|
VISION
2020
Knowledge
for Development
Presentation to the
Planning Commission, Govt. of India August 8, 2000
by
Garry Jacobs & N. Asokan
CONTENTS
Role of Knowledge in Development
Knowledge
for Development
In assessing
India’s developmental assets and potential, the major emphasis is usually placed on
capital, technology, infrastructure and human resources. This paper argues that Knowledge
has emerged as one of the most important development resources and that full utilization
of Knowledge can dramatically accelerate India’s development over the next 20 years.
The paper examines the growing gap between knowledge generation and knowledge application
in India and presents a range of strategies to close the gap and accelerate progress. Role of Knowledge in DevelopmentThe speed and extent of development depends on the availability of material, technological and financial resources, but in its essence development is a human process that is determined by the response of people to their external environment. Development is the process by which human beings become aware of opportunities and challenges, formulate responses, make decisions, and initiate organized actions. This process follows the sequence from knowledge to inspiration to action. Human beings acquire knowledge, they become aware of opportunities and challenges. When that knowledge matures, they acquire a motivation or inspiration to translate that knowledge into action. No matter how great the opportunity or how dire the necessity, without that knowledge no adaptive response occurs. Knowledge is fundamental to each step in the development process. It is essential for creating awareness of opportunities and challenges, a proper evaluation of alternatives, formulating responses, effective planning and organization of initiatives, and practical implementation of those initiatives. Development depends on a very broad range of knowledge—technical knowledge of productive processes, commercial knowledge of markets and business practices, personal knowledge of human health and nutrition, knowledge of laws and legal processes, knowledge of political and administrative processes and public policies, knowledge of organization and management, knowledge of emerging fields of science and, perhaps most important of all, a conceptual knowledge of the nature of the development process itself, so that we may have the wisdom to unleash and harness the energy, resourcefulness and creativity of the people. The words knowledge, information and data are often used interchangeably, but a true understanding of the role of knowledge in development requires that we make a distinction between its ascending and descending levels or grades. In the ascending phase that leads from experience to knowledge, raw data is distilled into information and ideas. Raw, unprocessed physical facts or data is the lowest grade. At the next higher level, these facts get categorized and organized as information. At a higher level, organized facts are processed and distilled into ideas, concepts, and theoretical propositions that provide a perspective which reveals their significance and interrelationships. In the descending phase that leads from knowledge to action, ideas and theoretical concepts are applied to generate plans, organizational patterns, technological processes and physical skills that express in action. In discussing the role of knowledge in development, this paper is principally concerned with the dissemination of information and ideas that can inform awareness, motivate decisions and provide an organized basis for skilled action. Knowledge contributes to development in several different ways: as a productive resource; as an essential input for education, scientific research and industrial technology; as a catalyst for social change and economic development; and as a basis for civilization and cultural values that promote social integrity and harmony, which is the essential foundation for development. In earlier stages of development, land and minerals constituted the principle resources for development. Technology was rudimentary. Human beings were valued mainly for their physical labor. Today, information and knowledge have become increasingly important inputs to the development process. All economic activities are becoming more knowledge-intensive. By one recent estimate, 50-60% of all industrial output is based on information. Modern manufacturing industries depend as much for their success on the management of information relating to quality, cost and scheduling as they do on the management of production processes. The service sector, which is the greatest source of new jobs and economic growth in the world economy, is essentially knowledge-based. In the USA, the percentage of the workforce engaged in manufacturing is now the same as it was in 1850. The phenomenal growth of employment opportunities in the USA has been driven by the rapid expansion of services. The four most important service sectors—financial services, insurance, health and education—are especially knowledge-intensive. This shift from material to knowledge-based resources opens up vast opportunities for developing countries to accelerate the pace of development. The characteristics of knowledge differ greatly from those of material and financial resources. Knowledge expands as it is shared rather than being consumed. Knowledge is not lost when it is freely given away. Knowledge is readily transportable at rapid speed and very low cost. Development depends on four knowledge processes:
India’s Knowledge GapThe task of harnessing available knowledge for development is complicated by the fact that the rate of global knowledge generation is growing exponentially and old knowledge is quickly superseded or nullified by new knowledge which generates more and better results, faster and at lower cost. Humanity’s knowledge base, which has been accumulating slowly over centuries, is now doubling every 3 to 5 years. Not only is knowledge much more available, it is also much more essential for survival in an increasingly complex and competitive world. Factory workers, urban citizens and even housewives today require a much broader range of knowledge and practical skills to perform even routine functions such as operating sophisticated machinery and appliances, complying with laws, interacting with government departments, benefiting from modern medical technology, etc. The minimum knowledge required of every Indian citizen is increasing. At the same time, the maximum opportunities for those that acquire the most knowledge in any field are boundless, as the recent surge in the IT industry dramatically illustrates. The pace of knowledge dissemination in India has also been growing rapidly. The expansion of media coverage through cable TV has multiplied the range of programming. Rising levels of education have fueled a proliferation of specialized journals on a wide range of topics. The spread of information technology, telecommunication facilities and the Internet have created far wider access to a much greater range of knowledge. But, in spite of these significant achievements, there is a growing gap between the rate of knowledge generation and knowledge dissemination in the country as illustrated in figure 1. Table 1: India's Knowledge Gap
India’s
knowledge gap is not easily quantified, but we can roughly measure it by examining the
country’s progress on literacy, education, application of technology, R&D and
growth of the media. LiteracyTable 2: Growth of Literacy in India
Literacy rates in India have doubled over the past four decades. This impressive progress is diminished by the fact that the starting rates were extremely low. This still leaves approximately 300 million illiterate adults in the country, 30% of the entire population. For these people, the traditional avenues of knowledge dissemination through education and printed information are ruled out. This is precisely the people in this group that are most vulnerable to the challenge of the knowledge revolution because they are least equipped to rapidly expand their knowledge base. Since many of them are relatively young adults who will still be active in 2020, the country cannot afford to ignore them or leave them behind. Innovative approaches will be needed to increase knowledge dissemination to this group. EducationA second way of estimating India’s knowledge gap is to look at the number of people who do not acquire even a minimum of formal education. Education is the primary and most effective means so far evolved for transmitting practically useful knowledge from one generation to another. Education is the process of passing on to future generations in a concentrated and abridged form the essence of knowledge accumulated by past generations. India’s educational system has expanded exponentially over the past five decades. But, drop-out rates from primary and secondary school remain so high that a very large proportion of children do not acquire even high school education, which must be considered the minimum education required to adapt and succeed economically in modern society. Table 3: Elementary School Drop-out Rates
In spite of significant progress in reducing school drop-outs, 31% of children still drop out before completing the 5th grade and 70% drop out before completing high school. Therefore, apart from addressing the needs of a large illiterate population, India’s knowledge strategy must also develop innovative approaches to enhance knowledge acquisition among the large community of school drop-outs. Unless something is done to drastically reduce drop-out rates, by the year 2016 there will be approximately 500 million people in the country with less than 5 years of schooling and another 300 million that will have not completed high school. In other words, about two-thirds of the population will lack the minimum level of education needed to keep pace with and take advantage of the social changes occurring within the country and worldwide. R&DThe rate of knowledge generation in the country is another aspect of the knowledge gap. At the global level, science and technology are expanding at unprecedented rates. There are many ways in which this global knowledge permeates into the domestic economy, but the capacity of any country to adapt and fully harness these advances depends to a significant extent on domestic R&D activity. Estimates of R&D activity can only be taken as crude indices of the knowledge gap, but the figures do suggest that knowledge generation in the country is not keeping pace, even proportionately, with the global knowledge revolution.
Table 4: R&D Expenditure
Two points are important to note about India’s performance. First, atomic energy, space and defense research account for 71% of all Central spending on science and technology, which means that relatively little is left for investment in agriculture, energy, telecommunications and other crucial sectors. Second, R&D expenditure in India’s fast growing IT sector is currently 3.1%, suggesting a strong correlation between investment in R&D and economic growth. There are other indicators that also suggest an increasing knowledge gap resulting from inadequate knowledge generation.
•India’s share of global scientific output in
1998 was only 1.58% of the world’s total. •India’s annual output of science papers has declined from 13,000 in 1981 to 12,000, while world output has risen from 4 lakh to 7.6 lakhs per year.
•India’s share of global scientific citations
in 1997 was only 0.7% of the world’s
total.
•India’s rank on the Science Citation Index has
fallen from 8 to 13 since the early 1980s. Knowledge generation directly impacts national development when it results in new and improved, patentable industrial processes. Every year more than 500,000 new patent applications are filed globally. Of these, China accounts for 96,000 and Korea accounts for 72,000, while India accounts for only 8000. Korea produces nine times as many patents as India with only twice India’s total investment in R&D, suggesting that not only the quantum of investment but the management of R&D activities is a critical determinant of knowledge generation. Application of TechnologyA fourth way to estimate the country’s knowledge gap is to examine the extent to which commercially viable technology is being applied in the country. Since agriculture is still the largest source of employment in India, the application of technical knowledge in this field can be a useful index of knowledge dissemination through agricultural education, agricultural extension services and other delivery systems. Table 5: Agricultural Productivity in USA & India (kg/hectare) [1]
The table above compares
agricultural productivity in the USA and India. There are many reasons for these
differences in productivity, including size of land holdings, level of investment and
quality of inputs. But in addition to these, there are vast differences in the extent to
which available scientific knowledge is applied by farmers in their fields. According to
empirical studies and field research conducted in India by California Agricultural
Consulting Services, knowledge accounts for more than 50% of the difference in
productivity on American and Indian farms. To test this conclusion, CACS has conducted
experiments in which the knowledge available to California farmers has been provided to
Indian farmers. Without any change in the size of the land holdings or quality of inputs,
productivity on the Indian farms rose by 100 to 200%.
While this data can only be taken
as indicative, it illustrates the enormous potential for accelerating India’s
development by closing the knowledge gap. Knowledge Dissemination through the MediaKnowledge dissemination occurs through the system of formal education and through a variety of informal channels, of which the media is the most prominent. Therefore, the development of the media can be taken as another rough index of knowledge dissemination in the country. The number of publications and growth of readership in India is expanding rapidly, as shown below: Table 6: Indian Newspapers & Journals
The Indian newspaper industry has expanded enormously as the population has expanded and literacy rates have risen. India currently publishes 4719 daily newspapers with a total circulation of 40 million. Still, the percentage of the Indian population reading newspapers remains relatively low. Table 7: Daily Newspaper Circulation per 1000 Population (1992)
The number of publishers and books published is another index of the capacity for knowledge dissemination. Currently India has about 3000 active publishing firms publishing at least 20,000 books annually.[3] This compares with 49,000 books published annually in the USA, the world’s largest publisher. Cable television coverage has expanded very rapidly in India over the past two decades and currently reaches 37 million people. While little current programming is directed at knowledge dissemination, this medium has enormous potential for closing the knowledge gap. The Internet is currently the fastest growing media channel in India and around the globe. The table below compares India’s current position with that of some other countries. Table 8: Internet Penetration (1999)
The following table projects the growth of India’s IT infrastructure over the next eight years. Cable TV is included in this list because it will become a important means of delivering internet access to households. Table 9: India's IT Infrastructure
Knowledge is only one input to the development process, but it is an absolutely essential one. Without adequate knowledge all the other essential inputs—land, infrastructure, factories, capital, technology, administrative and social organization—cannot yield full results. Enhancing knowledge generation and dissemination is the fastest, most cost-effective means of increasing the productivity of all these other resources and accelerating national development. Development Knowledge Strategy for India 2020Given the rapid pace of population growth within the country, coupled with the rapid pace of global knowledge generation, India is presented with a double challenge over the next two decades: first, to accelerate the rate of knowledge generation and acquisition within the country by greater, more cost effective, more productive and more commercially applicable investments in R&D and technology transfer; second, to accelerate the rate of knowledge dissemination both through the formal education system and through non-formal channels. The remainder of this paper will focus on strategies to accelerate knowledge dissemination in India through formal and non-formal channels. 1. Accelerate the spread of educationIn spite of increased efforts to impart literacy, reduce the drop out rates and expand the educational system to accommodate more children, the quantitative expansion of the educational system is still too slow to meet the country’s needs, depriving tens of millions of young people of the minimum education required for their development. India rightly prides itself on its adherence to democratic principles, but the effective exercise of those principles depends directly on the education of the electorate. Nothing can have greater impact on the preferences of the nation’s voting public, the quality of elected government officials, and the productivity of the workforce. Expanding the educational system to include all children between the ages of 5 and 15 may be the single most important policy initiative of the next two decades. But a mere expansion of the educational system will do little to help the hundreds of millions of people who have already missed or dropped out of the formal educational system. Innovative alterative methods are needed to extend basic education to these people as well. · Utilize flash card method for early childhood learning, adult literacy and school drop outs: Applied research in India based on methods developed in the USA has demonstrated that flash cards can be very effective for both early childhood and adult learning. These methods, which can be applied at home, in school, on television or over the Internet, involve very rapid flashing of words or general information on large cards at the rate of one card per second with simultaneous oral pronunciation of the words or explanation of related facts. Research indicates that the rate of learning achieved by these methods can be at least double those achieved through conventional classroom techniques.
·
Develop
video versions of the entire school curriculum for delivery over cable TV: Television
can be a very effective means for educating both school going and non-school children and
adults. It can deliver teaching material in a more dynamic, entertaining, and interesting
manner, utilizing the nation’s best teachers and multimedia teaching materials on
each subject. A TV based curriculum can be utilized by slow learners to supplement
classroom teaching, by fast learners to learn at much faster rates than the rest of the
class, by drop outs to acquire knowledge they missed in school and by adults to expand
their level of education without returning to school. · Develop multimedia forms of the entire school & college curriculum for delivery over the Internet: The advent of the Internet offers an exciting new learning medium that can literally transform our concept of school and classroom from physical into virtual realities. Future studies in the USA project a radical reshaping of higher education over the next two decades as a result of the digital revolution. Many traditional colleges will close as more course work is delivered at a distance through alternative channels. The traditional boundaries between education and other sectors will fade as publishers, for-profit and non-profit organizations offer accredited, multimedia-enhanced courses directly to students by-passing the university. The traditional classroom type of education, which is most useful for students that require personal attention and assistance and for subjects that involve hands-on experimentation, will no longer be the predominant model. For all other purposes, it is very costly and not very efficient in the way it uses the time of both teachers and students. Given the huge numbers of young Indians that will quest for higher education in the coming decades and given India’s outstanding expertise in the IT industry, the country should embark on a massive program to convert the entire higher educational curriculum into a multi-media, web-based format and to establish accrediting standards for recognition of distance education courseware. 2. Improve the quality of formal educationA quantitative expansion of the educational system will provide access to more young people, but it will not ensure that the education provided is of adequate quality to keep them enrolled or dramatically improve their capacity for social adaptation and achievement. Many of the methods commonly adopted in the nation’s schools are based on practices developed in the distant past that have outlived their value and utility. Simultaneous with the quantitative expansion of the educational system, there should be an effort to experiment with new approaches to education that will increase the quality and speed of knowledge acquisition. The qualitative change needed should include –
·
Shift
from teaching to learning: The traditional emphasis on the teacher as the active
source of knowledge and the student as the passive recipient who simply receives what is
taught needs to be replaced by a pedagogical system in which the student is taught to
actively seek knowledge through a variety of means from a variety of sources and the role
of the teacher is as facilitator and guide for that process.
·
Shift
from traditional academic to life-based curriculum: The current curriculum is a
product of many different influences. Most of it was developed in countries with very
different values and social conditions, some of it in earlier centuries when life was
altogether different than it is today. The high drop out rates in India reflect that fact
that the school curriculum is only distantly related to the knowledge and skills needed by
most Indians for adaptation and achievement in life. The dawn of a new millennium is an
appropriate time to begin formulation of an entirely new educational curriculum, one which
will relate to the cultural, social, political and economic life of the country and the
skills, attitudes and values needed for individual initiative, personal achievement and
nation-building.
·
Value-based
education: The word ‘values’ is normally employed with reference to ethical
and moral concepts. But it can also be used in a much wider sense to connote principles
that are essential for national development. Values are those attitudes which society has
come to value as a product of its long experience that are most essential for individual
and collective achievement. Values represent the quintessence of life wisdom about what is
necessary for continued social progress. It is possible to identify a list of 20 or 30
work values that will be critical for the future growth and development of Indian society
and its greater participation in the emerging global economy, values such as punctuality,
self-reliance, self-respect, honesty in trade, entrepreneurship, systematic functioning,
etc. As practical skills can be trained, psychological values can be trained too. Rather
than merely imitating the West, a study of India’s most successful individuals,
organizations and communities will reveal the core values that form the inner foundation
for their outer accomplishments. Efforts should be initiated to identify those values that
are most critical to India’s future development and to evolve a curriculum to
effectively impart them to students of all ages.
·
Model
schools: Even while the effort is still underway to expand the school system to cover
the entire population, a simultaneous effort is needed to introduce and experiment with
new philosophies and methods of education more in tune with the needs and possibilities of
the 21st Century. As a modest beginning, experimental schools can be
established in every district to test and demonstrate new methods and serve as
models for other schools to emulate. 3. Create Farm Schools in every blockKnowledge leads to development when it is expressed in skilled action. That action requires practical skills for knowledge application. A primary reason for the phenomenal success of India’s IT industry is the fact that India operates the world’s largest system of computer training institutions. Over the past decade thousands of training institutions have sprung up around the country to provide knowledge and practical skills relating to every aspect and level of the IT industry. Earlier we stated that the gap in India’s agricultural productivity depicted in Table 5 is primarily the result of a knowledge gap, rather than to the small size of land holdings or a shortage of sunlight and water essential for plant growth. In spite of the fact that agriculture is the primary occupation for two-thirds of the population, the agricultural education system primarily caters to those who seek employment in government or research rather than application of agricultural knowledge on the farm. The highest priority should be given to establishing a national system of farm-based training institutions to impart advanced knowledge and farming skills to the nation’s farmers. Farm schools should be established in every block of the country with the following characteristic: · Each farm school should consist of 10-20 acres of irrigated farm lands equipped with a sophisticated computer program for analyzing soil types and recommending best practices to achieve maximum yield and profitability and supported by access to a high quality, soil testing lab capable of accurately analyzing the complete spectrum of plant nutrients. · Cultivation on the farm schools should be carried out on lands leased from local farmers by student farmers enrolled at the school and drawn from the local population, so that the demonstrations will have maximum impact. · | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
