A question of information

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During a recent lecture and seminar we explored the idea of information societies, what does it constitute and do we live in one. I enjoy this question and in particular I would like to take a quick glance at what the UNDP and ILO are aiming for. Decent work of Children. When younger children are forced to workj then they are not given access to the means of production for an information society. When studying and going to an international school one of the tasks a few of us had been set as a condition for going to Tanzania was fund raising. Over a period of a few weeks we organised methods by which to fund projects in education. These tasks ranged from putting a proper ceiling in some houses, building classrooms in other words or giving them english lessons.

In so doing we were transfering knowledge and information from one culture and background to another. The idea of an information society does not have so much to do with whether computers are available etc. but instead whether or not these students have access to primary and secondary education. When education is part of our lives, part of what we have gone through when growing up our understanding and our possibilities to learn more are ever expanding. We are not limited to what we are told or what we are shown, rather we are able to analyse and deal with this information.

In Economically more developed countries, a great effort is made to bring people to higher education as shown by various surveys. We are not trained to be labourers, but information workers and in this process machines and people in other countries may become the skilled labourers. In the short run this seems unfair and exploitative but with organisations like the International Labour Organisation aiming to create fair and equal globalisation for all this is a very important point. This is a fascinating subject therefore I encourage you to visit my forum and discuss this further.