THE THIRD MILLENNIUM'S CHALLENGES TO THE KNOWLEDGE

BUILDERS OF THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION

ERLINDA C. PIFIANCO PhD

PRECIS

The conceptual framework advocated by the presentation is that the knowledge

builder of tomorrow has the two-layered responsibility of building a technology-driven
human infrastructure in an environment of excellence, enriched by individual and
community values nurtured through centuries in a manner and at a proportion that the u is
synchronized with the learner’s socio-cultural orientation. For what is the use of if it does
not redound to genuine human development, with each member of society truly
empowered by a vast sea of knowledge firmly anchored the overall context of his/her
personal values and socio-cultural psyche?

The presentation draws attention to a number of emerging realities that are rapidly
making impact on the educational scenario. Most notable of these are: (1) The learning
continuum is fast becoming borderless. embracing a life-long dimension, with an
unprecedented pace of knowledge acquisition, (2) In the new millennium, population
growth is fast-outpacing the world's capacity to provide learning opportunities to
individuals and groups. Mass participation in education needs to be addressed by the
education sector, (3) Recognition of prior learning, accreditation and equivalency are
approaches that are gaining substantial focus, (4) Work-specific and beyond-the-campus
strategies likewise deserve the educator's attention. And (5) distance education, open
learning and other flexible learning systems are now recognized as having the capacity to
provide access to life-long education opportunities.

In all these emerging realities, technology is undoubtedly considered as the

primary artery of delivering education. A strategic renewal and mindshift is therefore in
order so that present-day educators can adequately prepare themselves to become
knowledge builders of the third millennium.

I. INTRODUCTION

More than three decades ago, a group of like-minded men and women i from the
region saw the need for Asian solutions to issues confronting education in the region.
Rising from the ashes of the Second World War and facing the common challenges of
young nations, the leading educators saw it fit to explore ways to go around the long held
constants of education following the Western models. Learning, it was opined, need not
be confined to expensive, difficult-to-maintain physical plants called schools and
classrooms. Teachers, pupils, books and several other materials need not be held to fixed
ratios, too little or too much of which spells lack of quality in education. Most
importantly, the educators saw the need for a body to look into educational problems and
concerns and serve as a regional clearinghouse for innovative approaches and research-
based solutions to education issues.

Thirty years ahead of their time, the ideas expounded then are now gaining
adherents. The environment in which the ideas were initially aired has now dramatically
changed, but the concerns have remained the same. The confluence of technological
improvement, social and economic changes. globalization and an increasingly inter-
connected world, and the quest for better ways of leaning have made the pipe dream
closer to reality.

The Asia Pacific Century

That these developments are most visible in the Asia-Pacific region demonstrates
the region's need and its readiness to adapt to changing realities. The region has recorded
unprecedented economic growth over the past two decades, with the highest levels
recorded in Southeast and East Asia. Major shifts in countries' political and economic
environments in the 1970s led to increased prosperity and rapid social change.
Emergence of the tiger economies and the newly industrialized countries of Asia resulted
in a reconfiguration of the major players in the world economy.

Most significantly, it is not only the Asia Pacific region that is breaking out of its
shell We are increasingly aware of an inter-connected world, be it through
telecommunications, the world wide web or trade and commerce. The so-called economic
miracle and increased prosperity in the region made us aware of the spin-offs of growth
from other countries. Ironically, the financial crisis also made us aware of the contagion
effect other countries would have on our very lives. In more human terms, the income of
a farmer in Southern Philippines is affected by decisions made in the boardrooms in
Tokyo. Or increasing interest rates in New Delhi banks somehow impact on education
policy interventions in a Pacific island country. We are getting to be more and more the
global village described by Marshall McLuhan.

Aside from common economic links, the region also provides great opportunities
and challenges. It is one of the fastest-growing economic groups in the world today.
New-found prosperity and the changing economic climate is giving rise to a strong
middle class with new consumption patterns. Asia-Pacific is now major area for market
expansion. Within the region, recent shifts from centrally-planned economies to those
driven by free market forces have prompted the development of the transitional marker
economies label.

An equally important factor in studying trends in the region are the cultural,
historical, regional and ethnic issues that have played a great part in shaping the world
today. The same issues will play an even greater role in shaping future societies.
Technology provided the major impetus that enabled these changes. Increased capacity
for generating, organizing, processing and disseminating information enables rapid
sharing and synthesis of knowledge. Advances in communication and information
technology, as exemplified by the near-omnipresent computer and the world wide web
accelerates not only information exchange but people-to-people interaction. It is entirely
not inconceivable for the next generation to have increased aware-ness of and sensitivity
to cultural diversity owing to closer interaction through the Internet.

The Information Society

Globalization, though accelerated and magnified by technological development, is

by itself an emergent phenomenon. Some decades ago, a number of countries and even
communities operated and d op quite independently of each other. Now, the ties that bind
countries and societies are not only limited to the treaties and formal agreements, trade
and information move through the international mass media.
While technology is gradually changing the way people learn, teach and interact,
its most pervasive effect is on the way people and societies earn their living. Alvin
Toffler described the Third Wave civilization as being the knowledge or Information
economy. Peter Drucker, the corporate guru, labeled the practitioners as the knowledge
workers. Evident in these descriptions is the fact that more and more people in the world
today make their living by generating, processing, disseminating, exchanging and/or
using information. With increased specialization of work and production systems, the use
of information and knowledge to optimize economic gains in production has become
critical. Information and communications technology has vast applications in almost
every field of human concern.

Amidst rapid social change, globalization and technological development, the

educator faces an oncoming millennium with a range of opportunities and challenges. A
rapidly, changing world and changing societies are bound to impact on education,
perhaps more than any other field of human endeavor.

The Knowledge Builders

The changing role of the teacher in the education process is a case in point. The
teacher, once the walking repository of knowledge, experience and information, wielding
the power to pass or fail students, must compete with a host of other information sources.
The teacher in the coming information age should not only be a transmitter of facts and
figures, but rather a guide in the students' quest for learning. Current trends may lead to
developing an opinion leadership role for the teacher/educators. Rather than the sole
mediator of information and learning, the teacher may take on various roles on different
issues, either as an information seeker, guide or information provider.

In a learning society with an increasingly boundary-less learning environment,

one is hard put to identify who are the stakeholders in education. Yet, the center of
responsibility for guiding and managing the learning process must still fall on a given
sector. Thus, the term knowledge builder may be posited to more properly depict the
institution, group or individual primarily responsible for managing the learning process.
We, the educators, can be regarded as the knowledge builders in the region.

II. THE EMERGING EDUCATION LANDSCAPE

In an increasingly sophisticated world where information has various applications

and a corresponding economic value, it may be well to re-mind ourselves that
information, by itself, needs to be applied to a specific human or social concern for it to
have meaning. Facts and figures, no matter how painstakingly collected, processed and
stored, will be of little significance unless applied to specific human concerns. In other
words, it is possible for us to be data-rich but information-poor; information-rich but
knowledge-poor.

Technology makes it possible to process huge amount of data and information and
share them with proper parties in a very short period of time. Yet it is human being that
will have to make sense out of this data and derive something meaningful and useful
from it. The manner in which information and knowledge will be used is largely
determined by the individual and social values, norms, motivations and orientation.

Thus, the knowledge builder not only has the responsibility for generating and
moving information (and learning) faithfully and efficiently, utilizing the various
technological options available. The two-layered responsibility demands that the
technology-enabled human infrastructure be enriched by individual and community
values, and mindful of prevailing cultural and social realities.

While a vast majority of the knowledge workers' will agree that the main driving
force is education in the next century, the implications of technology in shaping the
future landscape most be explored. Developments in ICT are making information faster,
cheaper and easier to generate, transfer and disseminate. E-mail alone has made
communication much faster (in fact almost instantaneous) and cheaper than the
conventional channels. Schoolchildren can share their experiences, learnings, anxieties,
concerns and ideas with other children all over the world without spending a part of their
allowance.

The web, on the other hand, has opened new doors in the manner which we deal
with information. Never has information been so accessible to everyone; nor has any
ordinary person been afforded so much the need to reach others. From the learner's point
of view, this implies for skills to assess the quality and usefulness of information. From
a sender's point of view, it entails developing a sense of responsibility and self-restraint in
using the power to reach others.

The foregoing are but the more visible issues relating to ICT development and
how education must respond to emerging needs while technology drives the forces
shaping the educational landscape, emerging realities and issues in education bear
discussion to explore the precise nature and magnitude of changes that are taking place
and their implications to the tasks of the knowledge builders.

(1) The learning continuum is fast becoming borderless, embracing lifelong

dimension, with a pace of the knowledge acquisition described as
unprecedented.

Life-long teaming is one of the key concepts expounded in the Report of the
international Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century (UNESCO 1996).
The once clearly defined divide between the world of learning and the world of work is
fast melting into a unified, seam-less whole, with learning taking place anytime,
anywhere and under various settings. The schools and classrooms once described as
expensive physical plants serving as the only proper place for meaningful learning
experiences, have been enriched with information, facts and figures delivered and
received through a multitude of means.

Attitudes, aptitudes and values are learned not only through the class-room as
mediated by a teacher. Various modes can and will be employed to deliver the messages,
reaching a broad range of audiences. Lifelong education, taken in the Delors
Commission's sense, does not only relate to continuing learning but also to individual
development and maturity associated with an acute sensitivity, and tolerance of others'
cultures, beliefs and traditions, while anchored on due recognition of one's individuality
and role in society. Thus, learning is not a phase one graduates from and neatly divorced
from real life; rather it is a continuing record of an individual's life experiences, enriched
and guided by various sources.
(2) Population growth is fast outpacing the world's capacity to provide learning
opportunities to individuals and groups. Mass participation in education
needs to be addressed by the education sector.

One of the problems that need to be addressed in the region is the increasing and
increasingly getting younger population, with their particular demands and needs. This is
evident not only in countries with high populations whose educational delivery systems
are saddling society's and government's capacity to provide quality learning. As a
consequence of increased job opportunities and high incomes, the educational system
must develop innovative and creative ways to enable young people, lured by the newly-
found economic prosperity, to complete basic education and propel themselves to higher
levels of specialization. These are entirely new dimensions to the problems of delivering
basic education, yet are very real concerns in some countries.

While wealthy enclaves are beginning to dot the Asia Pacific land-scape, pockets
of poverty and inequality are also evident. The social phenomenon takes on different
dimensions in the provision of educational services. The problem of school leavers, for
instance, can be caused by poverty in one locality. It can be caused by the lure of high
wages and strong demand for local labor in another. Addressing each problem requires a
different intervention approach.

Increased longevity and workplace demands, on the other hand, are giving way to
the traditional roles taken by grandparents and the extended family system characteristic
of Asian societies. Thus, educating the chil-dren of the baby boomers require different
and innovative approaches to education delivery, necessitating the use of various policy
levers in order to [fleet their requirements.

(3) Recognition of prior learning, accreditation and equivalency are approaches

that are gaining substantial focus with education increasingly becoming
seamless and borderless and taking on a lifelong dimension, can a life-wide
dimension be too far be-hind?

Premised on education taking place anytime, anywhere and in various situations,

the learnings and competencies gained from the practice of a craft, trade or provision of
service must be given due recognition and credit. The cleavage between formal education
and the world of work, often suffering from an inequity of esteem, is being given due
consideration.

Various countries in the region, in different degrees and forms, are adopting such
a stance to recognition of learning. The Credit Bank Sys-tem adopted by the Republic of
Korea allows individuals to gain credits for competencies acquired in the course of
enrolling at a university course, attending seminars and training courses and/or
performing a job. Not only does the system work for sub university or basic education
level. The system was designed to enable the school leavers who, because of economic or
personal reasons, are unable to complete basic education. With completed secondary
education being a requirement for better-paying jobs, the programme provides new
opportunities for the learners to acquire accreditation for learnings outside the formal
stream and thus be better equipped for work. At the same time, the bridging (sub)
programme will also enable school leavers to gain credits and prepare then for tertiary
education.

(4) Work-specific and beyond-the-campus strategies deserve the educator's

attention
New and different modalities for learning and acquiring further education are
emerging, and they bear study and evaluation by the education sector. Dual training
systems, adapted from the German model, are applied in the Philippines. In-School and
off-school learning systems, com-plied delivery and other variants and modalities are
being developed and tried out all over the region.

In higher education, the Philippines' Expanded Tertiary Education Equivalency

and Accreditation Programme focuses on an assessment system to recognize formal, non-
formal and informal learning acquired through different modes. At present, seven (7)
higher education institutions are participating in the programme; more are expected to
become part of the system.

The massive infusion of foreign capital and movement of industries from the
industrialized countries to the developing countries in the region have prompted
development of innovative approaches to tradecraft training in the Asia-Pacific countries.
The private sector has initiated a number of these developments, and they must be studied
and documented to enrich the knowledge pool in the education sector. Best practices for
training and competency-based assessment may provide fresher insights to the education
and human resource planners. Thus, knowledge building, as a discipline, will not be
confined to a priesthood of educators but can be-come a truly eclectic approach.

(5) Distance education, open learning and other flexible systems are now
recognized as having the capacity to provide access to lifelong education
opportunities.

Meaningful human development is at the head of education and leaming. Thus,

learning and education must be an experience to be savored, not an ordeal for the learner
to get out from. Flexible and open learning systems, through their different modalities
and means of delivery, are meant to make quality learning and education accessible to all,
going beyond the barriers posed by income, economics, work or family responsibilities,
distance or disability.

The mid-decade review of the UNESCO Education For All initiative has taken for
its theme: "reaching the unreached and including the excluded." The knowledge builders
of the next century have the responsibility of reaching into its arsenal of technological
tools, approaches and learning systems in order to meet this ideal. While technology,
flexible and open learning systems, innovations and new approaches are the tools that the
knowledge builders must use for the next millennium, there are other considerations that
bear notice given the peculiar needs and requirements of the region. Problems and
concerns of education in the Asia Pacific region may demand unique approaches, but the
cultures and history of the region must likewise be given due consideration.

The twin trends of globalization and advances in ICT are often feared to lead to a
global culture, yet they may also enrich the cultural landscape through a heightened
awareness and appreciation of one’s own culture and traditions. This is particularly
important for the Asia Pacific region which is home to ancient civilizations with
thousands of years of recorded history.

Some scholars predict a gradual convergence of cultures some others foresee a

reconfiguration along cultural lines as a consequence of an increasingly globalized world.
It is also possible that a middle ground may emerge, where increased awareness of
differences in culture and traditions can lead to greater understanding and heightening
appreciation for an individual's bonds to his own culture. Nonetheless, technology and
globalization will have deep impact on evolving cultural identities, and these will
certainly impinge on education.

A study in the Philippine tribal community can be illustrative. An in-depth

ethnomathematic study was done by the University of the Philippines among the
Kankana-ey, one of the many ethnolinguistic groups in the Cordilleras of Northern
Philippines. The study focused on the mathematics of the traditional features of the
weaving patterns music and kinship system among the Kankana-ey. With the discovery
that the principles of algebra and mathematics are operant in the people’s basic cultural
elements, the study went on to analyze the ways by which practical application of
mathematical principles can be translated into formal knowledge.

For the region, the further implications of the study can lead to a variety of
teaching/learning opportunities. Monuments and heritage sites abound in the region, for
which a range of traditional crafts and skills should be revived.

The experience in the Philippines likewise gives rise to recognition of traditional

education/training systems in the different counties. With its long history and
preponderance of traditional community activity, a systematic survey and documentation
of the historic ways of handing down knowledge and skills among the cultures in the
region may yield new insights on how teaching/learning takes place.

The advances in technology and innovative approaches must be tempered with a

recognition of the individual cultures and traditions of the countries in the region.
Cultures that are steeped in the n ethic, where the teacher-student relationship is sacred
(nearly filial) may provide better information in managing potential problems with
shifting teacher/ student relationships.

III. CONCLUSION

More than thirty years ago, the Saigon Instructional Materials Won, shop laid
down the basic premise for SEAMEO INNOTECH's existence: that meeting the
education needs of society - particularly Asian societies - is not set in a single mould, that
improving achievement of learning objectives is not always dependent on increasing
inputs, that new and better ways of delivering learning can and must be developed if
education is to fulfill its envisaged function in society.

It has been more than three decades, but SEAMED INNOTECH's underlying
concept is still relevant, in fact, it has become even more rel-evant now in the light of
technological advances and social change that make flexible and open learning possible
and acceptable. SEAMEO INNOTECH continues to serve the needs of the future
knowledge builders, and share the knowledge.

The Center is dedicated to taking the lead among the knowledge builders, and
sharing the knowledge.

The Center is dedicated to taking the lead among the knowledge builders of the
region and it is constantly seeking out technology, newer and better ways of improving
the delivery of knowledge.

The knowledge builders of the next century have a pivotal role in the Asia Pacific
region. Fulfilling the two-layered responsibility of optimally applying technological
options to meet the requirements of education service delivery in a dynamic situation
obliges the educator to seek newer models, different perspective and deeper insights. All
these must be done while keeping the ties to culture and traditions that define a person's
and society's character.

This challenge is heightened by the need to focus technological concerns on

sustained human and social development, fully cognizant of the Asia Pacific context. A
strategic renewal and mindshift is therefore essential in order for the present day
educators to adequately prepare themselves to become knowledge builders and mediators
of knowledge building in the third millennium.