growthof the ITC Sector in the Mexican economyhas been substantial. The largest exportersof communication equipment in 2002 werethe U.K. and the USA, followed by Germany,Korea, and México. Of these countries,exports for Korea and México increasedmost rapidly from 1996 to 2002, by 32%TERENCE KARRANDirector, Virtual Campus, Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara, MexicoMEXICOE-MEXICO - BUILDING ON SUCCESS, FOR SUCCESSProceeding_OK  31-10-2005  11:54  Seite 93Chapter V.  GDLN Interactive ParticipationsPart I. LATIN AMERICA94and 23% per year respectively. Moreover theshare of ICT Manufacturing in Total Manu-facturing Value added is greater in Méxicothan that in many European nation states,and from 1995-2001 this share grew fasterin México than all other OECD countriesapart from Finland. Similarly, the share ofICT manufacturing in total manufacturingemployment has been very high in Méxicowhen compared with other OECD countries.Not only has ICT manufacturing increasedin México, so has the purchase and use ofICT equipment. Data from the OECD Com-munications Outlook shows that the numberof cellular mobile phone subscribers inMéxico is below average by internationalstandards, but it is growing very fast. Simi-larly, the proportion of households withaccess to a home computer is low, but iscatching up with European nations. In 1997the number of PCs in México was 3.5 mil-lion, but exceeded 8 million by 2002. Inaddition, more people are accessing theInternet - the number of internet users inMéxico rose from just over half a million in1997 to over 7 million by 2002, and wasexpected to reach 15 million by the end of2004. As the OECD Science Technology andIndustry Scoreboard for 2004 shows, thenumber of Mexican registered websites,although low, is growing at a faster annualrate than the OECD average. This growthhas been aided by the liberalization of thetelecommunication industry in the 1990's,starting with the privatization of TELMEXand the emergence of new providers likeTELCEL.Hence, in terms of building ICT capacity, thesituation in México is one of successfulgrowth in the ICT manufacturing sector, andin the purchase and use of ICT equipment,albeit from a small base, and despite an eco-nomic climate characterized by low growth.Building on this success requires politicalwill, and another important factor in the lastdecade has been the election of PresidentVincente Fox. The effect of the election ofFox after 71 years of rule by the PRI wasboth symbolic and substantive, as the newadministration recognized the need toaddress the impact of new technologieswithin society. This led to a major policyinitiative in the form of e-México(http://www.e-mexico.gob.mx/).The objective of e-México is to create atechnological system with social content,which can offer all the tools and opportuni-ties that are available through the use ofInformation and Communications Tech-nologies, in order to increase the quality oflife for all Mexicans. e-México is being developed through fivethematic areas, as follows:e-Learning - will provide new optionsof education and training which willstimulate learning as a means of integraldevelopment for Mexicans, promotingeducation for all, while respecting iden-tity and cultural diversity;e-Health - will increase the level ofhealth and well-being of society byplacing within the reach of the entireMexican population general medicalinformation which will promote humandevelopment and the development ofthe health institutions, eliminating bar-riers to the access of information andthe health and social security services;e-Economy - will accelerate the processof development of the digital economywithin businesses, specially micro, smalland medium size businesses (MSMBs)thereby increasing the competitive posi-tion of the Mexican economy; as well asdeveloping a computer culture withinsociety, particularly amongst con-sumers; e-Science, Technology and Industry -will integrate and develop an informa-tion society and knowledge economy,facilitating a greater level of develop-ment by focusing on the needs of Mex-icans to strengthen their industrialinfrastructure, and by direct linkagewith the research sector, therebyenabling the achievement of highlycompetitive quality standards as meas-ured in world markets;Proceeding_OK  31-10-2005  11:54  Seite 94Part I. LATIN AMERICAChapter V.  GDLN Interactive Participations95e-Government - will provide full infor-mation on, and access to, all State serv-ices offered at Federal, Regional,National or City level, thereby guaran-teeing that all Mexican people canaccess and take full advantage of allpublic services.The success of the e-México initiative inimproving human capital will depend on itssuccess in raising the level of education.This in turn depends on the willingness ofthe educational and training sectors toadopt new technologies. This will be vitalfirst, because global competitiveness willdepend on the extent to which people leav-ing education have acquired high level ICTskills - so teachers will need to know how touse ICT, in order to use it to teach moreeffectively themselves, and teach othershow to use it. Secondly, and more critically,the current population growth is outstrip-ping economic growth. México does notpossess the resources to increase the level ofeducation by increasing the physical num-ber of schools and universities, and there-fore needs to turn increasingly to using newtechnologies in teaching and the greater useof open and distance learning, which aremore cost effective.México is one of the countries with thegreatest experience in the field of distanceeducation in the world. The main purpose ofthe SEP (Ministry of Education) NationalDistance Education Program (PROED) is toraise the level of educational opportunitiesby incorporating electronic and computertechnology media into education. Its inten-tion is to expand its coverage, combat edu-cational backlog and regional disparities ineducational opportunities, and promotetraining programs for human resourcedevelopment through a series of initiativesincluding:Telesecunderia - launched over 31 yearsago, the Telesecundaria, a televisedbased distance secondary program, cur-rently has more than 14,000 schoolstotaling approximately 1,200,000 stu-dents and 40,000 teachers. Red Escolar - a computerized system ofinformation and communication basedon the Internet for México's studentcommunity, which has 4,000 unitsinstalled in more than 1,000 education-al units Edusat - Educational Satellite TelevisionNetwork - is a closed-circuit systembased on the most advanced digitaltechnology. Its 12 video and 24 audiochannels broadcast all over México, andit reaches over 30,000 educational cen-tres in the country, through receivers insecondary and technical schools andpublic and private universities.Enciclomedia - has enabled the digitali-zation of primary education textbooksin CD-ROM format. Along with thematerial from the textbooks themselves,a plethora of resources, includingvideos, complementary information andthe use of the Microsoft Encarta studentencyclopedia, are available to teachersand students. The system began as apilot in the 2003-04 year, is now inplace in close to 22,000 fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms around the country,and is expected to expand to thousandsof schools during 2005-6Hence e-México will develop new initiativeswithin México to build on previous success-es in open and distance learning, and takeup the challenge of new technologies tomove both conventional and open and dis-tance education forward. There will be aneed to use new technologies to create highquality intensely supported active learningenvironments for students, both on an offcampus. The technology already exists toprovide these new environments. However,the major challenge lies in trying to use newtechnologies to shift the educational processaway from a passive didactic transmissionmodel of teaching to an active construc-tivist conversational model of lifelonglearning. This requires changes, not just inpedagogy but across the entire educationalinstitution. To be successful, this new gener-ation of e-learning will require teachers toProceeding_OK  31-10-2005  11:54  Seite 95Chapter V.  GDLN Interactive ParticipationsPart I. LATIN AMERICA96adopt a new educational and pedagogic par-adigm based on learning and to changetheir role radically from being deliverers ofsubject content to facilitators and promotersof learning. The role of universities as catalysts forchange will be vital in this process. First,because they will supply high level trainingnecessary for both continued growth in thedevelopment and manufacture of ITC, andits integration in all aspects of the economyand society. Secondly, because universities'research activities put them at the cuttingedge in the development of new technolo-gies. Previously the role of universities inthe industrial economy was to supply high-ly trained workers for the manufacturingsector. By contrast, in the information soci-ety global knowledge economy, universitiesare primary producers of the main product,knowledge, and so are crucial in the processof building learning regions within theglobal knowledge economy. This has lead toa convergence between universities andhigh tech companies in the knowledgeeconomy, often facilitated through thedevelopment of university science parks.Whether or not México manages to use thee-México initiative to accelerate its success-ful growth in the manufacture and use ofITC remains to be seen. Making internation-al benchmarking comparisons is very diffi-cult. However, it is worth noting that onenation which has been able to transformitself through the use of ICT in the last threedecades has been Finland. The definingbenchmarks in Finland's success have beena strong ICT manufacturing base lead byNokia, the deregulation of the telecommuni-cations industry, consequent high usage ofITC, a strong tradition of open and distancelearning facilitated by technology, collabo-ration between universities and industries(facilitated via technology transfer and sci-ence parks), and a national policy initiativewhich put the development of ICT at theheart of its economic and educational strat-egy. By adopting similar benchmarks, Méx-ico can build on its current success toexpand its ICT industry and infrastructure,and use policy instruments like e-México topromote the widespread use of informationand communication technologies, in homes,schools and universities, and business andindustry, with substantial social and eco-nomic benefits for all the Mexican people.Proceeding_OK  31-10-2005  11:54  Seite 96

E-México - building on success, for success

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