Towards Knowledge Societies

This is a summary of an article appeared in the Star In.Tech, pg 2, 24th November 2005 written by Koichiro Matsuura (Director General of UNESCO)

Key points:

Are we on the threshold of a new age? The scientific upheavals of teh 20th century have brought about a thrid industrial revolution: The new technologies that are essentially intellectual technologies. This revolution, which has been accompanied by a further advance of globalisation, has laid down the basis of a knowledge economy, placing knowledge at the heart of human activity, development and social change.

Does 21st century will se the development of societies of shared knowledge?

There should be no excluded individuals in learning societies - for knowledge is a public asset that should be accessible to all.


Five obstacles stand in the way of the advent societies of shared knowledge:

• The digital divide - The number of Internet users is close to 1 bilion, yet 2 billion of people are not connect to an electricity grid and three-quarters of the global population have little or no access to basic communication facilities.
• The cognitive divide - even deeper and much older, constitutes a major rift between North and South, as it does within every society.
• The concentration of knowledge - particularly high-tech knowledge, as well as large-scale scientific and educational investment, on restricted geographical areas, reinforcing the brain drain from South to North as well as North-North and South-South directions.
• Knowledge exists to be shared - but once it is converted into information, it has a price. How is the necessary balance to be struck betwen the universality of knowledge, implying accessiblility to all and respect for intellectual property rights?
• The development of societies of shared knwledge is today hampered by deepening social, national, urban, family, education and cultural divides affecting many countries and by the persistent gender divide reflected in the fact that 29% of girls on the planet do not attend school and that women are under-represented in the societies.

To overcome these obstacles, the nations of the world will have to invest massively in education, research, info-development and the promotion of learning societies.

Practical solutions proposed:

• Invest more in quality education for all to ensure equal oportunity.
• Government, the private sector and social partners should explore the possibility of introducing progressively, over the 21st century, a "study-time entitlement" giving individuals the right to a number of years of education after the completion of compulsory schooling. In this way, everybody would have access to lifelong training and would be given a second chance in the case of having left school early.
• While increasing investment in scientific research and in quality research geared to future challenges, there is also a need to promote practicl and innovative approaches to sharing of knowledge, such as the colaboratory. The new virtual institution, telescoping laboratory and collaboration in one word, enables researchers to work together in cross-frontier scientific networks.
• The need to promote linguitic diversity in the new knowledge societies and turn to account local and traditional knowledge.

Knowledge is like love - it is the only thing that grows by being shared. (An African proverb)