I have not received suggestions for new topics at any time for several weeks. I am scheduling new-topic discussions for September and November. Please send your suggestions directly to me via E-mail (karen.drabenstott@umich.edu).
We will now turn to a discussion of "future-oriented education in lesser developed countries." I received an electronic mail message from a LISTSERV member in the South Pacific suggesting this topic and recruited Cathy-Mae Karelse to serve as our guest LISTSERV moderator/editor. Cathy-Mae is a lecturer at the School of Librarianship, University of Cape Town. Her areas of specialization are policy studies, community information, and transforming library and information services. She is currently involved in curriculum development and departmental innovation with a view to providing more appropriate education and training for information workers within the context of globalization and South Africa's Reconstruction.
Thanks Cathy-Mae for taking on the guest editorship of the CRISTAL-ED LISTSERV for a two-week discussion on "future-oriented education in lesser-developed countries."
You will all recognize that it is difficult to impose the political categories of "developed" and "developing" countries on our situations which are sometimes more similar than dissimilar. However, for the sake of progress, we will use this terminology with all its complexity to help us talk more easily about communication flow, partnership and cooperation between countries with different experiences and backgrounds. It s clear, for instance, that lesser developed countries do not constitute a homogeneous grouping and in order to enrich our discussion, we are hoping to elicit from people with an understanding these countries, their comments on the kind of education required to promote development and transformation.
What we will hopefully achieve in the next two weeks is a lively debate revolving around:
With thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts.
In the South African situation, adaptability, innovation and the ability to share information in a relevant and meaningful way is and will be increasingly critical in the next few years. The ability to locate and retrieve information in a country where information has in the recent past, been closely guarded by both the government of the day and the oppositions in civil society, ngo's, etc. is extremely difficult. The former to protect the status quo and the latter to protect itself from harassment from the state.
I feel that LIS education in this country often emulates and follows the same guidelines and terminology as those in American and British universities judging from the librarians coming from the South African institutions (Tanzania, the same).
The organization and preservation of information is the least of my worries, especially when I do not know where information is. A component of lis education should include the ability to do surveys and original research because in South Africa, information has not only been hidden, it has been twisted to suit the powers that be.
Another problem facing the lis world is that now that we have the right to find information, we have to pay for it when we do!
I do hope that I have not strayed too far off the topic?
It appears that this topic is not drawing much of a response. We are hoping that this is because people are perhaps not that familiar with the issues. The initial introduction tried to emphasize the fact that in an era of globalization, the education of information professionals in developing countries is of concern to us all. Ideally we should be graduating information professionals who are skilled enough to move in and out of different countries in relation to both training and employment. In an effort to promote comment and discussion, I've compiled the following three scenarios which I hope will generate interest.
Scenario 1:
There is concern among educationalists in the US that initiatives designed to promote a core international curriculum, more student exchanges, and greater cooperation between developed and developing countries will lead to a drop in standards. Could you allay their fears and motivate for implementation of the projects?
Scenario 2:
You are based in the States and have been asked by a colleague from the developing world to offer a distance learning course on the information age because of your expertise in the field. Your audience includes students with a wealth of experience in interactive information work but limited exposure to IT which is fast becoming introduced in their environments. You wish to draw on their experience but don't know much about it. What questions do you pose to your colleague? What is the content and pitch of your course?
Scenario 3:
Joe Soap is an information professional who had his education in a developing country. Language is no barrier, personality is charming. He's applying for a position in the US or Britain. What training and skills is he expected to have?
Hope these sketches get us thinking about what the possibilities for partnership are between the West and the developing world. My presumption is that we are wanting to forge links and build bridges which bring people together rather than keep them apart. Let's hope that this platform gets us started.
Some which have occurred to me more recently stem from the impact of the rapid advance of technology, and the changing demands which employers are making on us - certainly in the UK. Increasingly, we are being expected to put more emphasis on developing transferable skills -- interpersonal skills such as teamworking, communication, project management, etc. We also face a potentially vast and increasing subject which has to be fitted in to a controlled time frame (we are unlikely to have the luxury of a two year Masters curriculum -- institutional and student finances rule that out). In these circumstances the content is spread thinly, and we are putting more emphasis on how we teach, rather than what we teach.
Superficially it would appear that many overseas students are going back into environments very different from our own, and they appear to need a package of skills they can apply, and that may be what they think they are looking for. Equally, indigenous students are looking for a more practical emphasis in what they perceive to be a practical working environment. But, given the growing and diverse range of jobs in the developed information economies, there seem to me to be many parallels between the demands on the new professional in a less well developed environment and those of our indigenous students who go into 'start-up' jobs. The question we now need to ask ourselves is whether we are giving our students the confidence to promote and to implement development. Those who go into better developed environments probably need the same aptitudes to respond to pressures and the potential for change. Are we developing the attitudes and skills which professionals need to initiate and facilitate change and development, or are we simply producing people who can reproduce the status quo?
I don't claim to have all the answers as to how to develop librarians who see themselves as a force for change, but I'd be interested to hear what others think the solution might be.
Library school graduates from developing countries, whether trained in metropolitan countries or within their own regions are more likely to take up positions which require them to assume responsibility for the development and management of libraries and library systems very soon after graduation. Unlike their counterparts in metropolitan countries where the library and information infrastructure is more highly developed, they rarely enter the profession at the bottom and work their way slowly up the ladder but are thrown in at the deep end.
Here at the U.W.I where we train librarians for the english speaking Caribbean region we find that we must equip our graduates with the required management skills which will enable them to "swim" rather than "sink."
Another consideration is the fact that there is yet relatively little room for specialization, so the programme must provide graduates with the versatility and skills to operate in a wide variety of situations.
In addition to the above is the need to produce the kind of librarian who must face and respond effectively to the challenges offered by the developments in Information Technology and its application to libraries. Although Library School programmes in developing countries are greatly influenced by those in metropolitan countries the challenge is not to reproduce the "status quo" as Ian J. rightly says but to provide basic core competencies while producing professionals with the vision and leadership skills who can develop library and information systems and shape library and information policies which will help to transform their societies.
For the few remaining days of this discussion, perhaps we should explore more closely what exactly the skills are which better prepare graduates for advancing development and managing change, especially since change is a global constant and as much an issue in the West as it is in developing countries.
Thank you.
As a result, I believe that we will lag behind other professional education programs, behind the Health Sciences with their interest in public health issues and concerns over "social responsibility," behind Law with the emergence of critical feminist/race theories, and education, with their sharp interest in multicultural studies.
I would plead that any future orientation on education should go beyond the kind of shallow discussions we're currently having about multiculturalism in Library/Information Studies. This means that we must encourage research and critical discussion with the same enthusiasm that we currently have for emerging technologies.
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We, at the Dept. of Information Studies would like to believe that our programme is not intellectually lagging behind programmes offered in DCs. Our aim is to give students a qualification that is not inferior to a qualification from the USA, for example. We intend to equip a student with a basic qualification to compete with others on that level in any other DC.
We train students with very diverse cultural backgrounds. Once having successfully completed this training, the effects of the different cultural environments should be lessened and this should not therefore affect their job applications. ( In SA, we are at present in an affirmative action process which influences the local situation.)
We have gained greatly from a recent increase in international students from countries to the north of us in Africa. They bring with them different educational backgrounds, ILS experiences and a different culture. In the same way I think that LDCs and DCs have much to offer each other and a symbiotic relationship is possible. Perhaps, in general LDCs have more to learn from DCs, especially in certain spheres such as information science technology. The following few ideas may show that there are some areas in which we may have something to offer the West :
On the Horizon articles take two forms: abstracts of one or more articles/books/Internet postings that have implications for education or essays on emerging trends or developments that may affect the future of education. A unique feature of abstracts or essays in On the Horizon is that authors speculate on the specific implications of these "signals of change" in the macroenvironment (the STEEP sectors) for educational leaders. Abstracts and essays are brief (800 to 1,000 words); our readers are busy leaders who want to get to the bottom line quickly.
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We currently have the preview issue and Volumes I and II posted.
Please send your abstracts or essays to James L. Morrison at the address above.
This seminar is a response to the on-going world wide redefinition of the roles and responsibilities for education in an information age. The economic context and the allocation of resources will surely change. Technological developments in telecommunications and computers will transform the way we live and work -- and educate -- in the 21st century. Exactly what these differences will be and how they will evolve is anybody's guess. One thing is certain: the only way any educational organization will come out a winner is if it is prepared (for changes in its clientele and market), imaginative (in its repositioning strategy), and proactive (in its execution).
The purpose of this seminar is to provide educational leaders with the tools they need to respond to these challenges:
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