Technology, Information Access, and Social and Economic Inclusion

In this 33-page project report, Nigel Poole, along with Fernando Alvarez, Roberto Vasquez, Nora Peñagos, and Alberto Yamasaki, describes research intended to analyse the impact of televised, nationally-produced secondary school classes - telesecundarias - on social and economic inclusion of indigenous communities in Chiapas, Mexico. This is a region where, according to the author, the Zapatista uprising of the 1990's has highlighted social inequities and the need for indigenous empowerment and inclusion.

The tele-education system, including 16,000 telesecundarias, is a national medium providing middle secondary schooling to students ages 12 - 15 years old in years 7 - 9 of school. Transmissions provide a 15-minute lesson, supplemented by 35 minutes of classroom support from teachers with textbooks. As stated in the report, the system is a centralised and highly structured national curriculum with a more than 30-year history.

Researchers collected data through surveys from students in telesecundarias in Chiapas communities in the spring and summer of 2006 and held community workshops with parents to discuss and validate their findings. They based their surveys on a conceptual framework, illustrated in the document, that shows the links between key indicators, such as improved housing, sanitation, and water supply; improved primary education performance; reduced drug and alcohol use; livelihood diversification and economic risk reduction; validation and use of traditional knowledge; and reduced intergenerational conflict, among 27 indicators.

From the executive summary:

"Results of the student survey and workshop suggest strongly that there are benefits from secondary tele-education that spread beyond the classroom. Educational material delivered within the classroom spills over into the attitudes, practices and expectations of the students. The school is the principal source of information to equip the students with outside knowledge and new skills. There are areas of household livelihoods where students’ contribution is apparently doubtful or less effective, or possibly less welcome and less advantageous."

[The survey results show that students garner knowledge in some areas that are applicable to their families and communities. For example, regarding school topics that might apply to environmental management, a "total of 53% said that they had learnt about the importance of not burning the fields, and 47% acknowledged the importance of organic fertilisers." However, students are often not in a decision making position in the traditional family structure. For example, "nearly 70% said that their parents continued to use the same ways of harvesting, and more than 80% continued to burn before sowing."]

"One area that gives cause for concern is the possibility that the medium and the message of tele-education are promoting an intergenerational gap. It is particularly noteworthy that students’ educational and employment aspirations are high, and significantly involve migration from the community. [For example, "...about 75% of students said that they themselves wished to continue studying on completing secondary schooling, among whom there were significantly more males than females ."] A related more specific cause for concern is that the secondary schooling does not reinforce traditional and community values. Skills and attitudes which accentuate the conception of community life as traditional and modern spheres could destabilise community life."

Subsequent community workshops gathered parents' responses. Among them are the following:

• Parents felt that learning Spanish and English permitted the students access to new communications media and also enabled parents to be linked to the wider social and commercial environment.
• They perceived that this increased access to information sources brought mixed opportunities and changes. For example, it facilitated migration to other regions, brought about changes thought of as negative in the students' lifestyles, increased loss of traditional values, increased personal aspirations and confidence in communication, and broadened their vision of the world.
• Parents felt that tele-schooling promoted positive benefits, whereas commercial television viewing promoted vandalism, violence, materialism, and drug addiction. Parents disagreed with students that education prompted changes in domestic or community practices (sanitation, agriculture, environment, etc.)
• It was found that little change was occurring in gender equality as a result of tele-education.

In conclusion, the project found that tele-education cannot guarantee development or inclusion in the wider society. The author recommends that it be "accompanied by a wide range of services and supports without which individuals, households and communities will not able to take advantage of the new opportunities." Recommendations include:

• Strengthening the interface between communities and government departments, particularly channeling education training and extension through one system, for example, rural production systems, marketing, local business development, and finance.
• Improving teacher education with formal teacher training, designed specifically for the particularities and peculiarities of the tele- medium; restructuring curriculum to address local concerns and local economies; and attending to language differences.
• Addressing "unrealised expectations about the wider world and unsatisfied aspirations within the communities" which, according to the author, can lead to further rupturing of indigenous societies.
• Involving both the state government, whose role it might be to address issues of local teacher training and curricular and language issues relevant to the local context, and the federal government.

Further, the author foresees the possible impact of new digital technologies - cellular phones and telecentres with internet access - on rural indigenous economies, if telecommunications firms bring them to rural areas, possibly aided by government deregulation or de-monopolisation policies.

For access to this document in English or Spanish, please contact the author at N.Poole@soas.ac.uk