Senior experts from nine countries recently
shared their experiences in public sector computerization
and agreed that it would be very useful to exchange
information on government projects undertaken
in the region. Networking was the key word recommended
for government departments, coordinating agencies,
IT information centres and experts, nationally
and internationally. The Group made also a series
of useful recommendations
for the future activities of the secretariat.
(Link to Expert Group
Meeting on Public Sector Computerization, Bangkok,
12-15 Dec 1995)
Human resource development
key area
The Expert Group singled out human resource
development as the most important area requiring
attention by governments. In the rapid pace
of innovations, governments needed to make sure
that IT-related skills of civil servants were
continually upgraded and updated to keep them
relevant. All countries reported shortages of
skilled IT staff, especially in the areas of
telecommunication and computer networking. Moreover,
there was a tendency for trained and skilled
staff to move from the public to the private
sector where compensation packages were better.
Some public organizations had adopted special
allowances and accelerated promotion for IT
staff to counter that trend.
The Group felt that governments should give
a higher priority to IT development. One effective
way to achieve this was to make high-level decision
makers and key executives aware of the advantages
of the technology, or even get them personally
to use modern information technology.
Many countries had started to provide computer
equipment as standard resources for all levels
of schools, initially for computer literacy
purposes, while usage had also been extended
to support school administration and the curriculum
in general. In some countries the Internet had
also been introduced to schools through dial-up
lines, so as to provide students and teachers
with access to sources of information worldwide.
The Expert Group also discussed the use of multimedia
technology as a means of developing courseware
to provide students and teachers with tools
designed for an enriched learning environment,
as well as a way of alleviating the shortage
of skilled teachers in certain subject areas.
Besides in the learning and teaching experience,
computers were found useful in increasing the
effectiveness and efficiency of educational
administration.
Many stages of IT development
From the presentations made by the nine country
experts, it was very evident that countries were
at different stages of IT development. For instance,
the estimated ratios of personal computers (PCs)
per civil servant ranged from less than 1/100
(Myanmar) to 67/100 (Singapore) and 85/100 (Australia).
Overall, the represented countries could be grouped
into three according to their utilization of IT
for public-sector computerization:
- first, those which had
reached maturity in the employment of IT over
the past several years and were in the position
of exploiting emerging technologies
- second, those which had
developed some or most of their applications
but were still in the process of charting
the course of their computerization; and
- third, those which had
minimal applications in operation.
The first group of countries could be described
as those which had passed the stage where the
goals of computerization were to improve internal
efficiency and be more responsive to public
requirements; their direction was now towards
providing greater convenience to the public,
e.g. by supplying one-stop, non-stop services.
The second group of countries were concentrating
on enhancing their own internal systems. The
remaining countries were either in the early
stages of computerization or had stagnated in
their IT development over the past few years.
The more advanced countries had drafted IT strategies
or master plans, at national or at least government
agency level. Such documents were supposed to
give an overall direction to the computerization
process both in the short and long terms; however,
the process of developing an IT strategy was
in many cases seen more useful for the organization
than the plan itself as it fostered greater
understanding by senior managers. In addition,
to implement the IT strategies, many countries
had established central coordination agencies
(India, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand),
while others coordinated through representative
arrangements (Australia). Some countries had
not developed computerization strategies and
development plans, but the Expert Group agreed
with their importance, and felt that they were
a prerequisite for embarking on the computerization
process.
Networking spreading
fast in many countries, but some have hardly
started
The Group noted that local area networks
had become commonplace in many government departments
and now the Internet was spreading rapidly in
the Asia-Pacific region. So far eight of the nine
countries represented were connected to the global
network either directly or indirectly. The experts
agreed that tremendous benefits could be derived
from the Internet. They felt, however, that its
development was slowed down by existing telecommunication
infrastructure, laws and monopolies, and by the
artificially high charges. The potential of the
Internet was reflected in many of the experts'
recommendations to the secretariat (see next page).
Networking however was not wide-spread in countries
with stagnated IT development. This group had
hardly any LANs installed and tended to depend
on odd number of old mainframes and departmental
stand-alone PCs. Experts
from nine countries attended
The Government of Japan provided funding
for experts from eight developing countries to
attend the meeting. In addition, two experts participated
with funding organized by themselves. Although,
due to budget constraints, the represented countries
were not geographically balanced among the 59
member and associate member countries of ESCAP,
the diversity of IT development in the region
was represented reasonably well. Next issue of
the Government Computerization Newsletter will
look into individual country issues by taking
excerpts from the country studies and national
IT policy papers.
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