I wish firstly to thank the National Information Technology Council for inviting me to take part in this panel as well as a special observer to the second Infotech Conference.
I apologise for not being able to attend the entire Conference and the MP for Bintulu, YB Chew Chin Sing had stood in for me during my absence. I have found the experience most educational, enlightening, refreshing and at times eye-opening.
The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamed, had said in his opening address that the INFOTECH Malaysia is an annual dialogue with the planners, developers and implementors of Information Technology (IT) applications. Apart from the speakers and chairmen of the various panels, I do not think the real decision-makers in these fields are represented in this Conference - although a few of them did turn up when the Prime Minister was here yesterday.
I now understand better the recent lament by the NITC permanent secretary, Tengku Datuk Dr. Mohd Azzman Shariffadeen, that many IT conferences and seminars only attract the converted or people who are already into IT, while the decision-makers stayed away.
Before I proceed further, let me state that I support the theme of this conference as I fully concur with the vision of a Knowledge Society, which is to harness Information Technology to provide the environment for lifelong learning in which Malaysians will have the widest possible variety of learning opportunities and tools to improve our quality of life and enhance our international competitiveness in the global marketplace.
Tengku Azzman made a most impressive presentation in the first panel on the National IT Agenda to “turn ripples into tidal waves”, especially as it was the first time that apart from the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC), national targets and timescales had been set out for various aims and objectives for the proposed National IT Agenda - as to what we hope to achieve in the Year 2000 and in the Year 2005.
It is a great pity that the Conference could not have spent more time, even a whole day, to debate and examine Tengku Azzman’s presentation, especially as the Conference deliberations are meant to form the basis for formulating an integrated IT agenda for the country.
I am glad that at last there are some set targets for the National IT Plan and Agenda, although I may not fully agree with all the proposals, as I think some of the time-lines are too long and some of the programmes too vague.
For instance, when it is stated that by the year 2,000, there would be “Broadband network technology”, what does it mean. Does it mean 10%, 20%, 50% or 100% national coverage. Similarly, “smart schools for the whole of Malaysia” by year 2,005 is also unclear. Does it mean that every school would become a “smart school” by that year? But the draft National IT Agenda is nonetheless an excellent start to concretise our aims and objectives with regard to IT development in Malaysia.
I have however certain reservations about some of the flagship applications of the MSC, which bear on the larger question of what should be the Malaysian National IT Policy, Plan and Agenda, although I concede that the MSC is a very brave and imaginative concept to put Malaysia on the world IT map. I want to make it clear that I am not opposing the concept of MSC, as it has undoubtedly its attractions. I will mention three reservations.
Firstly, one of the eight flagship applications of the MSC is the smart school. The Education Minister, Datuk Najib Tun Razak, had announced that the first pioneer intake of 4,000 students for the smart schools will be in January 1999, and that the country’s first smart schools - two primary, two secondary and one pre-school - will be housed in a new school complex in Taman Shamelin Perkasa, Cheras, Kuala Lumpur. The complex will cost RM144.5 million, cover a 31-acre site, each clasroom will have only between 30 to 35 students and it will be the first to fully utilise information technology in its teaching methods.
The Ministry is meanwhile preparing a “Smart Curriculum” which will be ready in two years, and there is also talk of “Smart Teachers” and “Smart Examination”.
When completed, it will have a multimedia theatrette, a sports complex, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a six-lane 400-metre track, hockey and football fields, a multi-purpose hall, a hostel for 800 students and adult facilities.
I feel uncomfortable with this flagship application as what the Education Ministry should be doing is to make all the 8,500 primary and secondary schools in the country “smart”, rather than building four new “smart schools”, leaving all the 8,500 schools with the stigma that they are not “smart”!
The Silicon Valley in California had launched a most innovative and highly-publicised SmartSchools NetDay I on March 9 this year when President Clinton joined 2,000 businesses and 20,000 parents, teachers and community volunteers to bring the benefits of high-speed networks and the Internet to every classroom in two Silicon Valley counties, installing about six million feet of wire linking classrooms. As a result of its success, there was a SmartSchools NetDay II in the Silicon Valley on October 12, 1996. But it must be noted that the objective of these SmartSchools NetDays was to make every classroom and school “smart” and not to build completely new “smart schools” from scratch!
Yesterday, the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Education, Tan Sri Datuk Dr. Mohd Wan Zahid Nordin told the Conference that the education system was undergoing a radical transformation and that by the end of the decade, no school children would leave school without being computer-literate. I thought this was a very brave statement to make when 1,200 of the 8,500 schools in the country are still without electricity supply. I dare say that by the end of the decade, the majority of the school-leaving children would have been computer-illiterate, while the majority of the balance would have been IT-illiterate.
Secondly, the MSC flagship application on electronic government. The government, which aims to be the first civil service in the world to qualify for ISO 9000 standards, has spent billions of ringgit for its computerisation programme since the 1960s, and there is no reason why the Government is unable to begin to provide online services to the people, as is already being done by many other governments.
What then is the rationale for waiting until the Prime Minister’s Office is completed in Putrajaya before introducing electronic government, especially as IT has broken down the traditional barriers to the movement of information, namely distance, location, time and volume?
The third reservation had also been expressed in questions posed during the Conference, as to whether the development of the MSC would be at the expense of the development of a National Information Infrastructure which could provide high-speed, universal and affordable access to all Malaysians throughout the country, and not just in the 15km by 50 km MSC.
Tengku Azzman’s excellent draft National IT Agenda should be made public to invite comments, for I believe that scores if not hundreds of ideas could be generated by such a process. The public should be given one month for feedback, which should give the NITC time to finalise its proposed National IT Agenda for submission to the next meeting of Parliament in March 1997, when the first package of cyberlaws would be presented as well.
I hope the proposed cyberbills would be made public, and even posted on the Internet to invite comments, well before they are tabled in Parliament for debate and passage, for we will be dealing with a very new territory and it can do the country no harm in soliciting the widest feedback from the cybercommunity.
In view of the shortness of time, I will make five proposals as my contribution to the debate on the National IT Agenda:
1. Malaysians should adopt the Information and Knoweldge Society as a national objective and launch a nation-wide campaign to promote IT-literacy to educate the people that information technology and computers are nothing to be afraid of and to limit the development of information “haves”, “have-nots” and “cannots” in our country.
There is nothing shameful for us to admit that there is prevalent fear among the people, particularly among those 35 and above who have a fear of computers, afraid that they would not only delete the programme but also spoil the computer. This is because even in the United Kingdom, research has shown that 55 per cent of the population are either interested by IT but afraid of it, or unconvinced of its value, or even alienated by it. This is why the British Government has recently launched a nationwide campaign called “IT for All” to ensure that everyone is able to make the most of IT and that, as it develops no-one gets left behind.
2.The expansion of the NITC to include full representation from all cross-sections of the people, such as education, labour group, consumer movement and the disabled so as to give the IT campaign a full national character.
The NITC should encourage a nation-wide debate on the creation of an Information and Knowledge Society, by making its reports and recommendations public and which should be presented to Parliament for debate.
Here it is noteworthy that the Canadian Information Highway Advisory Council (IHAC), which was established in April 1994 to advise the Canadian Government on the best way to develop the Canadian Information Highway, took only 17 months to complete its final report - making public during the period a total of nine reports and discussion papers for public comment, as well as summaries of its 15 Council meetings. When the IHAC presented its final report to the Canadian government, the document with its 300 recommendations, was published simultaneously in electronic form on the Internet.
There has been a lot of talk about the IT Revolution bringing about a new paradigm shift - which must include a new mindset for an open society, without which there could be no civil society.
3. Government to present annual IT policy statement to Parliament outlining the IT policy action plan for the forthcoming year and reporting on the IT policy action plan of the previous year.
4. The government play the role model in the use and promotion of information technology and provide better services and more affordable, accessible and responsible government by immediately introducing on-line service which is progressively extended to more departments and agencies. The government should encourage the application of the “single window concept” whereby services from many departments and even different levels of government can be delivered from a single point of contact for the citizen.
5.Set up an Education Technology Task Force to ensure that today’s children graduate from school with skills needed for the 21st century, focussing in particular on the three challenges of funding a high-speed educational broadband information superhighway to connect all schools to the Internet by the year 2,000, teacher training and educational content.
Before I conclude, I wish to make an observation. Tengku Azzman has suggested two indices to monitor progress in the National IT Agenda and improvements toward knowledge society: a Knowledge Imperative Index (KIX) and a Multicultural Index (MIX).
These are excellent suggestions, for there is at present a woeful absence of reliable statistics to measure the present status of IT in Malaysia, as for instance, how many schools have computers and/or Internet connections; the number of computers in each school; the expenditures on IT in schools; the IT status in the universities; the availability of email accounts and volume of usage, whether in universities or schools, etc. In fact, on the question of the number of schools without electricity supply, I have been given three sets of different figures in Parliament in a matter of six months!
For a start, even before the introduction of any indices for the Knowledge Society, the NITC would be doing the cause of IT in Malaysia a great service if it could compile regular IT statistics in Malaysia for publication.
(20/12/96)