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USAID is "Online" in Distance Education
A Discussion on USAID Activities and Trends in Distance Education


By Stephen Tournas

USAID champions the use of "new" information and communication technologies (ICT) for development, but its focus on technology is not at all new. Over the past 30 years, USAID has taken a lead role in radio education in primary schools, public campaigns for environmental education, agricultural extension, oral rehydration therapy and HIV/AIDS prevention, and contraceptive social marketing. Today ICT is one of five cross-cutting themes in USAID's strategic plan for development. While USAID funded innovative pilot projects in the use of the Internet and ICT in development soon after the beginning of the growth of the Internet, early initiatives focused more on the enabling environments for ICT through telecommunications policy and regulatory reform and through increasing access, for example by subsidizing local Internet providers.

The Leland Initiative was launched in 1995 to extend full Internet connectivity to Africa, and has already helped over 20 countries build an Internet gateway. In 1998, the U.S. government launched the Internet for Economic Development initiative to help accelerate the spread of the Internet in developing countries worldwide but also to bridge the domestic and international digital divide through programs that facilitated access to electronic commerce.

USAID's own Digital Opportunity through Technology and Community Partnerships (DOT-COM Alliance) was launched in 2001 as a major vehicle for using ICT in development

across all sectors. DOT-COM seeks to promote development through ICT as well as to develop the ICT sector as an engine of economic growth. Under dot-EDU, the DOT-COM vehicle for assistance through distance learning, USAID seeks to broker the vast technical capabilities of its many partners both in the development community and in the private sector.

The newest ICT initiative in the U.S. government, the Digital Freedom Initiative (DFI) was launched in March 2003 to help developing countries acquire the ICT skills that are essential in order to be competitive in the global market. Starting with a pilot project in Senegal, the DFI is being implemented by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the State Department, USAID, USA Freedom Corps, and the Peace Corps. Volunteers will offer their knowledge and expertise to entrepreneurs to strengthen small and medium-sized enterprise development. The emphasis on private sector growth through the DFI illustrates the increased focus at the U.S. Government and USAID level on the "what now?" after a country has already inititated ICT projects for development.

Within the education sector, many USAID-assisted countries embrace ICT to improve teaching and learning at the primary and secondary school level under their own unique circumstances. The needs that ICT fulfills in these cases is aimed predominantly at improving access to basic education, especially for girls, and addressing the digital divide internally. For example, USAID provides assistance using interactive radio instruction (IRI) through dot-EDU in Honduras for early child development programs and in Zambia to meet primary school teacher training needs where HIV/AIDS has decimated the teaching force. Guatemalan primary school

teachers in Mayan areas recovering from discriminatory policies affecting maternal language recognition and preservation of cultural traditions have integrated CD-ROM-based bilingual teacher training materials into the national curriculum. Multi-media CD-ROMs and the Internet have also been used to develop a greater learner-centered approach to primary school teaching, develop gender sensitivity and teacher networking skills through ICT, and create multimedia materials tied to the national curriculum in Morocco, Namibia, and Uganda.

ICT is being used to meet different objectives in other countries where the host government priorities allow a greater emphasis on the outcomes of education as they affect competitiveness in the global market. To a degree, these countries are addressing the digital divide between themselves and other countries and economies, even though the internal divide is still significant. India, for example, has some of the same issues of full access to basic education as other countries for some of the same reasons, but the scale and complexity of stakeholders differ dramatically and India's leadership in ICT is to some degree"first world." USAID assistance to India in ICT and education through dot-EDU uses interactive radio instruction to improve the teaching and learning of English to serve the enormous labor demands of a strong ICT-driven economy. Education assistance through ICT illustrates the needs of the South Asia region as a whole to prepare a work force for employment not only using ICT as tools to improve the quality of basic education but to improve the quality of workers in the ICT sector itself.

An excellent example of education and training for economic growth through the ICT sector is the NetTel@Africa training program in ICT policy and regulation. An Africa-based program, NetTel offers 10 modules at the basic level for post-graduate diplomas and 10 modules at the advanced level for master's degrees in telecommunications through a consortium of African and U.S. universities; training for faculty members and their teams on the use of web-based learning; and development of academic programs in telecommunications at the graduate diploma and masters' levels. Given the growing correlation between liberalized telecommunications services and distance education, programs like that of NetTel put the "money where the mouse is" and facilitate networks that go beyond higher education distance learning to build professional competencies in the ICT sector itself.

USAID assistance in ICT for higher education, as in education overall, places less emphasis on the transfer of technology and more on the development of existing human capacity in developing countries, for example through U.S.- developing country partnerships, educational portals, and virtual communities of practice for instructors. Although there is much competition to provide digitized courses through CD-ROM and Internet, the objectives of USAID assistance are always to develop local capacity. The best examples are yet to come from countries that are building their own systems of Internet-mediated services and professional development networks according to their own unique qualities and circumstances.


Stephen Tournas is a Computer-Assisted Learning Specialist, USAID Office of Energy and Information Technology, Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade. Mr. Tournas specializes in computer-assisted learning and designs and manages technology-mediated learning projects.

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