ANOTHER QUESTION FROM ANOTHER STUDENT

Another student last week asked for my opinion of the following syllogism:

· Access to information technology promotes education;
· Education promotes social growth;
Therefore
· Access to information technology promotes social growth.

Unfortunately, while access to information technology can help those seeking to promote education, it doesn’t always do so. I have compared this kind of thinking in the past to the thinking of “Cargo Cults”. These cults were formed among native peoples in the Pacific during World War II who saw allied troops build runways, saw aircraft land, and saw previously unimagined wealth deposited from those aircraft. The cult members concluded that if they built nice airfields, then giant magic birds would come and bring them wealth too.

Putting a computer and Internet connection in a school does not magically make it a better school. Indeed, there are examples of computers used as decoration for the principals desk. More importantly, it is easy to divert scarce investment funds from priority needs to fund sexy information technology gadgets.

Similarly, good education can promote social growth, but the wrong educational investments can be counterproductive. Some indoctrination is mislabeled education. Educating people to perform jobs that don’t exist, or that they would never be entrusted with is not a good investment.

I suggested that econometric techniques don’t seem likely to work testing these broad assumptions unless one were able to introduce quality variables. Good investments in ICT for education might indeed promote education, and bad investments not do so. Good investments in education might promote social development, and bad investments not do so.

Of course there are other concerns. Are even good investments in ICT for education the best way of investing in ICT to promote social development? Perhaps ICT investments in government, industry or commerce would be faster or better. Perhaps providing ICT access to education is so correlated with providing it to government, industry, commerce, and other sectors that one could never differentiate their effects.

I might suggest the syllogism be revised to read:

· Access to information technology, in the right circumstances, often promotes education;
· Education, in the right circumstances, often promotes social growth;
Therefore
· Access to information technology, in the right circumstances, often can help promote social growth.