At 3:20 PM +0530 02/12/02, Mridula wrote: > Prof. K.V.Sane of IIT, New Delhi has been at the forefront of a very > innovative project being run in the bye-lanes of New Delhi. Termed as - > SITA - this project has trained almost 450 women in computer skills.
snip snip the essence of which was great success in training. Then - > A surprising and disappointing experience was the poor response of the > job market to the project trainees. The inability of a majority of > trainees to find jobs shows that good training by itself does not serve > the needs of the individuals from the disadvantaged sector. If SITA type > of efforts are to survive and grow, identification and implementation of > income generating schemes must be given the highest priority. I certainly agree with that last sentence! What good is it to get half way across the bridge - training is only half the solution. Turning that training into jobs is the other half. Besides, disappointment can be *very* contagious with many negative outcomes including reduced funding for future projects and less students who wish to participate. Here's some thoughts, extended with the wish that those who are particularly interested should write to me directly: 1) India has already demonstrated significant progress in exporting human skills to the technology customers around the world. (We featured a company in Hyderabad during GLD V and talked of this extensively) http://users.voice-alert.com/gld5/5109.html http://users.voice-alert.com/gld5/5113.html http://users.voice-alert.com/gld5/5110.html More of this should be done - now! 2) Bevis England in New Zealand is leading an effort to find more telework. I encourage visits to his site <http://www.telework.co.nz> We will be featuring Bevis during Global Learn Day VI, October 13, 2002 to find out how he has progressed in assistance to those seeking telework. 3) Our work in Mexico is concentrating on "help desks" where the "helper" is trained in providing very focused "help" for end use customers of the clients for whom they work. This is not high technology stuff, but routine assistance that go (just) beyond the Frequently Asked Questions solutions provided in text. They also help to keep web sites updated and current - again, relatively low skilled work which we call "gardening". We take our cue from www.amazon.com which outsources the bulk of its help desk work to India - using Internet telephony and skilled Indians who have good English speaking skills, Amazon is able to greatly improve end use service to its customers. Such service would simply not be affordable at European or North American labor rates. 4) It would seem to me that the various government agencies charged with exporting products should be contacted for purposes of funding research which would target possible clients for services that the women trained by this project. At our (American) end, we could help with such research and would be happy to do so. Out of this could be brokering services which help to marry European and American clients to skilled workers in lower wage countries everywhere. Final comment: Those women should not be left at the half way mark of the bridge across the digital and income divide. Who will help take them the rest of the way? John Hibbs www.bfranklin.edu [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------ ***GKD is an initiative of the Global Knowledge Partnership*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.globalknowledge.org>
