Submitted by: Submitted by alimoeen800
Views: 365
Words: 1740
Pages: 7
Category: Societal Issues
Date Submitted: 02/14/2011 01:53 PM
The education and information apartheid challenge
By
Ahsan Iqbal
Former Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission
Member National Assembly
Two hundred years ago, at the end of the eighteenth century, industrial revolution brought eight thousand years of agriculture wealth creation to an end by providing a source of energy much bigger than either animals or humans could provide, the steam engine opened up opportunities to do things previously impossible. A hundred years later at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, electrification and the invention of systematic industrial research and development created what economic historians know as the second industrial revolution. Night literally became day. New industries emerged- the telephone, telegraph - and old industries were transformed. Local economies died and new national economies emerged.
Today, a new revolution is unfolding. This revolution is being created by the interaction of six new technologies- microelectronics, computers, telecommunications, new man made materials, robotics, and biotechnology to create a new and very different economic world. This revolution is moving us from national economies to a global economy. The old foundations of success are gone. For all of human history, the source of success has been the control of natural resources- land, gold, and oil. Suddenly, the answer is "knowledge". The world's wealthiest man, Bill Gates, owns nothing tangible-no land, no gold or oil, no factories, no armies. For the first time in human history the world's wealthiest man owns only knowledge. Knowledge is the new basis for wealth.
The economic leadership has become a matter of systematic investment in research and development to invent new technologies. To capitalize on this the education systems have to be re-engineered to generate large number of scientists, engineers, technicians, trained managers, and skilled workers- not just a trained...