EDUCATION: Ibero-American Distance Learning Gets a Boost

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Nov 27 2002 (IPS) - The Ministers of Education from Latin America, Spain and Portugal have agreed to set up an interactive system for distance learning, using radio, television and Internet, with the Ibero-American Educational Television Association (ATEI) in charge of the endeavour.

The ATEI was founded at the second Ibero-American Summit of heads of state in 1992 in Madrid. Since then, it has been transmitting eight hours daily of educational programmes via the Hispasat satellite.

The transmissions can be received throughout the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal), the Caribbean and nearly all of Latin America, save northwest Mexico, northeast Brazil and southern Argentina and Chile.

Latin American educational institutions participating in the programme send their productions to Madrid, ATEI headquarters, which re-transmits the programming to the rest of the Ibero-American countries.

But under the new system, approved Tuesday in Madrid, the countries of the Ibero-American Summit can directly broadcast their own programmes, as well as take part in real-time debates via television, radio and the Internet, or through video-conferencing.

Beginning in 2003, each of the 19 Latin American member countries of the ATEI will be able to transmit an hour of programming daily from their capitals. In 2004, such broadcasts will be possible from other major cities, and in 2005 from more isolated and even rural areas.

The ATEI members are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Paraguay, Portugal, Spain, Uruguay and Venezuela.

It will be high-quality audio-visual reception because the transmissions will be received at the same level of quality as that of the DVD, which has higher resolution than traditional video, ATEI secretary-general Gerardo Ojeda explained to IPS.

Until late 2001, the ATEI only broadcast television from Madrid, but this year began to reconfigure its system, integrating radio signals and on-line and interactive video-conferencing via the Internet.

At the ATEI Assembly, attended by ministers and representatives from the education portfolios of the 21 member countries, emphasis was on the weak Internet communications existing between Latin America and Europe.

The presentation of the organisation’s new approach included an overview of inter-continental Internet communication: daily exchange between Europe and North America averages 162,250 megabytes daily, between North America and Japan 41,820 megabytes, between Latin America and North America 14,139 megabytes and between Europe and Latin America just 68 megabytes daily.

The Hispasat system, a publicly held Spanish entity, currently covers Europe and part of Latin America with its two satellites.

But the 2004 launch of a third satellite, the Amazonas, will overcome the existing shortfalls, covering all of Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as Europe and most of Africa.

Francisco Piñón, secretary-general of the Organisation of Ibero-American States, told the ATEI Assembly that the system is among the best results of the Ibero-American Summits, which have been held annually since the inaugural meet in 1991 in the Mexican city of Guadalajara.

Piñón added that the ATEI is symbolic in that it unites education with new technologies, "permitting effective attention to the most marginalized populations in our countries."

Ecuadorian minister, Juan Codero Iñiguez, said that the ATEI and its partners should pay close attention to the production of its programming, ensuring that it will attract audiences.

"Before, one simply learned to read and write. Now it involves reading, writing and producing interactive programmes to teach and to learn," he noted.

His Salvadoran counterpart, Rolando Marín Coto, warned that the digital era and satellite transmissions may be accompanied by threats to the unique identity of each nation and culture.

As such, he said, the ATEI and similar entities must work to prevent this danger and provide materials in a way that allows recipients "to interpret what reaches them from outer space and adapt it to their own reality."

Meanwhile, Elisa del Cid Andrea, the Honduran deputy minister of education, stated that the educational sector must be the basis of action for fighting poverty and that the ATEI must always take the matter into account.

In addition to carrying out joint actions throughout the region, the ATEI is also a channel for communications among organisations and initiatives for many areas of education, science and culture.

The ATEI Assembly presented an award to the University of Antioquia, of northwest Colombia, for being the "the outstanding partner in the Association, for the contribution of programming produced there, and for its ongoing collaboration with the rest of the Ibero-American countries."

The ATEI today has more than 300 "tele-classrooms" in universities and other educational institutions throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

A statute reform agreed this week now opens the possibility for non-Ibero-American institutions to become members of the ATEI, though the focus remains on Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking entities as the languages of teaching, learning and working with the programme.

The ministers and representatives of the education ministries of Latin America, Spain and Portugal signed an accord Wednesday pledging to set up mechanisms for accrediting institutions of higher learning.

The idea is to standardise the status of the degrees issued by universities of the Ibero-American countries, facilitating recognition of the holders’ diplomas throughout the countries involved.