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BOLIVIA:
Information
Highway Blocked by Rural
Poverty, Underdevelopment
Franz
Chávez
LA PAZ, (IPS) - The
proliferation of cybercafés in
Bolivia's largest cities,
offering Internet access at
relatively modest rates,
contrasts sharply with the slow
advance of this technology in
rural areas, which depends on
sporadic initiatives headed up
by the private sector or civil
society.
There are barely 62,000 Internet
connections today in Bolivia, a
country with a population of 8.2
million people - as well as an
illiteracy rate of 25.7 percent
in the countryside and 6.44
percent in the cities -
according to the most recent
census, conducted in 2001.
Indigenous people account for 62
percent of the population, and
that proportion rises to almost
70 percent in the centre of the
country and in the mountainous
western regions. In rural areas,
indigenous languages are spoken
by 72 percent of inhabitants.
The Telecommunications
Superintendency reports that
there are 40 telephone service
providers that offer access to
the Internet, of which the
largest is the national
telephone company Entel, which
was privatised in 1996.
Future growth of connectivity
will be slow, because it must
necessarily follow the pace of
social development in general.
It will depend on such factors
as the population's ability to
afford Internet service, not to
mention the availability of
basic telephone and electricity
services, which are the main
obstacles to the introduction of
the new technology in remote
areas.
These prerequisites will be
difficult to meet in a country
where 1.7 million people in
rural areas - which are home to
half of Bolivia's population -
live in extreme poverty, with a
monthly income of less than 16
dollars, according to figures
from the National Institute of
Statistics (INE).
In the few remote areas where
Internet service is available,
rates can run as high as two
dollars and fifty cents an hour,
as compared to a mere 25 cents
per hour in La Paz and other
cities. As a result, these
services tend to be used
exclusively by tourists or
occasional visitors in outlying
regions.
This has led to the emergence of
initiatives undertaken by the
private sector, in association
with bilateral cooperation
programmes and non-governmental
organisations, to create
educational centres that provide
Internet access in the
impoverished city of El Alto,
next to La Paz, and nearby rural
communities.
With the support of the European
Union, 12 teaching centres for
new information and
communications technologies have
already been established in El
Alto, the site of the October
2003 popular revolt that led to
the toppling of then president
Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and
cost the lives of 67 people.
Each of these centres is
equipped with lecture rooms and
physics laboratories, as well as
computers connected to the
Internet. Together with another
18 centres that operate on the
city's outskirts with the
support of Entel, these
facilities benefit around
150,000 students, Entel
institutional communications
manager Juan León told IPS.
Entel, the telecommunications
company with the largest number
of users for all the services it
provides, has developed a social
policy aimed at guiding
secondary school students in the
use of digital technology, and
distributes educational booklets
to help them gain the greatest
advantage possible from this
service.
In the meantime, thanks to an
agreement with the government of
Spain, a new initiative has been
launched in the town of Calacoto,
some 100 km from La Paz, where a
learning lab has been set up
with computers connected to the
Internet and powered by solar
panels.
Despite the fact that electrical
power has yet to reach Calacoto,
during the daytime
schoolchildren aged eight and
over now have access to digital
technology, and are guided by a
specialised tutor on how to
operate computers and search for
information and images for their
school work through the
Internet.
Reducing the "digital gap"
between the rich and poor with
regard to access to information
and communications technologies
is one of the themes to be
addressed this Wednesday through
Friday in Tunis during the
second phase of the World Summit
on the Information Society (WSIS).
Paving the way for the transfer
of resources and technology from
the industrialised world to the
developing nations is among the
proposed goals of the summit.
For the areas of Bolivia where
Internet access is possible,
Entel and the Royal University
in La Paz have created a
"virtual high school" programme
that allows people to complete
their secondary education
through computer-based distance
study.
Another initiative currently
underway, with funding from the
Andean Development Corporation
(the financial arm of the Andean
Community of Nations), the Eco
Pueblo Foundation and Aquino
University of Bolivia, is a
computer centre in the town of
Calamarca, 80 km from La Paz,
where the local Aymara
indigenous children and
adolescents are provided with
access to information
technology.
One immediate challenge for
expanding the use of these new
technological tools is the
training of specialised teachers
and instructors. This task has
been taken on by the department
of educational sciences at the
public University of San Andrés.
The head of the department,
Orlando Huanca Rodríguez, told
IPS that a preliminary household
survey revealed that 85 percent
of students did not have direct
access to a personal computer at
home, because of economic
limitations.
Huanca Rodríguez came to the
newly created university
department with a solid
background as the administrator
of educational computer centres
in El Alto.
The university currently offers
undergraduate and graduate
programmes in virtual education,
and is organising a congress on
the use of new information and
communications technologies in
the teaching field.
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