Digital Divide

Everybody’s talking about digital divide. Journalists condemn it. Government leaders scramble to close it. Educators struggle to cope with it. What exactly is it? The digital divide, in brief, is the gap between people who have access to computer technology and people who don’t. The Digital Divide is most commonly defined as the gap between those individuals and communities that have, and do not have, access to the information technologies that are transforming our lives.

The revolution in computers and telecommunications networks and the accelerated rate of this change, along with the global explosion in knowledge, are creating unprecedented changes in the flow of trade, finance, and information in and among nations. New jobs, an explosion in entrepreneurship, access to education, new modes of community building, ease of access to global markets-all of these things, and many more, are dividends of this revolution in information technology. Yet the fruits of the Information Age are out of reach for many in both developed and developing nations. This gap, the “digital divide”, threatens to cut off populations from good jobs and the chance to participate in the affairs of the broader society. For some citizens technology brings the promise of inclusion, opportunity and wealth; for others, greater isolation and increased poverty.

The Seattle School District and the University of Washington are collaborating to create a curriculum for middle school and high school students that begin to engage them in some of the complexities of the digital divide, especially in the global dimensions of these issues. The curriculum will give students historical, economic and social contexts for the digital divide, while also providing students with skills to address the issues themselves. A central theme will be the emergence of e-commerce and its impact on the WTO and trade issues.

In 1998, U.S. Department of Commerce report, Falling through the Net II: New Data on the Digital Divide, showed that although more Americans now own computers, certain groups are still far less likely to have computers or online access. Lack of such access affects the ability of children to improve their learning with educational software, adults to learn valuable technology skills, and families to benefit from online connections to important health and civic information.

A follow-up study, released by President Clinton in July 1999, documents that the “digital divide” continues to grow. Similar data gathered by the U.S. Department of Education highlights a “digital divide” in the nation’s schools, with children attending high poverty schools less likely to have access to computers, the Internet, or high quality educational technology programs.

The sandwiched between India in the east, west and south and the Chinese autonomous region of Tibet in the north, the Himalayan kingdom, Nepal, with a population of 23 million, is one of the poorest countries in the world where most (85%) of the population live in remote villages. With only 15 percent population having access to electricity, the use of new technology like the Internet is very limited (less than one percent). Although people in urban centers have access to the Internet; their counterparts in most villages have not even heard of the Internet. In urban areas, the “digital divide” exits because some people choose to use the Internet and others did not for some reasons. However, the “digital divide” in most villages exists because they do not have access to the Internet. Community radio in Nepal, although a new concept, has achieved some degree of success in its development. These are cheap, affordable, credible and useful and best suited to geographically and linguistically diverse country like Nepal with poor literacy rates. Despite the low levels of Internet access, the impact could be greatly increased through techniques like “digital multiplication”. Community radio stations with tens of thousands of listeners, if make active use of the Internet, can greatly multiply the impact of the Internet access.

There may be the different solutions of the digital divide. There must be the clear government policy on behalf of IT system. One may be the easily accessible to the computers and other technologies in the institution and the home. IT education must be provided to all the institutions. The IT club may be establishing in every city and towns. And in the most magazines the part of the IT may be included. In the remote villages also there must be the IT learning centers such as IT libraries and other IT study centers. The technical IT institutions have to coordinate with different institutional centers in ruler area.