ICT PROJECTS AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN ASIA: TWO CASE STUDIES EXPLORING OPTIONS, OPPORTUNITIES AND CONSTRAINTS MANJARI KISHORE MASTER OF ARTS COMMUNICATIONS AND NEW MEDIA PROGRAMME NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE SINGAPORE 2007 i Acknowledgement This thesis is the end product of efforts, encouragement and support from several quarters. My dad is no more but I firmly believe whatever good happens in my life is only due to his good deeds. “Thanks, papa!” This CNM Master’s programme would never have happened in my life had it not been for the strong encouragement from my mother who nurtures a unique belief of earning more and more degrees. This thesis could take its final shape due to constant support of my supervisor, Dr.TT Sreekumar. I am greatly indebted to him for his continuous guidance and support. Coming from science and journalism background, he must have come across tough moments grooming me into a researcher and a thesis writer, but he advised and guided all through with utmost calm, patience and sincerity. This task could really be accomplished only due to his efforts and guidance. Among other faculty members of CNM, I would like to extend my gratitude to Dr.Milagros Rivera, Dr.Lim Sun Sun and Dr.Hichang Cho for all their advices, suggestions and tips on doing good field work and a good thesis. One person who finds special mention is Jayan Thomas for always being around whenever there was a need. I really appreciate his help at almost every stage of my thesis. Sudeep, my husband has been another pillar of support all through my second inning as a student. I take this opportunity to thank him for all his support on the home front and in IT related work during my research. Sameeksha, my daughter has been very kind in leaving me with enough time and energy to complete my project and also giving me ii moments of playful relaxation during stressful episodes of my work. I am thankful to my brother, Manish for all his words of encouragement and help in getting me some relevant documents for my research. Although, they might be aware but I formally like to thank all my friends in the department whose constant support –emotional and otherwise – has made this journey of Master’s programme not only easy but also memorable. I would especially like to thank Minu, Pratichi, Shankar, Nandini, Shansi and of course, Raj for always being there for me. Last but not the least; I take this opportunity to thank Warren Wong and Vasoontara for helping me with the leads for Thailand field study. Had it not been for their support and co-operation, Thailand case study would not have been possible. I sincerely appreciate your contributions. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgement .......................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents ...........................................................................................................iv Summary ........................................................................................................................vi List of Tables............................................................................................................... viii List of Figures ................................................................................................................ix 1 Introduction: Issues and concepts.............................................................................1 1.1 ICT and Development ............................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Digital Divide......................................................................................................................... 2 1.3 ICTs, Women and Development: A Survey of Literature .......................................................... 7 1.3.1 Women and Development .................................................................................................. 9 1.3.1.1 1.3.2 1.3.3 1.4 1.4.1 1.4.2 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 2 Methodology..........................................................................................................29 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.8.1 2.8.2 2.9 3 Approaches to doing ‘gender’................................................................................................10 Women and Technology .................................................................................................. 12 Gender-ICT: A Recent Outlook........................................................................................ 13 Bringing ICTs to the ‘Un-connected’ .................................................................................... 16 Telecentres ...................................................................................................................... 16 Case studies focusing on Women’s Development ............................................................. 18 Concept of ‘Community’....................................................................................................... 21 Concept of ‘Social capital’.................................................................................................... 22 Issues and Concepts: Discussion........................................................................................... 24 Research Questions .............................................................................................................. 26 Thesis Structure.................................................................................................................... 27 Introduction.......................................................................................................................... 29 Social Sciences Research: Theoretical perspectives............................................................... 30 Feminist perspective ............................................................................................................. 32 Limitations of Qualitative Research ...................................................................................... 34 The Regional Focus: India and Thailand .............................................................................. 35 Field Work ........................................................................................................................... 37 Questionnaire Construction .................................................................................................. 40 Issues in the Field................................................................................................................. 41 India ................................................................................................................................ 41 Thailand .......................................................................................................................... 42 Limitations of the Study ........................................................................................................ 43 The two telecentres: Context and Background........................................................45 3.1 Introduction.......................................................................................................................... 45 3.2 Seelampur Telecentre Project in Context............................................................................... 45 3.2.1 Status of ICT in India: An overview ................................................................................. 45 3.2.2 Mission 2007 ................................................................................................................... 46 3.2.3 e-readiness of Indian states (New Delhi)........................................................................... 47 3.2.4 New Delhi: A glimpse of the demographics...................................................................... 48 3.2.5 Slums in India: An overview ............................................................................................ 49 3.2.5.1 3.2.5.2 Slums in New Delhi ..............................................................................................................50 Seelampur Context................................................................................................................51 3.2.6 The Seelampur ICT Centre Project ................................................................................... 51 3.3 Jakkarat Telecentre Project in Context.................................................................................. 53 3.3.1 Status of IT Industry: An Overview.................................................................................. 53 3.3.1.1 3.3.1.2 Hardware Industry ................................................................................................................54 Software Industry..................................................................................................................54 iv 3.3.2 ICT Policies of Thailand .................................................................................................. 55 3.3.2.1 3.3.2.2 3.3.2.3 3.3.3 IT 2000.................................................................................................................................55 IT 2010.................................................................................................................................55 ICT Master Plan for 2002-2006 .............................................................................................56 Telecentres in Thailand .................................................................................................... 57 3.3.3.1 PDA .....................................................................................................................................60 3.4 Jakkarat context ................................................................................................................... 61 3.4.1 Jakkarat T-Centre: A background ..................................................................................... 62 4 ICT: A Gateway to Employment? ..........................................................................64 4.1 Introduction.......................................................................................................................... 64 4.2 India .................................................................................................................................... 65 4.2.1 An overview of IT industry .............................................................................................. 65 4.2.2 Employment in IT industry............................................................................................... 65 4.2.2.1 4.2.2.2 4.2.2.3 4.2.2.4 4.2.2.5 4.2.2.6 4.2.2.7 Seelampur ICT Centre Project ...............................................................................................67 Age distribution across Telecentre Users................................................................................68 Distribution of Educational Qualifications .............................................................................70 Seelampur Women: Economic occupation remains elusive.....................................................71 Reasons for Adopting ICT training: An analysis ....................................................................73 Employment Status: A Reality Check ....................................................................................75 Hopes Vs. Reality .................................................................................................................76 4.3 Thailand............................................................................................................................... 77 4.3.1 IT in Thailand: An Overview............................................................................................ 77 4.3.2 Human Resource in IT ..................................................................................................... 79 4.3.3 Computer Usage Pattern in Establishments....................................................................... 80 4.3.4 The Jakkarat Telecentre under Thailand Canada Telecentre Project................................... 81 4.3.4.1 4.3.4.2 4.3.4.3 4.3.4.4 4.4 4.5 4.6 5 Distribution of telecentre users across age groups...................................................................82 Distribution of telecentre users across educational levels ........................................................83 ICT: Associated perceptions..................................................................................................84 ICT: Expectations Vs Reality ................................................................................................86 Perceptions and Actions at the two telecentre locations: A comparison.................................. 87 Employment prospects of the two telecentre users: A Comparison ......................................... 90 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 92 Telecentre: Potential Site for Community and Social Capital .................................95 5.1 Community Building: The influencing factors........................................................................ 95 5.1.1 Seelampur Telecentre: Birth of a community .................................................................... 96 5.1.1.1 5.1.1.2 5.1.1.3 5.1.1.4 5.1.2 The Physical infrastructure....................................................................................................97 Computer Activities ..............................................................................................................98 Location and Nature of the centre ........................................................................................100 Woman-Only telecentre ......................................................................................................101 Jakkarat T-Centre........................................................................................................... 103 5.1.2.1 5.1.2.2 5.1.2.3 5.1.2.4 5.1.2.5 User Profile and pre-telecentre association...........................................................................103 Socio-Cultural Historiography of Thai women .....................................................................104 Jakkarat T-Centre: The physical set-up ................................................................................105 Computer activities .............................................................................................................106 Location and nature of centre ..............................................................................................108 5.1.3 Role of Actors (In Seelampur and Jakkarat Telecentre Projects)...................................... 109 5.2 Conclusion and Recommendations for Social Capital Generation........................................ 112 5.2.1 Jakkarat Context, Thailand............................................................................................. 112 5.2.2 Seelampur Context, India ............................................................................................... 114 6 Conclusion...........................................................................................................117 6.1 6.2 6.3 Summary of Findings.......................................................................................................... 119 Recommendations............................................................................................................... 123 Suggestions for Future Research......................................................................................... 124 References...................................................................................................................125 Appendix A .................................................................................................................135 v Summary Telecentres, as a hub of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services have widely proliferated, especially in the developing countries as a measure to bridge the digital divide and connect the remote and marginalized populations, ultimately realizing the goals of social, political and economic empowerment. Feminist literature on women’s development in the trajectory of technological growth argues that historically the relationship between women and new technologies has been mediated by problematic assumptions deriving from the crucible of patriarchy. But recent literature shows that ICTs have enabled social and economic empowerment of women by providing greater employment opportunities and redefining gender relations at the family and community level. This thesis aims to critically examine the extent of empowerment of marginalized women through employment generation and community formation brought about by ICTs. For the purpose of this study, we narrow the broad area of ICTs to the sphere of telecentres, particularly in the developing countries. The study takes a cross-country perspective by selecting two telecentre sites –one, Seelampur ICT Centre located in a slum area in New Delhi in India and second, Jakkarat T-Centre at the Jakkarat village in Korat province of Thailand. In-depth interviews were carried out with the aid of semi-structured questionnaire. The sample size was 41 in India and 28 in Thailand case study; sampling frame constituted mostly of women. Based on the findings of the field study, this paper specifically answers the question whether ICTs through the medium of telecentres, provide employment or vi income-generating activities, and scope for community formation for enabling economic and social empowerment of women from the disadvantaged communities. This research is significant in that it is based on empirical research from a user-centered perspective. Findings show that the telecentres are being visited by the younger and the relatively better educated among the local communities primarily with the hope of securing employment. The study finds that getting IT-based employment is contingent on the over-all social, educational and cultural context in which the telecentre users are embedded. The study also highlights that though ICTs are enablers of offline community building, it is the social context of women in the respective communities that influence formation of a community. vii List of Tables Table 1.1: Population, Internet users and Internet penetration of selected Asian countries4 Table 3.1: An outline of telecentre initiatives undertaken by various organizations in Thailand.................................................................................................................58 Table 4.1: Qualification Level of Professionals in the IT Industry (India) ......................67 Table 4.2 : Age Distribution across telecentre users. ......................................................68 Table 4.3 : Distribution of telecentre users and non-users by their level of education, (Seelampur ICT Centre Project, India, as % of total) ..............................................71 Table 4.4 : Distribution of telecentre users and non-users by their level of education, (Jakkarat Telecntre Project, Thailand, % of Total)..................................................83 Table 5.1: The physical infrastructure at Seelampur ICT Centre and Jakkarat T-Centre .97 Table 5.2 : Rank Order of Computer Activities undertaken by telecentre users at Seelampur ICT Centre, India..................................................................................99 Table 5.3: Profile of the telecentre users interviewed at Seelampur ICT Centre, India..102 Table 5.4: Profile of the Telecentre users interviewed at Jakkarat T-Centre..................104 Table 5.5: Rank order of Computer Activities undertaken by Telecentre visitors at Jakkarat T-Centre, Thailand .................................................................................107 viii List of Figures Figure 1.1: Internet penetration by World Region ............................................................3 Figure 1.2: Unequal legal, social and economic rights between men and women in regions of the world ...............................................................................................11 Figure 1.3: Gender disparities tend to be greater among the poor than the rich...............12 Figure 3.1: e-readiness index of Indian states................................................................48 Figure 3.2: ICT Development Programme under IT 2010 ..............................................56 Figure 4.1: Distribution of Thai Internet Users by Location (in 2000) ............................78 Figure 4.2: Thai Internet market ....................................................................................78 Figure 4.3: Percentage of establishments against computer by reason and planning in year 2006.......................................................................................................................81 Figure 4.4: Computer Penetration in Thai Schools .........................................................90 ix 1 Introduction: Issues and concepts 1.1 ICT and Development Ever since the advent of the Internet and computer technology there has been great optimism about the development promises it holds out and the revolution that it could set off. At the same time, a growing realization of the ‘inequities’ in the availability of the digital opportunities across different sections of the world’s population has also prevailed. Such inequities that have become an issue of great concern in the Information Age are to some extent a continuation of social, economic and gender-based inequalities. This gap between those with access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and those without is called the ‘digital divide’. Around 85% of the world’s population lack Internet experience (InternetWorldStatistics, 2007), indicating the severity of the digital divide within and between nations. The digital divide overshadows the ICT-related optimism, and portends real dangers that ICTs might exacerbate the existing social asymmetries. The severity of the issue and the dangers it entails is echoed in Kofi Annan’s (2002) statement, “The new information and communication technologies are among the driving forces of globalization. They are………… bringing decision makers unprecedented new tools for development. At the same time, however, the gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ is widening, and there is a real danger that the world’s poor will be excluded from the emerging knowledge-based global economy.” ICTs, by themselves do not discriminate between individuals-- men or women. However, in conjunction with other social and cultural dynamics, ICTs put women who 1 have been embedded within patriarchal contexts, in a severely disadvantaged position compared to men, leading to gender gap within the digital divide. Realizing the threats of the gender digital divide, the state, civil society and the market have come together to bridge the gap with strategic deployment of ICTs among the marginalized communities. Some ICT initiatives are exclusively for women. There is a view that attention to ICTs means diversion of attention from basic necessities like food, shelter, health and education. But technological optimists argue that addressing the problem of digital divide in the initial phase of the Information Age is urgent as developing countries could derive huge benefits by leapfrogging into the new technologies. Another factor for urgency is the sheer ‘number’ of people affected by the digital divide. 1.2 Digital Divide The growth of the Knowledge Society and the growing divide between the Information haves and have-nots has evolved almost in tandem. Although it is argued that this Information Age is only the second phase of the already existent Industrial Revolution, the significance of ICTs is reflected in the fact that the present era has come to be known as either Information Age or Digital Age. What distinguishes the present era of Information Age from the Industrial Age is the rapidity with which it is revolutionizing almost every aspect of our everyday living. The rapidity in change has been such that globalization has become a much talked about ‘concept’ in the last two decades. Nasir (2001) states that new technologies like wireless communications and the Internet are combining with the process of globalization to change the environment for development, leading to the creation of ‘Network Age’. 2 Though the speed of communication has become phenomenal with the World Wide Web, what is crucial for our understanding is the nature of this ‘growth’. Even in this phase of intensive-globalization -- owed to ICTs, there is only a meager 16.6% of the world population that have experienced Internet (Internet World Statistics, 2007). According to Internet World Stats (2007), Internet penetration in North America is 69.4% while in Asia it is 10.5% and Africa 3.5% (See Figure 1.1). Figure 1.1: Internet penetration by World Region (Source: Internet World Stats, 2007) The countries of Asia present diverging Internet usage statistics, with Hong Kong showing highest Internet Penetration at 69.2% and Japan, Singapore and South Korea showing 67.2%, 67.2% and 67% respectively, whereas poorer countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar have Internet penetration at 0.1%, 0.2% and 0.1%, respectively (See Table 1.1). 3 Table 1.1: Population, Internet users and Internet penetration of selected Asian countries Asian Countries Population (2006 Est.) Hong Kong Internet Users (Latest Data) Penetration (Percentage Population) 69.2 % 7,054,867 4,878,713 128,389,000 86,300,000 67.2 % 3,601,745 2,421,000 67.2 % South Korea 50,633,265 33,900,000 67.0 % Taiwan 22,896,488 13,800,000 60.3 % 1,129,667,528 60,000,000 5.3% Thailand* 67,249,456 8,465,800 12.6% Afghanistan 26,508,694 30,000 0.1 % Bangladesh 136,138,461 300,000 0.2 % 15,017,110 41,000 0.3 % 5,719,497 25,000 0.4 % 54,021,571 78,000 0.1 % Japan Singapore India* Cambodia Laos Myanmar (Source: Adapted from Internet World Stats Report, 2006; *Data for India and Thailand are taken from Internet World Stats, 2007) i These figures reflect that while some countries have achieved relatively higher Internet penetration, there are others like Afghanistan and Myanmar that are at the other end of the spectrum. India and Thailand are in between showing rising Internet Usage growth, which became one of the reasons for selecting these two countries in the region for case studies. As seen in Table 1.1, the divide between nations (and even within them) has become the focal point of concern for policy makers and practitioners of ICT for development. These concerns have given birth to a large body of literature on analytical issues related to digital divide. 4 Llyod Morrisett, former President of Markle Foundation was the first to use the term Digital divide to mean the divide between the information ‘haves” and the information “have-nots”. Many of the researchers have tried to define ‘digital divide’ based on different factors like “access to the Internet, extent of use, knowledge of search strategies, quality of technical connections and social support, ability to evaluate the quality of information and diversity of uses” (Dimaggio, Haggittai, Neuman & Robinson, 2001). Nevertheless, Bucy (2000) and Van Dijk and Hacker (2003) argue that most of the digital divide work refer to such a divide in relation to Internet ‘access’ and not as much on the differences in Internet usage. Grabill (2003) also maintains that access to information isn’t particularly useful; “people need to be taught how to use information… (and) produce content for computer networks to be meaningful spaces.” Pippa Norris (2001) in explaining the multidimensional nature of digital divide gives a three-tier understanding of the concept based on three different aspects. First is the ‘global divide’ which looks at the discrepancies in the Internet access between the developed and the developing nations, second is ‘social divide’ which exists between information haves and have-nots within each country and third, ‘democratic divide’ which exists among the users of Internet between those who do and do not actively engage in using these resources to participate in public life. Keniston (2004) argues that there are four types of digital divide that separates those included in and excluded from the Information Age. The first type exists within every nation whether developed or developing, between the rich, educated and powerful and those who are poor, uneducated and not powerful. The second digital divide is attributed to the linguistic and cultural factors; the third type follows from the first two by 5 furthering a divide between the rich and the poor nations and the fourth has emerged from the emergence of a new class ‘digerati’ii who with their education, brainpower and ability to live on the cutting edge of knowledge have become the true beneficiaries of IT evolution. These definitions and classifications reflect on the patterns of the digital divide, an understanding of which is crucial as the need to bridge the digital divide is paramount at a time when ICTs are increasingly being recognized as development enablers. One solution for bridging the digital divide has been telecentres. Earlier research had put a lot of thrust on economic issues as factors responsible for digital divide. But more recently, studies have focused on non-economic factors like social and cultural to be equally critical for access, adoption and usage of ICTs. And with extensive growth of cybercafés and Information kiosks the thrust on social and cultural dimensions is increasingly escalating. Keeble and Loader (2001) state , “…….To be without access to the Web in the Information Age , it seems, is to run the risk of losing competitive advantage in the race for economic prosperity. Yet information, knowledge and its communication are not simply economic variables, they are also cultural assets.” With the concept of community shared resources like that of telecentres that have emerged as an ‘effective’ way to reach the masses , particularly the disadvantaged in terms of lack of resources, ‘access’ to technology is no more the prime deterrent in technology adoption. Yet digital divide persists. Women face even more complex issues due to their positioning in the patriarchal context. As telecentres are based on the concept of shared resources of a community, the concepts of community and social capital, which is fundamentally a feature of a 6 community is of great relevance. Hence, this study pursues a review of these two theoretical concepts ultimately aiming to examine ICT’s influence on formation of community and social capital. 1.3 ICTs, Women and Development: A Survey of Literature Studies show that gender equality improves the development of society. Hence, ‘women empowerment and promotion of gender equality’ received a separate mention as one of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). As is the case with other kinds of gender inequities, gender digital divide too forms an area of urgent action because if women are not included in the formative years of Information Age, their voices would remain unheard even in the future, further exacerbating the gender divide in digital domain (Mitter & Ng, 2005). Green (1993) argues that women’s use of new ICTs can provide opportunities for achieving unfulfilled gender needs or they can remove socio-economic barriers threatening opportunities for women’s employment, their health, safety and independence. Recent studies have shown that ICTs are having positive impacts on women’s development subsequently furthering gender equality. However, evidences show that the expansion of ICTs is somehow reinforcing rather than eliminating such deeply embedded gender-based social divisions. "Few countries collect gender ICT statistics and those that do so are typically the countries where the gender digital divide is least marked..... Those countries where the gender digital divide is most marked are also those where the digital divide in general is hardest to document……Again, the available data reflects the fact that the gender data divide mirrors the global digital divide" (Hafkin, 2003). 7 Hence, the contested view that women are increasingly taking advantage of ICT in all spheres of life, thus projecting ICT as a tool to promote gender equality and enhance the economic, political and social empowerment of women, needs to be reassessed. In this thesis, we draw attention to the fact that with the advent of telecentres, the issue of access to computer technology has been addressed to a great extent in the remote areas. But still diffusion/adoption of technology remains a challenge. Gender digital divide continues to remain an issue of concern for development practitioners. As we proceed, we will first look at the ‘women and development’ agenda and its importance in the discourse of development. Next, we trace the various stages in which women and development issue evolved in respect of ‘doing gender’ with the ultimate aim of empowering women. The next section looks specifically at the feminist perspectives on ‘gender and technology’ providing a backdrop for an understanding of more recent studies on women’s social and economic development through ICTs, including employment generation. This structure of literature review starting with the issue of development in respect of women and some feminist perspectives on ‘women and technology’ provides a broad framework for the understanding of the following section on the myriad ways in which ICTs are impacting women and their development. The latter section reviews the telecentre movements, its goals and impacts, and a few telecentre projects in developing countries. Telecentre literature review has been separately incorporated as this study looks at ICTs and its impact on women through the telecentre lens. The last two sections are a review of the concepts of ‘community’ and 8 ‘social capital’ to understand their dynamics in relation to women’s development through ICTs. 1.3.1 Women and Development Information and Communication technologies in the last two decades have evolved as a potent tool in transforming social, economic and political dimensions of everyday lives across the globe. All the countries and societies of the world have to be a part of this fastpaced IT revolution to avoid any marginalization in this Information Age. Speaking of marginalization, one section which draws utmost concern is women, as they are poor and they are ‘women’. Being ‘women’ assumes a peculiarly special meaning in the context of technological development as ‘women’s relationship with new technologies have historically been mediated by problematic assumptions relating to the gender of ‘expertise’’ (Cockburn, 1981). Studies show evidences drawn from comparisons at the national and sub-national scale that societies which discriminate on the basis of gender pay a price in more poverty, slower growth and a lower quality of life, while gender equality enhances development (Momsen, 2006). Hence, the internationally agreed eight MDGs mention separately of empowerment of women and promotion of gender equality (United Nations, 2005). Today gender equality makes one of the major concerns in the development arena as studies indicate that historically –until the early 1970s--development policies were directed at women in the context of wives and mothers (Momsen, 2006). Boserup (1970) challenged the then conventional wisdom that the benefits of macroeconomic policies would benefit all including the poor, and the poor women would also benefit as the 9 economic conditions of their husbands would improve. Boserup (1970) argues that women were being associated with the backward and traditional and were losing status. 1.3.1.1 Approaches to doing ‘gender’ A new thrust on women’s development was perceptible with institutionalization of Women in Development (WID) policies. By the 1980s, the advocates of WID started to focus on how the development efforts are losing out by ignoring women’s actual or potential contribution. The WID approach was criticized for considering women as a homogenous category which led to a distinction between ‘practical’ gender needs which improves women’s lives within their existing roles and ‘strategic’ gender needs which attempts to enable women to take on new roles and empower them (Moser, 1993). But many women activists and development practitioners, especially from the South, continued to see the ‘women and development’ strategies as lacking the perspective of developing countries. In the 1980s, aiming to bring gender in the mainstream development strategies, the approach of empowerment through grassroots and participatory activities evolved as a weapon for the weak (Parpart, 2002, quoted in Momsen, 2006). Empowerment in this context meant enabling people to gain self-confidence and self-esteem by way of allowing both men and women to actively participate in development decision-making (Rowlands, 1997). Another approach in the evolution of ‘gender and development’ discourse was ‘ecofeminism’ primarily advocated by Vandana Shiva (1988) who makes a case for environmental programmes to focus on women’s roles. Such approaches were also seen as not adequate in addressing the issue of gender and gender relations in a way which could ensure development for women which led to the 10 concept of ‘gender mainstreaming’ which would also overcome the problems of male backlash against women when women-only projects are successful (Momsen 2001, 2006). Even though there has been progress in the agenda of incorporating gender in the development discourse, with special emphasis on mainstreaming gender in development, since the Beijing Conference in 1995, figures show there is yet a significant gender gap on various development parameters. In no region of the world do men and women fare equally in legal, social and economic rights (See Figure 1.2). The World Bank report (2005) indicates that violence against women persists and huge gaps in earnings continue in most countries. It states that gender differences in work experience, employment characteristics and education explain only a fraction of this gap. Women make 57% of the total 104 million children aged 6 -11 years not enrolled in schools, and they make two-thirds of the 860 million non-literates worldwide (UNESCO, 2003). Figure 1.2: Unequal legal, social and economic rights between men and women in regions of the world Note: the value of 1 indicates low gender equality in rights, and value of 4 indicates high equality (Source: World Bank, 2001a, quoted in World Bank, 2005). 11 Studies also show that gender disparities are greater among the poor than the rich (See Figure 1.3). Women continue to be greatly underrepresented in positions from where they could influence decision –making. Women make only 16.9% of the total of both the Parliament houses combined worldwide (Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), 2007). Figure 1.3: Gender disparities tend to be greater among the poor than the rich (Source: World Bank, 2001) In the last three decades, strides have been made in improving the status of women and establishing gender equality in terms of education, labour force participation, health and other areas. However, gender inequalities persist in matters of exercising rights, decision-making, access to opportunities and making voices heard (World Bank, 2001). 1.3.2 Women and Technology Modernization--of which technological evolution makes a part-- and restructuring of traditional economies, “often increases the disadvantages suffered by women as the modern sector takes over many of the economic activities… A majority of the new and 12 better-paid jobs go to men and male income is less likely to be spent on the family” (Momsen, 1991). With regard to technology, the feminist perspective argues that technology has often been constructed as masculine and non-social, amid beliefs that the practices of women are almost always non-technological (Wajcman, 1991). Cockburn (1985) also argues that technology is “…both the social property and one of the formative processes of men. …The appropriation of muscle, capability, tools and machinery by men is an important source of women’s subordination; indeed it is part of the process by which females are constituted as women”. In the context of the Information Age, Wajcman (1991) argues, “computer has become socially constructed as a male domain”. Admitting the potential of computing/computers “as a completely new type of technology to break the mould”, Wajcman (1991) further states, the fact that boys outnumber girls in the usage of computer technology, “our culture has already defined computers as pre-eminently male –machines”. In the backdrop of such a constructed meaning of technology through feminist perspective and historiography of women’s progress amid technological development delineated by feminist observers, it emerges that women remain in the deepest troughs of the divide between the beneficiaries of technological revolution and non-beneficiaries, worse off than men whose hardships they anyway share. 1.3.3 Gender-ICT: A Recent Outlook Information and Communication Technology already considered a force in transforming the economic, social and political life is already being seen in some ways as gender equalizer within the ICT domain even in the developing countries. The shift 13 towards ICT-based services in the Information Age has led to a rapid growth of call centres, Business Process Outsourcing and IT Enabled Services (ITES) that provide a wide-range of off-site services to corporate clients within and without nations. The last few years have seen a phenomenal growth of such centres in developing countries where ITES are increasingly outsourced to low-waged, multi-lingual countries with relatively low overhead costs (Ng & Mitter, 2005). Studies have shown that a growing number of workers in these ITES are women. Though many research emphasize on the negative impacts of such feminisation of labour in IT sector leading to exploitation of women in the workplace (Gurumurthy, 2004) and on its negative impacts on women’s working conditions like erosion of “even the basic rights at work” (Remesh, 2004), there is a growing body of research that acknowledges ICTs’ positive impacts. Pearson (2000) argues that affordances made possible due to globalization and IT enabled work has resulted in increased involvement of women in production and paid employment. Other studies too acknowledge ICT’s benefits in developing countries in terms of creating opportunities for employment (Mitter & Ng, 2005) and the ways in which women have negotiated gender relations at the family and community level (Kelkar & Nathan, 2002). Castells (2000) also argues that network technologies have made patriarchy a ‘contested domain rather than a sphere of cultural reproduction, leading to fundamental redefinitions of gender relations, family and sexuality’. Highlighting women’s employment opportunities in the ICT sector, some studies argue that in Malaysia, women’s presence in ICT sector is almost as perceptible as men’s (Ng, 2005) and in India, almost 45% of 160,000 employees in the call centres are women 14 (Mitter, 2005). There are arguments that ITES like call centres, back office work processing, medical transcription, etc. are going to significantly increase employment opportunities for women unlike traditional manufacturing sector (Mitter, 2000). Kelkar, Shrestha and Veena (2005) in their work on IT industry in India also point out that the nature of IT work characterized by networking capacities and tools and the individualization of these capacities have increased women’s decision-taking capacities thereby enhancing their agency. Research on ICT and women in Asia points out that the outsourcing phenomenon would provide major opportunities for the economic empowerment of women. An expected 500% increase in India’s ICT services and back office operations involving jobs of some four million IT workers by 2008, is expected to provide an immense employment opportunity for women in this sector (Kripalani & Engardio, 2003). In the Indian context, NASSCOM-McKinsey Report (1999) predicts the employment in the ITES sector would exceed that generated by software development by 2008. But one common denominator emerging from the studies on the impacts of ICT in the recent years is that it is mostly the better-educated, urban elite among the women with better articulation and cognitive skills who get into the ITES sector. There are studies which report that women from convents or English medium schools are preferred (Kelkar et.al, 2005), employment opportunities would be open for urban elite who have the advantage of knowledge of spoken and written English, thus not making any transformation in the aggregate employment patterns in the near future (Vijayabaskar, Rothboeck & Gayathri, 2001). 15 Hafkin and Taggart (2001) in their work on IT and gender in Developing Countries argue that the jobs gained by women in the IT sector are largely associated with areas with high rates of female literacy in Latin America and Asia, notably in Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. 1.4 Bringing ICTs to the ‘Un-connected’ The role of ICTs in sustained development has been clearly acknowledged by policy makers and development practitioners leading to an array of ICT-based initiatives at various levels with the similar goal of ‘development’ for all the world’s population. Some concrete steps taken in the direction by the United Nations alone include formation of UNICT (United Nations Information and Communication Technology) Taskforce in 2001 for formulating strategies on how to deploy ICT for development. Also, the World Summit on Information Society was planned in two phases in 2003 and 2005, underscoring the urgent need for ensuring benefits of ICTs for all. The enthusiasm about ICT and its potential to transform the social, economic and political dimensions of life has fostered further growth in the form of research, workshops, telecentres and other activities, all targeted at IT-based development which ultimately targets to bridge the growing digital divide between the Information ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. 1.4.1 Telecentres In the last decade, telecentres have been one of the major forerunners in ICT for development programmes by trying to connect the marginalized populations to the Internet, computers and other related services. Based on the concept of shared resources, telecentres, variously known as Information kiosks, Village Knowledge Centres, ICT 16 Centres, Infocentres, Community Technology Centres, Communication Multimedia Centre, are basically centres with latest ICTs to connect the information have-nots to the digital world. Although this concept first originated in the Scandinavian countries in Europe as ‘tele-cottages’ to fight against the marginalization of the remote rural areas (Colle and Roman, 2002), it soon became widespread across the globe especially in the developing regions as a way to put the remote and disadvantaged populations on the ICT map. Recent years have witnessed a fast growth of telecentre movement worldwide. Theoretically, it has the potential to revolutionize the social development process in the disadvantaged territories especially with its generally applied model of keeping the usage costs much within the affordability range of the underprivileged. It is difficult to find a universally accepted definition of a telecentre but as a concept it means a publicly or privately owned physical place which provides information and communication services using a variety of technologies like phone, fax, computers and the Internet (Whyte, 2000)i. It is being argued that telecentres across the globe are helping in empowering communities, creating economic opportunities, giving people a voice, ending isolation and educating the public. iii Even though there are claims of such beneficial outcomes of ICTs through telecentres, there are numerous studies questioning the viability and sustainability of telecentres in the absence of a continuous funding from an external agency. Colle and Roman (2001) recognize that the multilateral donors such as International Development Research Centre (IDRC), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, UNESCO and the International 17 Telecommunication Union (ITU) remain important in the incubation of telecentres, especially those aiming for social change and alleviation of poverty. But in the next stage, the focus would shift beyond connectivity and physical infrastructure concerns to the effective usage of telecentre for development (Colle & Roman, 2001). Some studies address the issue of sustainability by suggesting practical models for telecentre operation. Best and Maclay (2002) argue that market approach driven by the private sector and entrepreneurs is the fastest and most efficient way to include rural communities of developing nations in the Networked World. They also foresee telecentres to include mobile and wireless access in the coming years, offering a new set of opportunities to enhance sustainability and value. The studies on telecentres’ impacts and speculations by Information Society researchers has highlighted telecentres as a critical concept in meeting the objective of empowering the poorer and underserved sections of the populations. 1.4.2 Case studies focusing on Women’s Development There have been a number of effective and productive ICT projects for women, for example the Grameen Phoneiv in Bangladesh but for the purpose of this research we will review only telecentre initiatives, especially those in developing countries. The United Nation’s Report (2005) states that many public access centers (telecentres) in Latin America like Somos @ telecentros Virtual Community project, which is coordinated by Chasquinet Foundation (Ecuador) and supported by International Development Research Centre (IDRC) have had positive impacts of democratization of the internet, increased participation of women, stimulation of social uses of the Internet and active and informed inclusion of the marginalized sections. 18 The women associated with the Badurai ICT Centre in West Bengal, India reported that after acquiring ICT skills at the ICT Centre they gained more respect in the local community and the younger women felt that now they could approach the job market with greater confidence (UN, 2005) . The Nakaseke Telecentre Project in Uganda has demonstrated that poor, rural women of Africa who are mostly illiterate benefited from the project. This IDRC-funded project involved creation of CD-ROM of ICT based learning materials on microenterprise using local languages, which ultimately benefited women to know the market prices of goods and take better marketing decisions (UN, 2002b). The initiative by private corporate groups to distribute WAP enabled cell phones to women agriculturists in rural Senegal is reported to have been appreciated by the women for the economic benefits it brought to them, and other women were also interested in becoming a part of the project. An Argentina-based NGO, PRODEMU trained poor rural women in the use of ICT for better design ideas and marketing of their handicrafts. Later, by packaging their products better and putting them online on a webpage, they reported increased sales keeping them profitably employed in their community (UN, 2002b). The community based learning centers in western Kenya under the Kenya AIDS Intervention Prevention Project Group taught poor women including widows and also older vulnerable children from HIV affected families, about nutrition, trained them in skills needed to become socially and economically empowered, and also in taking care of those infected with AIDS. The trained women were further organized into radio listening 19 groups and were trained in audio-video recording equipments, drama and story-telling a tools for learning and development.v The Women Mayors’ Link initiated in twelve countries of Stability Pact Region reports 50 direct women beneficiaries in the region and has been successful in promoting networking among the women mayors of the region (UN, 2005). Farmwife Project in Malawi is reported to have helped women farmers increase their agricultural production (Miranda, 2004). This report also claims to have doubled the agricultural productivity of the Zomba district in Malawi. The Government of Republic of Korea in 2001 and 2002 launched several IT projects for the economic empowerment of women. The Gyeonggi Women’s Development Centre established in 1997 was an initiative which launched IT training programmes for women since 1999 in several phases. The training course was designed for women in different life situations.vi A study on this Centre, as quoted in UN Report (2005) states that two-third of the total of 600 women enrolled have either found employment or started their own enterprise. The success of the project is largely attributed to the project design which accommodated the local women’s needs and constraints for greater participation. Mehra (1997) in her study of Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) projects in India reports that the project has been able to improve the economic status of women especially in the informal sector as they worked on the premise that women are a fundamental component in the process of economic development. The Information centres in 11 districts of Gujarat (India) by SEWA provide computer training and skills 20 and builds capacity of women organizers and strengthen micro-enterprises (Mishra, 2004). 1.5 Concept of ‘Community’ One of the classical theories of 'Community' (Gemeinshaft) has been postulated by Ferdinand Tonnies who defined it as an indivisible, single unit formed by an essential will, and is self-fulfilling. For example, the unit of family or neighbourhood. “The sense of unity is maintained even when people become separated” (Tonnies, 2001). Tonnies (2001) draws a parallel between the unit of a family and the unit of community, where fatherhood is the clearest foundation for the concept of 'authority' within the community, and “greater power in general means greater ability to render assistance [to others]”. He also views that where there is a decisive difference in power, reciprocal sentiments of affection and reverence stand as the twin pillars that form the very foundations of Gemeinshaft. In his theory, it is because of such feelings that a kind of community relationship is possible. Classifying community into three categories: Community by blood, Community of place and Community of spirit, Tonnies (2001) views that the last one makes the highest form of human community. The first of three, Community by blood, even when not limited by the four walls “can find its own nourishment” while the second, community of place even though more difficult than the first can persist even when people are absent from their neighbourhood ; it has to be sustained by fixed habits of getting together and by customs regarded as sacred. And the last type, Community of mind or spirit results from similarity of work or opinion. “The community of mind implies only cooperation 21 and coordinated action for a common goal.....[it] expresses the community of mental life”(Tonnies, 2001). It makes the highest form of human community. According to Karp, Stone and Yoel (1991), the three elements that define a community are: 1) sustained social interaction, 2) shared attributes and values and 3) delineated geographical boundaries. However, Hagel and Armstrong (1997) argue that “the notion of community has been at the heart of the Internet since its inception”. Thereby, it implies that the view of a community being bound by geographical boundaries is challenged in the Information/Network Age as the communities are free from its spatio-temporal confines. As telecentres are based on the concept of shared resources, there is an inherent dynamics leading to the formation of a community around it, which constitutes fundamental elements of sustained interaction and shared values and opinions. This unit of a community can further its shared objectives and goals by realizing the ‘capital’ that it contains within its structure, which brings us to the concept of social capital. The next section is a brief review of the concept of social capital which enhances our understanding of how communities-- especially underpriviledged, can achieve development goals by capitalizing on the concept of social capital. 1.6 Concept of ‘Social capital’ According to Coleman (1990), "Social capital is defined by its function, it is not a single entity, but a variety of different entities having characteristics in common: they all consist of some aspect of a social structure, and they facilitate certain actions of individuals who are within the structure". Putnam who takes a political science 22 perspective defines social capital as, "…networks, norms, and trust that enable participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared objectives" (Baron & Schuller, 2000). He specifically attributes it as a capital of the communities and not individuals. And he argues that social capital is much more than just “feelings…of community pride” as it affects our lives in many different ways. He also suggests that the more people working together more social capital is produced and the less people working together the more social capital is depleted (Cooper et. al., 1999). Coleman (1990) also argues similarly in that social capital can get depleted if not replenished. Healy (2001) also holds that “social ozone” needs to be protected and strategies must be devised to maintain and protect it. Fukuyama (1995) who treats the subject within an economic framework established relationship between social capital and enhanced economic achievements through greater trust and lower transaction cost. He stresses that it is the inherent trust in a given society that conditions its level of democracy and economic competence. Although there are arguments that the concept of social capital is being “adopted indiscriminately, adapted uncritically, and applied imprecisely…" (Lynch et.al, 2000), research shows strong correlation between social capital and desirable outcomes. Work of Baum (2000) is relevant here which shows that before 1981 journal articles with social capital as the key word numbers 20 while between and 1996 and early 1999, the number soared to 1003. Putnam (2000) argues for social capital by saying that it has “forceful, even quantifiable effects” on many aspects of our lives. Putnam (2000) further states three types of social capital—bonding, bridging and linking. He argues that "….bonding social capital constitutes a kind of sociological super 23 glue, whereas bridging social capital provides a sociological WD 40…" (Putnam, 2000). While the former is significant for “getting by” the latter is critical for “getting ahead”. Linking social capital is the relations between individuals and groups irrespective of the social strata to which they belong in a hierarchy where power, wealth and social status are accessed by all (Cote & Healy, 2001). Although there are some criticisms for attributing too many virtues to social capital, it is widely agreed that social capital is productive in many ways and one element fundamental to it is trust within the social structure which contains it. Some view it as an outcome of social capital while others think of it as a component constitutive of social capital, and some like Cote and Healy (2001) consider it to be both. 1.7 Issues and Concepts: Discussion Section 1.3 reviewed select literature on gender’s role in development agenda and the different stages in which the two have interacted in the last few decades to achieve the goal of gender mainstreaming. It also presented the feminist perspective on ‘women and technology’ where scholars maintain that technologies have been constructed as ‘masculine’, ‘non-social’ and ‘sources of women’s subordination’. In the backdrop of such an understanding of women’s position in the trajectory of technological development, Section 1.3.3 drew attention to more recent studies and arguments made in favour of ICTs, where ICTs have been argued to be a factor for social and economic development of women community in various regions of the developing world. The genesis of telecentres and a snapshot of some of the telecentre projects in the region targeting women as beneficiaries further provided an illustration of the beneficial 24 outcomes in terms of women’s economic development, including creation of employment opportunities. An increased use of ICTs-- specifically telecentre, has reportedly shown varied positive impacts on the society and also the women within. As ICTs are increasingly impacting the communities, there are perceived prospects of ICTs being able to play a crucial role in defining community formation and building social capital. The generation of social capital could be further utilized to make ICT adoption and diffusion effective and meaningful to the communities in order to realize the goals of empowerment. It must be highlighted that these arguments are speculative in nature and is imported from the belief in the enabling nature of ICTs. This study attempts to enquire empirically about ICT’s enabling nature in terms of women’s social empowerment through community and social capital generation. From the overview of literature on women and ICTs , community and social capital, the two areas that emerge as critically significant are: first, ICT’s employment potential for empowering women and second, network sociality mediated by ICTs would facilitate the creation of social capital for the sustenance of the benefit stream generated by development projects. The implied argument is that ICTs are directly related to employment opportunities and creating social environment for sustaining economic empowerment through social capital. In literature, we find that these two areas emerge as critically important in understanding the role of ICTs in changing the socio-economic opportunities available for women. This thesis looks at the potential of ICTs for employment and social capital 25 generation in a comparative setting. It draws from one case study each in India and Thailand. 1.8 Research Questions The premise of this study is the very discourse of ICT which promises development and empowerment to all. But amidst such optimism the question that seeks attention is -- are these promises being delivered to all alike? This thesis attempts to examine telecentre initiatives undertaken to bridge the digital divide, by making ICTs available in remote and underserved areas. It looks at the social and cultural contexts that shape the adoption of ICTs, guide the usage behaviour and mould the expectations and understanding of ICTs by marginalized communities. The study retains its focus on gender and particularly examines gender-ICT interaction within these communities. For the purpose of this study, we look at ICT through the lens of telecentres. Specifically, the following questions are raised in order to meet the larger objective of the study: • Who uses the ICTs provided in telecentres and why? • What are the perceptions and experiences of women with ICTs, particularly with respect to ICT as an instrument for employment generation? • How far do ICTs enable community formation and social capital generation furthering women’s empowerment? • What are the factors guiding women’s interaction with telecentres? • How effective have ICTs been in bringing about economic and social empowerment of women? 26 1.9 Thesis Structure In chapter 2 on ‘Methodology’, we first review some theoretical perspectives on social sciences research and then elaborate on qualitative and quantitative methods. We further look into the feminist perspective on qualitative research and later touch upon the limitations of qualitative research method. In the next section, the rationale for choosing the particular telecentre projects in India and Thailand is provided. Detailed description of the field study including the sampling frame is provided. Further, the issues faced in the field at the two different locations are described and finally, the limitations of the study are discussed. Chapter 3 tries to put the two telecentres in context for a clearer understanding of the cases being studied. The structure breaks the chapter into two segments—Seelampur telecentre and Jakkarat T-Centre. Under the first segment, an outline of ICT policies in India including the e-readiness of the Indian states is given. Next, a brief demographic profile of New Delhi is provided to understand the city context of the telecentre followed by demographic description of slums in India and those particularly in New Delhi. After a description of Seelampur –Zaffarabad area where telecentre is exactly located, there is a full description of the Seelampur ICT Centre Project. Similarly, for the next section on Thailand case study, an overview of IT industry in Thailand is presented followed by an outline of IT policies and plans of the Thailand government. After a brief idea of the telecentre context in Thailand, details of the Thailand Canada Telecentre Project (TCTP) is provided as Jakkarat T-Centre is a part of this project. Lastly, a demographic profile of Jakkarat is provided with the last section giving details of the Jakkarat T-Centre project. 27 Chapter 4 first provides an overview of the IT industry with specific focus on the employment scenario in the last few years which has seen rapid expansion of Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES). Next, against the backdrop of this scenario the chapter places the findings of the study, and finally analyses the issue of women’s development through employment generation in both the countries— India and Thailand. Chapter 5 presents the findings on the community formation aspect at the two telecentre sites being studied. It also takes a separate look at the operations of the telecentre projects implementing agencies furthering the discussion on translation of community formation into social capital generation as a way to empower women. Chapter 6 concludes by summarizing the study, its main findings and discussing the scope for further research. Endnotes i See http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm ii For description, see Keniston,K. & Kumar,D. (2004). IT Experience in India: Bridging the Digital Divide. New Delhi: Sage Publications. pp. 17. iii See further http://ebook.telecentre.org iv Professor Yunus Muhammad won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for Grameen Bank initiative started in Bangladesh; Grameen Phone is a spin-off of Grameen Bank. v vi See further http://www.kaippg.org/ See further http://www.womenpro.or.kr/ 28 2 Methodology 2.1 Introduction Social science research in the field of technology has generated a variety of scholarly studies. Nevertheless, the complexities of bringing together the two streams in the domain of research, and churning out valid and reliable findings remain a very complex pursuit. As ICT is a relatively new field and has its own uniqueness, studies suggest that there is a need for theoretical perspectives and methodological rigour in the area of research in the ICT domain. This study too faced methodological challenges and after careful consideration of the research agenda and the limitations of the study, it was decided to opt for the qualitative method and conduct detailed semi-structured interviews. Henceforth, semistructured interviews were carried out with the help of short-item questionnaires. Data on socio-economic conditions of the respondents and their association with telecentres was collected to compile information that could lend support to the arguments. As this study aims to understand the role of ICTs in empowering women from disadvantaged communities and also in forming communities, and what are the factors that influence ICT adoption by women, it was decided to take a community–level, crossnational perspective in order to have a point of comparison for each field study to get a deeper understanding of the significance of socio-cultural elements in gender-ICT interaction. It must be categorically mentioned here that although the study takes a comparative approach for a clearer understanding of the case studies, it does not aim to be a comparative study of the two telecentre projects in India and Thailand. 29 This chapter would take us through the review of some theoretical positions in social sciences and the one chosen for this study and justifications for it. It would also explain in detail, different methodologies, their limitations, methodology chosen for this study and the reasons for it. The sampling framework, issues in the field and limitations of the method would be elaborated upon. It also explains the reasons for selecting India and Thailand, and the two specific telecentre projects in these countries-–Seelampur ICT Centre Project and Thailand Canada Telecentre Project—for the purpose of this study. 2.2 Social Sciences Research: Theoretical perspectives Broadly, there are two methods—qualitative and quantitative—adopted in social sciences research. Arguably, selection between the two depends on the research objective and purpose. The two dominant theoretical perspectives in social sciences are positivism and phenomenology, which provide the foundation to discuss the question of the importance of data in social science research. Positivism seeks to understand the causes of social phenomena as observed outside the subjective attributes of individuals whereas phenomenologist seek to gain an understanding of the same through the actor’s point of view (Taylor & Bogdan, 1984). Hence, quantitative research appear to be based more on positivistic epistemological position which tests , predicts and provides evidence while qualitative research takes into account diverse epistemological positions including positivism, post-positivism, phenomenology, interpretive, feminist, postmodernist, ethnomethodology, critical and standpoint (Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2004). And as qualitative research is inclusive of such diverse positions it allows for a wide range of questions for understanding of complex sociological process. 30 According to Hesse-Biber and Leavy (2004) if the qualitative were to be distinguished from the quantitative by a list of words, the following list would give the description: Quantitative Qualitative Hard Objective Strong Measurement Numbers Generalizability Positivistic Significance level Tabulating Representative Value-free soft subjective weak meaning words process interpretation verstechen writing representational politics/social activism Hayes (1996) states that the selection between the quantitative and qualitative methods depends on the research purpose of gaining more depth or breadth on the subject under study. For studying an issue in greater breath, which entails a good number of respondents, quantitative method is more suitable but for studying few issues with greater depth qualitative method is more applicable. Quantitative method which allows putting a limited set of questions to a good many number of respondents helps to generalize the findings whereas qualitative method which allows for a greater depth is a source of rich data about a limited number of respondents. Qualitative research makes way for “thick description” of social life (Geertz, 1973). As this study attempts to gain a deeper understanding of the views, beliefs, experiences and understandings of computer technology by the underserved communities being studied, and their reasons and ways of interaction or potential interaction with it, an 31 interpretive inquiry would serve a good purpose. Hence, the reason for choosing qualitative research method for this particular study. Schutz who was the pioneer of interpretive tradition argues that social meaning and human behaviour cannot be separated (Nielson, 1990). So in social sciences it is not enough to observe human actions but to investigate further about what meanings social actors ascribe to their actions and behaviour. As Qualitative research is a vast area with a variety of approaches, (Flick, 2004) has broadly classified it into three theoretical positions depending on their understanding of object and methodological focus. These are: symbolic interactionism—subject’s points of view; ethnomethodology—making of social realities; and structuralism/psychoanalysis—cultural framing of social realities. As mentioned earlier, the choice of theoretical standpoint is largely dependent on the research objectives, the researcher’s theoretical position and the object of research. Hence, based on their agenda, feminists advocate for non-positivistic methods like symbolic interactionism which uphold the subject’s point of view. Although it is not the purpose of this study to get into the depth of feminists’ perspectives on methodological approaches, a little understanding of it would provide an insight into the subject. 2.3 Feminist perspective As this study focuses on the gender domain—though at times it takes full view of the underprivileged communities in which these women/girls are embedded—the feminist perspective on social science methodology has been modestly reviewed to aid in the selection of the ‘right’ method for data collection and analysis. 32 Feminists have vehemently critiqued the positivistic paradigm as its emphasis on objectivity means complete detachment of the researcher from its subject of research meaning thereby, subjectivity of the researcher and the researched is ignored. On the contrary, an argument of feminist epistemology is that separation of the object and the subject could put validity of the study in a questionable position (Cook & Fonow, 1986, quoted in Sprague & Zimmerman, 1993). The feminist position harps that such a research design only is reflective of patriarchal ideologies and fails to understand and address the feminist goals. Farganis (1986) mentions that some feminists advocate that for research in general, and particularly those studying women, the researcher should not have any a priori constructs in order to give privilege to the subjectivity of women. Mackenzie and Wajcman (1985) note that social characteristics play a major role in determining which technologies are adopted. Wajcman (1991) refers to computer technology as a different type of technology with the potential to break the mould but adds that the existing culture has already established computer as a preeminently male device. Another school of thought argues that technologies are not neutral and their use may contribute to shaping our purposes (Chandler, quoted in Nolan, 1999). This argument is technologically deterministic. Feminists like Bijker (1995) harp on the approach of interpretive flexibility to counter the concept of technological determinism. Shifting the focus on women’s attitude to explain the lack of women-computer technology interaction, Turkle (1986) argues that for women it is not computer phobia but ‘computer reticence’ meaning they want to maintain distance with it as “computer becomes a personal and cultural symbol of what a woman is not” (Turkle,1986, quoted in Bruckman, 1998). 33 Based on the considerations of the various epistemological positions and a look at the feminists’ perspectives on methodological approaches, it was decided to select qualitative research method with grounding in phenomenology and interpretive paradigms, to carry out this particular research. 2.4 Limitations of Qualitative Research Despite several advantages, qualitative research has its own limitations. One argument often extended against qualitative research –and in defense of quantitative research--is the lack of objectivity in its research findings. Kirk and Miller (1986) argue that the method of “confirmatory” non-qualitative research in any science—natural or social—is aimed at preventing discovery. “When confirmatory research goes smoothly, everything comes out precisely as expected…….As in everyday social life, confirmation is exactly the absence of insight.” They contend, “qualitative research has always retained the proper ideals of hypothesis-testing research—sound reasoning and empirical risking of theory” (Kirk & Miller, 1986). For a clear understanding of the issue of objectivity, sometimes it is broken down into reliability and validity. Kirk and Miller (1986) maintain that “In the case of qualitative observations, the issue of validity is not a matter of methodological hairsplitting about the fifth decimal point, but a question of whether the researcher sees what he or she thinks he or she sees.” They opine, this kind of validity check could be made only by “long-run personal interaction”. Another limitation often cited for this method is relatively smaller sample size, (commonly the case due to availability of limited resources), which prevents the researcher from generalizing the findings. 34 Patton (1987) argues that instead of compartmentalization, an intelligent combination of qualitative and quantitative methods could be a pragmatic approach in social science research. But quantitative data analysis requires more ordinal data for statistical computation while qualitative research focuses on acquiring depth in the research subject, as the respondents are considered not mere ‘objects’ of study but ‘actors’ whose views and actions need careful interpretation. Thus, in spite of an understanding of these limitations of the qualitative method, it was decided to collect data through semi-structured interviews and participant observation. 2.5 The Regional Focus: India and Thailand With an international realization of the widening of the digital divide between and within countries and the dire necessity to bridge it in order to make the knowledge-based global economy widely inclusive, several initiatives of bridging this divide have been initiated. Telecentres/Information kiosks is one of them. As India is being touted as one of the IT superpowers whereas at the same time, figures show a large majority of the population being on the wrong side of the divide – only 38 out of 1000 people use Internet in India; these are mostly concentrated in big cities—it was decided to look into the impacts of the telecentres among the disadvantaged populations, (IMAI, 2006). Although digital divide has been classified in many ways by different scholars based on education levels, economic status, English skills, culture, gender, white and non-white lines, there are two broad classifications that make large populations deprived of ICT benefits: rural-urban divide and urban-urban divide. We chose to study one case from both the types. First, we chose the project of Seelampur ICT Centre in New Delhi as a 35 case for bridging the ‘urban-urban divide’ in the ICT domain. Seelampur is a slum or could be called an urban pocket of poverty within a fast –growing national capital; thus, becoming the digitally deprived section of the ‘urban-urban divide’. The project is exclusively for women which became another factor for its selection as in this study, our focus is on the gender domain. Another important factor was that Seelampur is a Muslim dominated area and the ICT Centre at present is being run by a Muslim religious institution, which is a noteworthy fact. Second project was chosen on the basis of its function of bridging the ‘rural-urban divide’, which could help gain a comparative perspective. As the idea was to have a cross-cultural and cross-national study, it was decided to choose a project in another country. We considered each of the south-east/south Asian countries based on their ICT development, IT policies and digital divide issues for this comparative work. Some countries like Singapore were too technologically advanced (although for reasons of logistics and linguistics it should be an obvious choice), and some like Laos, Bhutan, Cambodia, Vietnam were too far behind. Review of ICT policies, IT targets for the next few years and governmental and non-governmental programmes to bridge digital divide made Thailand a good choice for the purpose. Ideally, it was desired to have a regional level study. But as the scope of this thesis would have it, it was decided to conduct field study in only two countries in the same region and pursue a cross-national study. A vast review of the IT initiatives in Thailand indicated that at the policy level, the focus of the government is on the schools and educational institutions with very few known projects being targeted on the masses, and especially on women. Thailand Canada 36 Telecentre Project (TCTP) seemed to be a widely based ICT initiative for masses which was launched in six different locations across Thailand, in the period of 2001 and 2002. Some other important factors for selecting these two projects-- Seelampur Centre in New Delhi and TCTP in Jakkarat—were: • Both projects started almost at the same time; Seelampur telecentre project started in 2003 and Jakkarat T-Centre project in 2002. • Both the projects were initially designed for a period of two years. Seelampur project ended early 2005 and TCTP ended in 2004. • Both were initiated by civil society organizations • Both continue to operate even after the original project duration period has ended. • Seelampur centre is woman-only, and through groundwork it was learnt that Jakkarat T-center mostly has women users. 2.6 Field Work For qualitative research, one of the widely used data collection method is semistructured interviews. One factor contributing to its popularity in academic discourses is “linked to the expectation that the interviewed subjects’ viewpoints are more likely to be expressed in a relatively openly designed interview situation than in a standardized interview or a questionnaire” (Flick, 1998). Given the limitations of this study, it was decided to collect data by semistructured interviews as it would give a better in-depth understanding of the perceptions, views and understanding of the communities about ICTs, and computer technology in particular. In this method, the interviewees have a chance to express their own views. 37 Semi- structured interview guide gives some room for exploring specific issues in further depth at the same time giving constant direction to the interview process. Qualitative research is often criticized for being impressionistic and nonverifiable. But in this study, great attention was taken to be as open and receptive as possible to all the responses and visual clues emanating from the field. The statements of the respondents have been considered to be their own personal views. Given the nature and scope of the study, there was no way to verify those statements. Hence, this study focuses on what the telecentre beneficiaries and the local community has to say about their own views and understanding, and interaction with ICT harboured at the respective telecentres. The field study consisted, mainly, of interviews with users of ICT centres, and also with members of the local community. The number of interviews conducted was 41 in Seelampur and 28 in Jakkarat. In Seelampur, India, of the 41interviews conducted, 30 interviews were conducted with the trainees at the Seelampur ICT Centre and 11 with members of the local community who had never visited the ICT Centre. Random sampling procedure was chosen for this study. First, permission to conduct field study was taken from the mosque’s priest. At the telecentre, two girls from each batch at the telecentre were selected and in the locality, first house in every by-lane was targeted. But in reality this could not be achieved as many girls/women were either shy or conservative or unwilling to talk for reasons known to them. On being asked “why you don’t want to talk?” the reply would either be a coy smile or a blunt statement like “nahi humen nahi pata?” (No, 38 we don’t know anything) or “abhi humen kaam hai” (right now, I have some work to do, so cannot talk). In Seelampur, the field data was collected from February 12, 2006 to March 1, 2006. Most of the interviews with the telecentre users ran for about 1.45 hrs to 2.00 hrs while with the non-users for roughly an hour. In Thailand, of the 28 interviews conducted, 14 interviews were with the users of the telecentre (that is, the total number of visitors to the telecentre during one week that the researcher spent there) and the remaining 14 interviews were with people from the nearby villages. Here too, some interviewees were not willing to share all their details and answer all questions. On being assured that their identities would not be disclosed and that they could choose not to answer some questions, respondents were comfortable and willing to talk. Hence, in this study as per research ethics, many of the names of the respondents have been changed to conceal their identity. It may be noted that in Jakkarat, as the number of telecentre users was small, all the telecenter visitors were interviewed without having to randomize the sample. For interviewing members of the local community, the researcher had to rely on the telecentre staff for selecting and approaching the nearby villages. Although, such locations were selected based on mutual agreement and convenience, care was taken not to allow any interference by the telecentre staff in the actual interview process. In Jakkarat, the field data was gathered between March 13 and March 19, 2006. Each of the interviews with the telecentre users and non-users lasted roughly one hour and 30 minutes. 39 All the interviews were directly conducted by the researcher, although in Thailand help of an interpreter was taken for communication purpose. In India, the researcher had the advantage of speaking the same language as the community under study. Hence, in some instances it is found that the text collected in India are richer compared to that of Thailand. Interviews were conducted on an informal face-to-face basis. Once the interviewees were assured of confidentiality, they were more open and forthcoming in sharing their views and experiences. Tape recorders were avoided as it tended to make the respondents reticent and uneasy, when used on the first day of the fieldwork. The responses were jotted down. In Jakkarat T-Centre study, more than 82% of the interviewees were women and in Seelampur telecentre study, over 90% of the respondents were women. It should be noted that in India, the telecentre is only for women. There are more women in the sample as the research focuses on gender domain. Yet, men respondents were included to get their views and understanding of computer technology and its association with gender. 2.7 Questionnaire Construction A semi-structured interview guide was created for the field study. The questions broadly captured two life aspects of respondents--- their socio-economic reality and awareness/interaction with ICT and locally situated telecentres. The questions ranged from their education and income level to perceived/potential benefits of ICT. The users were asked about computer usage, time spent online, activities undertaken, whether they chat or write emails, do they find computer/Internet beneficial 40 and for what purposes, have they ever felt like beneficiaries, in theory what do they know of computer’s enabling properties, how helpful are ICT skills learnt at telecentre in real life, and what is their experience at the telecentre, what changes or what more do they expect of telecentres and the services provided. Apart from telecentre users and non-users, the other semi-structured interviews conducted were with: In India: Computer Trainer at the telecentre, the priest of Babool-ulm mosquemadarsa, the local MLA (Member of Legislative Assembly) who is the elected representative to the State Legislative Assembly. In Thailand: Computer Trainer at the telecentre, present project managers, Policy and Planning Analyst at Jakkarat (Tambon Administrative Office). Also, email correspondences were made with one of the partners of the Hickling Corporation, Canada who was initially involved in implementing the TCTP.i 2.8 Issues in the Field 2.8.1 India 1. As Seelampur is a conservative Muslim dominated area, finding women to talk openly was a challenge. Most of them would coyly step back and shut doors with some excuses like “bacche school se aate honge, humko roti banana hai” (my children must be on their way back from school, so have to cook chapattis for them). I could manage to speak to few women on my own but later, in light of such difficulties, I had to take recourse to the trainer at the ICT Centre who is a girl from the locality. I chose her for help as she was the only one in the locality with whom I was well acquainted and request for help would not have been 41 turned down. Secondly, she was chosen as she was not a staff of the voluntary organization. She is an employee at the ICT Centre and is given salary by the ‘madarsa’ who are basically taking care of the Centre after the two-year project term ended in early 2005. So, it was assumed that she did not have any bias towards either the project or project initiators. 2. The project initiators were non-cooperative. Even after many attempts to meet them or at least have a telephonic conversation on the research subject, the founder of Datamation Foundation flatly refused (when phoned) to share any details on the project to the extent of being rude when he said, “this might sound blunt but these days there are more researchers than workers”. Even e-mail requests for more details were turned down by him. His extreme reluctance, rudeness and non-cooperation could not be conclusively analyzed. 2.8.2 Thailand 1. Thai society is more open in general. They were generally a relaxed and smiling lot. But when questioned about their personal information or personal views on a particular subject, they found themselves a bit uneasy. They were perfectly fine while answering questions related to education, occupation, governments’ developmental schemes and their children’s career prospects, but not those related to views on the operations of the NGO working in the village, performance of the telecentre, their personal income and so on. One reason could be distrust of foreigners. Although, I was accompanied by a Thai interpreter but she too was from a different province in Southern Thailand. 42 2. Another practical issue confronted in the field was of the communication with respondents through the interpreter. Generally, a detailed response from the interviewee conveyed with much emotion (which could be deciphered from the interviewee’s expressions) would be followed by a one-line interpretation from the interpreter, who would convey only the crux of the response to the researcher. 2.9 Limitations of the Study The duration of almost one month for the field study in the two countries was short for this kind of an ICT-based social science research agenda. A longer and closer association could have given more insight, developed trust among the respondents’ community for the researcher, and an opportunity to observe people closely. In short, ethnographic research spread over a period of a few months could have been a good alternative for conducting this kind of a research. But given the limitations of resources like time and money in a Master level research, a semi-structured qualitative research over a period of almost a month was a fair and wise choice. Being qualitative in nature, the sampling frame is rather small. Hence, looking at the population size of the communities, the findings are not easily generalizeable. The respondents’ statements have been accepted as ‘true’ to their knowledge and understanding as it could not be convincingly verified in the field. Additionally, in the India field study, project initiators’ refusal to talk on the issue further limits crossexamination of some of the comments and observations made by the respondents during the field study. 43 Endnotes i Warren Wong is a partner of Hickling Corporation, who was contacted for the study. He also provided the TCTP project evaluation reports earlier submitted to CIDA. 44 3 The two telecentres: Context and Background 3.1 Introduction The level of adoption of ICTs in a country is not just a function of the physical IT infrastructure but depends on a variety of other equally important social, political and economic factors as well. E-readiness is a term, popularly used to gauge the availability of ICT infrastructure and its usage by people, government and the business community for their benefit. Economist Intelligence Unit has been publishing e-readiness rankings of several large economies of the world since year 2000. The most recent rankings published in year 2006 included 68 countries. India, despite, being claimed the upcoming IT-superpower was ranked 53rd whereas Thailand ranked at the 47th position (EIU, 2006). 3.2 Seelampur Telecentre Project in Context 3.2.1 Status of ICT in India: An overview The Indian state has played a major role in the context of ICT for development since the mid 1980s when the Congress party led government under Rajiv Gandhi came to power. The stress laid on IT for development and generation of wealth continued through 1990s, culminating in Information Technology Act which came into force in October 2000. Several Task Forces have been set up in the last few years. They include IT for Masses Working Group targeting 100 million IT kiosks in India; Task Force on Human Resource Development in IT to formulate strategies to increase the number of well trained IT professionals; and Task force on IT as a Knowledge Superpower which envisions India as a knowledge society. 45 India’s tenth Five Year Plan starting 2001 emphasizes on the sectors promising high quality employment opportunities like construction, real-estate and IT enabled services. It also attaches great importance to the growth of knowledge-intensive industries which is crucial for the over-all national growth in today’s knowledge economy. Though knowledge and technology could provide India an edge, it is to be recognized that out of 200 million children between the age of 6 and 14 years , only 120 million are in schools—an issue being address by ‘shiksha abhiyaan’ (education campaign). (Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies, 2007). Though India has been able to establish ICT capacity at the national level, and is integrating closely with the market-oriented globalization, it is far from addressing the pressing needs and demands of underprivileged sections which makes the majority, in terms of education, health, energy, transportation to name a few sectors (Bajwa, 2006). 3.2.2 Mission 2007 The International Telecommunications Union in November 2005 recognized India’s ‘Mission 2007: Every Village a Knowledge Centre’, as the flagship of the "Connect the World by 2015" movement. This movement was launched at the World Summit of International Society (WSIS) held in Tunis, which aims to ensure benefits of digital revolution to each country and every part of each country by 2015—the benchmark year for UN Millennium Development Goals (The Hindu, Nov 2005). A national Alliance of multi-stake holders was formed in 2003 for execution of Mission 2007 which aims to provide knowledge connectivity to all the Indian villages by making 240,000 Village Knowledge Centres (VKCs) in all the panchayats and local bodies by August 15, 2007. Supported by international agencies like United Nations 46 Development Programme (UNDP), International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the ambitious project aims at an integrated and appropriate use of the Internet, mobile phone, community radio, cable television and the regional press. By installing 240,000 VKCs in the initial phase, all the 600,000 villages could be covered with the help of radio and loud speakers. Even as this project is due to fructify, one noticeable point is that it falls short of covering the poor pockets within urban boundaries like slums as it targets only villages. 3.2.3 e-readiness of Indian states (New Delhi) The e-readiness levels of Indian states were assessed on broad parameters of ‘environment for ICT by a given country or community’, readiness of community’s key stakeholders to use ICTs and usage of ICTs among these stake holders which put all the states under six categories as illustrated in Figure 3.1. 47 Figure 3.1: e-readiness index of Indian states (Source: Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India, 2004) This report places New Delhi higher in the pyramid under the category of ‘Aspiring leaders’. Assessment of the ‘Environment’ –market, Political and regulatory or Infrastructure –as an indicator puts New Delhi at level 3 while exclusively under Indicator of ‘readiness’ of individual, business and government, Delhi scores high placing itself at Level 1 and under the indicator of utilization of ICT by individual, business and government, Delhi positions itself on Level 2 with seven other states. 3.2.4 New Delhi: A glimpse of the demographics New Delhi, the national capital of India has a total population of 13.78 mn with 7.57 mn males and 6.21 mn females (Census of India, 2001). In the last few years, Delhi population has increased significantly high. Migration from neighbouring states, particularly of unemployed people, has been cited as the main reason for this. The 48 city/state is a metropolitan with only 0.35 percent of total workers working as agricultural labourers (Census of India, 2001). In the last one decade Delhi has witnessed rapid development in terms of city infrastructure like roads, metros, flyovers, commercial buildings, shopping malls and residential complexes. But at the same time, Delhi which has a total of 3.894 mn employed population (in 1999-2000) shows decline in the percentage of employed people to total population from 33.04% in 1992 to 29.28% in 1999-2000 (Economic Survey of Delhi, 2003-2004). 3.2.5 Slums in India: An overview A Slum is a district of a city or town which is inhabited by the very poor or socially disadvantaged. The term ‘slums’ and ‘ghettos’ are commonly used for any poverty-stricken urban area but ghettos are different in that they are areas where people from the same ethnic or racial background live together with some degree of seclusion. According to Census of India (2001)i, slum areas constitute all areas in a city specified as a ‘slum’ under the Slum Act; and even those without a notification under the Act but recognized thus by the government/ its agencies. Slums are also such compact areas where more than 300 people live or 60-70 poorly built households are present; and people live under unhygienic conditions with poor infrastructure and lack of sanitation and drinking water. According to Census of India (2001), 42.6 mn population of the country, which forms 15% of total urban population of India lives in slums. 17.7 mn slum population has been reported in the 27 cities with million plus population. The highest slum population 49 among all the cities has been reported by Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation with 6.5 mn slum dwellers followed by Delhi Municipal Corporation which recorded 1.9 mn. Only 32.9 % of India’s slum population has been reported to be in the workforce of which male work participation rate is 51.3% and female’s is a meager 11.9% (Census of India, 2001). Among the slum inhabitants, only 5% has been returned as ‘Household Industry workers’ and the remaining 95% are ‘Other workers’. The slum areas have a literacy rate of 73.1 %, with literacy rate of 80.7 % among males and 64.4% among females (Census of India, 2001). 3.2.5.1 Slums in New Delhi New Delhi, the national capital of India with an urban population of 12.9 mn has reported 16 towns with slum population. Total slum population in these towns is 2.03 mn with 1.14 mn males and 0.89 mn females. In Delhi, total slum population as a share of the total urban population of the state is 15.7%. This is slightly higher compared to the national average of 15% (Census of India, 2001). Among this slum population, a total of 1.13 mn people are literate, of which 706,631 are males and 422,876 are females. Total number of workers in the slums of Delhi is 707,233 out of which 621,602 are males and only 85,631 are females. Around one-fifth of the households in Delhi slums are estimated below the poverty line and another one-fourth appear just above the poverty line (Mitra, 2005). Mitra (2005) also argues for a correlation between per capita expenditure size classes and household size, where with a rise in household size the percentage of households falling into the size classes comprising the poverty line and below poverty line, increases steadily. 50 3.2.5.2 Seelampur Context Seelampur is situated in the north-east of National Capital Region of New Delhi. The region has a dominant Muslim population making 95% of the total. The influence of religion is obvious from the numerous mosques spread over the region. The area is poor, unplanned, unhygienic with open drainage in the interiors, and has very low literacy level and formally employed population. Women of the area are always spotted in veils and are generally not allowed to move out independently. For women housework and childcaring are the primary duties; secondary activities include traditional forms of craft and skills like tailoring, embroidery and soap-making. 3.2.6 The Seelampur ICT Centre Project The Seelampur ICT Centre project started in March 2003 with the initiation of Datamation Foundation and support of UNESCO. The aim of the project undertaken as a part of UNESCO’s programme “Empowering the underprivileged through the use of ICTs” was to train Muslim women in ICT skills in order to meet the objective of alleviating poverty. The objective of the project is “to provide appropriate ICT enabled support mechanism viz. capacity-building, marketing and financial linkage for women engaged in informal sector of the economy encompassing small and petty businesses. Moreover, ICTs could help overcome Muslim women’s perpetual cycle of poverty, social exclusion and low bargaining power by building their capacities and vocational skills”. The telecentre opened for the community in March 2003 but groundwork in Seelampur-Zaffarabad district in New Delhi “was initiated in late 2002 to use ICTs towards poverty reduction and better life opportunities” (Sharma, 2005). 51 The telecentre situated on the first storey of the extended portion of Babool-ulm madarsa (a place for quranic learning) at Seelampur is a small room with a modest infrastructure of 6 computers, 1 printer-scanner-copier, 20 chairs, few tables and a wooden rack without doors. There was dial-up Internet connection only to one computer, and that too was pulled off in December 2005.ii Every training session is of two hours each. Each computer accommodates at least three girls; as a result, each gets only 40 minutes to work on the computer; for the remaining of the 1.2 hrs they watch the other two operate the machine. There are no prospectus, no course plan and no written document pertaining to the one-year training programme; only a few dilapidated registers showing enrolments for ICT training were available on the dusty shelves. There are a few multimedia CDs in the centre, which focus on the contents relevant to the local context like introductory knowledge on nikah, making of soap, pickles, candles, jellies, tailoring, embroidery and health related matters like AIDS, malaria and on subjects of child care, care of hair, skin and feet. These multimedia CDs were created with the help of software eNRICH, jointly developed by National Informatics Centre of India and UNESCO in recognition of the need for local content creation and distribution. eNRICH which has also been used in other ICT development initiatives allow for offline and online browsing for content creation in multiple languages and media. While creating the content for Seelampur ICT Centre initiative two factors were taken into consideration: one, preserving the tradition and two, giving opportunities for women to make a living. One of the traditions is singing in various forms like ‘ghazals’ 52 ‘shairi’, qawwali and naat. Perhaps local women using the ICT Centre were involved in multimedia content generation. “Women who came to the centre……..started bringing the “oral” traditional renditions in handwritten notes to the centre. A lot of group activity was noticed. A large volume of content has been generated, enriching their own knowledge of ICT as well as linking them with their oral traditions.” Subramaniam, Nair, Sharma, n.d). 3.3 Jakkarat Telecentre Project in Context Thailand, a member of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has a population of 60.6 million with 29.8 mn males and 30.8 mn females (National Statistical Office, Thailand, 2000)iii. The population comprises of several ethnic groups with 80% Thai, 12% Chinese, 4% Malaysian, and 3% Khmer. The dominant religion in Thailand is Buddhism with 95% of Thais practising it, and only 4% are Muslims and 1% is Christian. The official language is Thai, and English is the second language taught in high schools. 3.3.1 Status of IT Industry: An Overview Thailand shows disparate growth trajectories in its hardware and software industry which might be traced back to its economic development policies, which from 1960-1972 focused on import-substitution thereby aiming for producing commodities for domestic market and, in the latter phase, that is since 1972, adopted export –orientation strategy which focused on expanding the limited domestic market by export to external markets (Tan and Leewongcharoen, 2005). Such strategies kept focus on export oriented industrialization and commodities production making a number of products like textiles, clothing and electronics assembly, 53 significant to Thailand’s export (Abdulsomad, 1994). Further, a large inflow of foreign direct investment from Japan and newly industrialized countries of East Asia effected rapid expansion of manufacturing sector in the late 1980s (Abdulsomad, 1994). These economic strategies and their fallout are reflected in the IT industry scene too, with hardware sector development witnessing higher growth in comparison to software sector. 3.3.1.1 Hardware Industry Tiralap (1997) states that Thailand’s IT industry began to grow with electronics industry. This growth between 1960 and 1995 could be classified into five phases. The first phase (1960-70) was dominated by Japanese joint ventures; the second phase (19711980) due to policy shift to export-orientation brought many American multi-nationals to invest in IC packaging for exports; the third phase (1981-1985) saw the manufacturing of electronics products locally , and not mere assembling; the fourth phase (1986-1990) was the boom time for electronics industry with immense increase in investment from Japan, Taiwan and other newly industrialized Asian countries leading to export oriented production of goods like printers and computer part, facsimile machines, hard disc and modems, and the fifth phase (1991-1995) was the supporting industry when 295 new firms came up , of which 283 aimed at supplying components to world electronic manufacturers in Thailand (Tiralap, 1997). 3.3.1.2 Software Industry Compared to the hardware industry, the software sector of Thailand shows modest growth with almost 70% of the software market imported (Software Park Thailand, 2002, quoted in Tan & Leewongcharoen, 2005). Software Park was developed under the 54 National Science and Technology Development Agency in 1997 to form national level cluster for the software industry. Its main functions are transfer of technology to software companies, promote Thai software to local and global market, support new software companies during their start-up phase and provide technical infrastructure and operation space to software companies (Tan and Leewongcharoen, 2005). These authors also contend that software industry has a significant growth prospect because of the low labour cost advantage in Thailand. 3.3.2 ICT Policies of Thailand 3.3.2.1 IT 2000 The first national IT policy, IT 2000 was developed by a semi-autonomous government agency, the National IT Committee (NITC) in 1995 with the objective of achieving economic prosperity and social equity. NITC was established under NECTEC (National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre) in 1992 for developing IT Policy (McDaniel, 2002). The main focus of IT 2000 was to build an equitable national information infrastructure (NII), invest in people to accelerate the supply of IT manpower and to develop an IT- literate workforce, and achieve good governance through the use of IT in delivering public services and in government administration. (National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (NECTEC), 2003). 3.3.2.2 IT 2010 In 2001, ‘IT 2010’ plan was launched within the framework of the same principles as of IT 2000 but it set the key objective of pushing Thailand towards a ‘knowledge-based society’ by building human capital, promoting innovation, investing in information infrastructure and promoting the information industry (Thuvasethakul, C. and Pooparadai, 2003). 55 Figure 3.2: ICT Development Programme under IT 2010 (Source: NECTEC, 2001) To achieve the goals of IT 2010, the five main flagships identified for development are esociety, e-education, e-government, e-industry and e-commerce (See Figure 3.2). 3.3.2.3 ICT Master Plan for 2002-2006 Within the policy framework of IT 2010, the NECTEC and National Economic and Social Development Board jointly developed the ICT Master Plan for 2002-2006. The four specific development goals mentioned here are development of economy by using ICT, competitiveness enhancement of ICT industry, human resource development by increased application of ICT in education and training, and strengthening the rural community in terms of sustainable development (NECTEC, 2003). Among several strategies for accomplishment of these goals some targeting the rural community and society in general are, development of equitable information infrastructure in areas of education, rural community for a better quality of life and society, and generating awareness and understanding of ICT within the society for building up social capacity (NECTEC, 2003). This plan states the specific goal of having a community telecentre in every subdistrict by the end of 2006, with the specific mention of transforming the role of post 56 offices to serve as community telecentres. Although the need for community telecentre for IT literacy of masses in general is acknowledged in the national IT plans, the policy literature indicates that a greater stress has been laid on e-literacy for youths and computer and Internet penetration in educational institutions; 3.3.3 Telecentres in Thailand Under the ICT Master Plan for 2002-2006, for reinforcement of social capacity every community with a telecentre has “to facilitate the application of ICT in individual and community life. These centres will also cover the development of local content to promote the culture, products and tourism of each community” (NECTEC, 2003). The plan also states to develop human resource to fully utilize ICT in the country’s move towards a knowledge-based society and support citizens, especially the young, in acquiring knowledge and understanding of language including Thai, English and other foreign language (NECTEC, 2003). Such policy framework and stress on social capacity building led to the development of telecentres in the country around the turn of twentieth century. Telecentres were first introduced in Thailand in 2000-2001 with the support of various organisations including public and private enterprises, government bodies and international development agencies with the fundamental objectives of creating ICT awareness and creating opportunities of social development for the rural communities (See Table 3.1). However, it is observed that the viability of most of the telecentres is at risk. 57 Table 3.1: An outline of telecentre initiatives undertaken by various organizations in Thailandiv Organizations Community Organization Development Institute (CODI) sapatana Foundation & Thaicom Foundation TOT Corporation No. of telecentres Not available 2 Not available PDA 1 Chulalongkorn university 4 NECTEC 4 Thailand Canada Telecentre Project (TCTP) 6 Project Objective Coverage To use ICT as a tool for creating local database and data analysis for local organizations Promote computer and Internet as learning tools for rural community To provide computer and Internet access; access was made available through prepaid cards To provide computer and Internet access and training to local community To provide information on air quality and environmental management Promote ICT in rural areas to boost the local economy Unspecified Demonstrate availability of ICT services in villages in financially sustainable manner; to show ICT can create jobs that are free from gender cues. Thai RuralNet 4 To provide ICT-driven entrepreneurship scenarios for development of rural communities Source: Based on author’s online search Launch Year Not available Ban Samkha & Nang Rong communities 20012002 Unspecified Not available Nang Rong community 2000 Mae Moh community Not available 4 communities: 2001 North-2, Northeast-1 & East-1 6 communities: 2001 North-4, Central-1 & Northeast-1 Unspecified 2001 58 Thailand Canada Telecenter Project (TCTP) The Thailand Canada Telecentre Project was jointly launched by Hickling Corporation and Syntel Consultancy (on behalf of Global Alliance for Infostructure Advancement , Canada) , Thailand-based Loxley Public Company Limited and Telecommons Development Group of Canada, and was financially supported by Canadian International Development Agency(CIDA). Under the project, six pilot telecentre sites were launched (See annex A), of which Jakkarat telecentre in Nakhonratchasima province is one. The basic objective of this project was “to demonstrate that valuable ICT services can be delivered to people in the rural and remote areas in a financially sustainable manner” (Wong, 2003). Among others, another important objective of the project was to demonstrate that utilization of ICT services can create new jobs in the rural areas that are status free and not marked by gender cues, particularly for the individuals operating the telecentres. For smooth and effective functioning of telecentres, Loxley developed ‘Octopus solution’, which was a technology adapted under license from India. This solution basically enables one new computer that acts as a server and is linked to 8-10 older computers that serve as terminals. This solution could reduce the computer procurement cost by about 60-80 percent. Wong’s report (2003) ‘Evaluating the Community Telecentres’ states that the project was implemented in three phases: • Planning and establishment phase, (April 2001 to March 2002) • Operating and Monitoring phase (December 2001 to February 2003) • Wrap-up and lessons learned phase (March to June 2003) 59 In the first phase after workshops and surveys, eight communities were short listed for implementation of the project. Of the eight, six communities opted to participate in the project. A Memorandum of Understanding between the communities and project was outlined, an important feature of which was to keep aside 50% of all the revenue generated from the telecentre. Later, if the telecentre achieved full sustainability on its own, that “50%” would be given as reward for good performance. On the other hand, “if they were unable to cover their operating costs, the equipment would be removed at the end of the project” (Wong, 2003). By the end of February 2003, three telecentres –Hua Thanon Bann Mai Kao Kad Tcentre, Mae Hong Son T-Centre and Pong T-Centre generated operating profits (revenue greater than all operating costs) and the other three—Ban Mae T-Centre, Jakarat TCentre and Hang Hung T-Centre incurred losses (revenue less than the operating cost). According to the report ‘Evaluating the community telecentre’ (2003) submitted by Hickling –Syntel to CIDA, the characteristics exhibited by the profit generating telecentres were “strong and effective support from the government, strong telecentre managers and operators, strong support from community, adopted private sector principles”. Whereas the loss incurring telecentres showed the following : “no support from government, weak telecentre managers and operators and weak organisations, not integrated into the community and ignored private sector principles” (TCTP Report, 2003). 3.3.3.1 PDA After the withdrawal of initial implementers of TCTP, the project is being run by the Population and Community Development Association (PDA), a Thailand-based notfor profit organization. PDA, founded in 1974 began its operation in the field of family 60 planning. The manager of Jakkarat CBIRD Centre, Samnarn Chaikotv said, “PDA’s logic is simple. If we have to develop the country, we have to develop people first; and for that we need to provide education to children, which means couples must have only one or two kids in order to support their education up to higher levels.” Gradually, the program became successful which led the NGO into other development activities. In 1979, PDA founded Community-Based Integrated Rural Development (CBIRD) program, which now has a total of eight centres, one of which is in Jakkarat where the telecentre is located. The CBIRD program has four divisions: water resource development, income-generation and occupational training, forestry and environmental conservation, and local institution-building. In 1988, PDA established Thai Business Initiative Rural Development Programme (TBIRD) with the mission to discourage migration of rural folks to urban areas for jobs and better wages. Samnarn said, “….then PDA used its own network of contacts to bring successful business groups to rural areas to set up factories so that the villagers get jobs in those factories, and do not get compelled to migrate”. 3.4 Jakkarat context Jakkarat is a ‘tambon’ (sub-district) in Jakkarat district of Nakhonratchasima province. Jakkarat district has 8 sub-districts, 108 villages, 68,983 population and 549 sq km land area. The total population is 7,841 and 98% of the population practise Buddhism. It is primarily an agriculture-based society where rice, sugarcane and sweet potato are the main crops. Average income in Jakkarat is THBvi 21,841 per year per person. 61 3.4.1 Jakkarat T-Centre: A background Jakkarat T-Centre in Jakkarat in the Nakhonratchasima province in north-east of Thailand, was open for community on February 20, 2002. Since the withdrawal of the initial implementers of the TCTP, the Jakkarat T-Centre is being owned and operated by the PDA. The T-Centre is located within the Jakkarat CBIRD Centre premises. This Centre is also popularly known as ‘Michai Centre’ after the name of its founding member who was a high profile minister in the Thaksin government which was dissolved following the military coupe in 2006. The CBIRD Centre houses six factories—J Wah Co.(manufactures jeans) , Jakkarat Union Footwear (makes straps for Nike), Leform (manufactures undergarments), SCS Footwear, Wei Thai (makes logo for Nike) , Rungrod (makes logo for SCS footwear) on campus, and employs around 2500 villagers in these factories. Apart from these factories, the campus also has a restaurant, a café, a minimart and a handicraft centre. The Jakkarat telecentre is a one-room establishment within the Jakkarat CBIRD Centre with an IT infrastructure including 9 computers, dial-up Internet connection, generators for back-up power supply, air-conditioner, printer-scanner-copier and a pair of speakers. The villagers feel that the T-Centre’s location on the highway creates problems of accessibility because of the distance, impacting the participation of the locals. But on the other hand, its location on the highway within the C-BIRD Centre might be considered strategic as the campus is visited by thousands from nearby villages-- men and women alike—who work in the factories located there. 62 Endnotes i See http://www.censusindia.net/results/slum/metadata_highlights.pdf During the field study of the project in February 2006, there was no Internet connection in the centre. Some of the students who were relatively new had never experienced Internet. iii See http://web.nso.go.th/eng/stat/subject/subject.htm , Table 1.3). ii iv Many of the inputs from ‘Thailand Approach to Bridge the Digital Divide: The Role of Telecentres’ presented at the APEC Telecentre Training Camp, Taiwan in 2005 by Kasititorn Pooparadai. v Samnarn Chaikot, manager of CBIRD Centre, Jakkarat was interviewed on March 13, 2006. vi THB stands for Thai Baht (Thailand’s currency). 63 4 ICT: A Gateway to Employment? 4.1 Introduction The UNDP (2001) states that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and bio-technology will “lead to healthier lives, greater social freedom, increased knowledge and more productive livelihoods” in the world. Studies show that the IT led knowledge economy which has enabled outsourcing of IT jobs to off-site locations in the South has created significant employment opportunities in countries like India, Philippines and Malaysia. Studies on IT in India point out that in recent years IT has contributed significantly to foreign exchange resources (Heeks, 2001), and has created increased employment opportunities, especially for women (Mitter, 2005). In India, the recent proliferation of Information Communication Technology (ICT) based services is perceived to have offered more employment avenues for women (Mitter, 2000). Amidst all the hype about IT in India, such claims are abound. Nevertheless, there is a need to understand the characteristics and patterns of employment generation and the nature of IT workforce in demand, in order to critically assess and analyze the studies that establish IT as an ‘employment churner’, especially for women. This chapter is split in two parts. First, it provides literature specific to employment and workforce aspects of IT sector, with a focus on women and then presents the findings from the field study in India. Specifically, the findings are related to age distribution among the telecentre users, their educational qualifications, and their perceptions and associated expectations from ICT. The latter section analyzes the perceptions and expectations of the ICT trainees at Seelampur telecentre (from field study) in the backdrop of the preceding literature. Similarly, the next section on Thailand, first reviews literature on workforce in IT, computer usage patterns in establishments and then presents findings from the field. 64 Following that, we analyze the scope of the Jakkarat telecentre users in the IT workforce in light of the given literature. 4.2 India 4.2.1 An overview of IT industry Since 1980s, India has witnessed a phenomenal growth in its software industry because of services like custom software work, coding and the ‘Year 2000 problem’ work (Heeks, 1998). In 1980’s, much of custom software development was carried out at the client’s site overseas instead of ‘offshore’ in India. But later there has been a change in the trend with more software development work being carried out ‘offshore’ in India (Heeks, 1998). India’s software export, first ever recorded in 1974, has risen from US$480.9mn in 1995/96 to US$12,400 in 2005/06 showing a growth rate of 39% (Heeks, 2007). The Indian software and services sector grossed annual revenue of US$ 30.3 bn in FY 2006 and is expected to go up by over 31 percent to US$ 39.7 bn in FY 2007 (NASSCOM, 2007).It is interesting to note that revenue of approximately US$7.2 bn came from IT services alone. India’s share in the global software market has risen from less than 0.5% in 2002 to nearly 6 % in 2006 (Srivastava, 2007). India witnesses such significant growth as Indian IT firms have the competitive advantage of low wage costs in the global market (Lateef 1997, Heeks, 1998). 4.2.2 Employment in IT industry With the growth of IT services sector, India’s IT industry is going to see a net employment creation of 2.2 million by 2008 (NASSCOM-Mckinsey Report, 1999, quoted in Agarwal, n.d). Out of this, 650,000 would be in software whereas double that 65 number would be in ITES sector. The Indian IT services sector employed over 398,000 people and the ITES/BPO sector employed 409,000 people in 2006 (NASSCOM, 2006). It is speculated that the ITES sector which includes call centres, back-office work processing, medical transcription, etc. are held to generate considerable employment opportunities for women unlike the traditional manufacturing sector (Mitter, 2000). Although there are speculations of a significant growth in employment avenues in IT industry including software development as well as IT enabled services, it must be noted that the 2.2 million employees in the Indian IT industry estimated for the year 2008 is not substantial compared to 167.4 million ‘non-agricultural’ workers (who are working neither as cultivators nor as agricultural labourers) in India, in 2001 (Thomas, 2005). Due to lack of reliable gender disaggregated data exact number of women working in different sectors within IT industry is not known. Heeks (1998) states that about 10% of the Indian software developers are women while Kelkar et.al (2005) estimate that women make 21% of the total IT workforce, which is higher than their over all participation in the national economy at 13%. These figures and the fact that women would make only a minor part of the speculated 2.2 million employees in IT indicate the limited scope of opportunities for women, offered by the sector. “In India as whole, only about 3.6 percent of women students at the graduate and post-graduate levels are enrolled in engineering courses” (Gurumurthy et.al, 2006) Further, the nature of qualifications of professionals in the IT industry shows that 86% of the total software professionals in India have either graduate degrees in the relevant technical fields or higher qualification with only 14% having non-technical graduate degree or diplomas (See Figure 4.1). 66 Table 4.1: Qualification Level of Professionals in the IT Industry (India) Education Level Professionals (percent) M.Tech/CA/MBA/ICWA 17% B.Tech/BE/MCA 69% Graduates/diploma holders 14% (Source: Offshoring Times, 2006) As the non-technical graduate degree and diploma holders make only 14% of employees in IT (men and women) and overall women make only 10-21% of the total workforce in IT, the figures point out that employment avenue in IT/ITES sector for women with modest educational qualifications like diploma/ A level/graduate in non-technical discipline, is not considerable. Even though there are studies showing positive outcome of employment generated by the IT enabled services especially for women, there are studies that argue that these opportunities would be available for the urban elite who are proficient in spoken and written English (Vijayabaskar et.al, 2001). Kelkar et.al (2005) also argues that it is the women from convents or English medium schools who would be preferred in the growing India IT or ITES sector. In the next section, we present the field findings and attempt to understand the nature of association between age and education, and ICTs. Next, we place the conclusive findings in the backdrop of these studies and figures on IT and employment. 4.2.2.1 Seelampur ICT Centre Project The findings presented here are based on interviews of users and non-users of the telecentre, conducted with the aid of semi-structured questionnaire. The sample size was 41, of which 30 were users of the Seelampur ICT Centre and 11 were non-users but residents of the same locality. 67 4.2.2.2 Age distribution across Telecentre Users The users of the telecentre who come there for training in Microsoft Office and Desktop Printing belong to the age group of 16 to 30 yrs. 30% of the users belong to the age category of 16-30 yrs, 50% belong to the age group of 21-25 yrs and 20% to 26-30 yrs category (See Table 4.2). Table 4.2 : Age Distribution across telecentre users. Age Category Thailand (%) India (%) 16 -20 yrs 14.2 30 21-25 yrs 64.2 50 41 yrs 14.2 Data shows that 90% of the women coming for computer training at the telecentre are unmarried. Interviews show that this is primarily because of two factors: 1) married women do not find time out of their domestic responsibilities like cooking, housekeeping, child rearing. One of the interviewees, Parvati Devi Sharmai said, “I don’t know about the ICT Centre. At this age what will I do of computers? What is the use of knowing all that? I am always at home, busy in housework, so there is no time to learn computers and there is no point either.” Given the social-cultural condition, even the unmarried girls have to do the domestic work. But the final responsibility is more on the married woman of the family. An interviewee, Sufiaii said, 68 “All day (I have ) no time for anything because have to do domestic work. Mother helps in that, but no brother helps because boys never work at home.” 2) married women are not supposed to go out of their houses for jobs or trainings or similar engagements. This does not indicate that unmarried girls can step out freely. But in some cases, their eagerness to join a vocational course or training is given heed to. The cultural dictates and the norms largely practiced in the Seelampur locality in relation to girls is well represented in the excerpt from Maulana Zaffruddin’siii (the chief priest at the mosque-madarsa) interview excerpt, “I firmly believe that girls should not go out to work. They should remain within the house. Since the time they have stepped out of the houses, world is facing problems. Nature has made women to be in veils. They are most precious…precious than gold and diamond; so just like we keep our ornaments in lockers, we must keep our girls (females)well-protected inside our homes. If they want to work, they can work from home. They can get involved in soap-making and other small cottage industry. If she [a girl] goes to office all guys will look at her with wrong intentions. You know that wars are always either because of money or women.” Answering why did he support the ICT Centre and allowed it to be located within the madarsa premises, the priest’s words reflected the budding dualism in the established social practices and thinking, “These days the girls hardly listen. (Smiles) Now they are going out because they are not in my control. But I keep an eye on them.” The study finds out that even though the community largely adheres to established social norms, signs of changes are showing especially among the younger generation including the females. This change is also reflected in the age profile of the users of the telecentre who fall between the age group 16-30 years and are mostly unmarried. 69 4.2.2.3 Distribution of Educational Qualifications Most of the users of the telecentre interviewed for this study show a very modest educational background with only middleiv or secondaryv school qualifications. Almost 67% of the respondents have secondary school qualifications and 3.33% have only middle school qualification certificate. 30% of the total sample at the telecentre are either graduates or are enrolled in their graduate studies. Although, data shows that educational levels of most of the users are only modest, when compared with the educational level of the non-users of the telecentres in the locality, it emerges that those who have chosen to take ICT training at the telecentre are relatively among the better qualified section of that community. The study shows that 36.36% of that section of the community which is not enrolled in ICT training is illiterate. Notably, Census of India (2001)vi reports 51.32% female slum populations as illiterate. It is noticeable that among the telecentre users not even one trainee is illiterate or bears less than middle school qualifications. Data shows that although among the nonusers only 18% are graduates, among the telecentre users 30% are graduates (See Table 4.3). Also, among non-users it is seen that only 36.36% have middle school qualifications, whereas among the users community almost 70% have obtained middle/secondary school qualifications. Hence, the study finds that ICTs among women from disadvantaged communities is related to relatively higher levels of literacy and education. Similar finding has been established by Hafkin and Taggart (2001) in their work on IT and gender where they argue that women in IT sector are largely associated with areas of higher levels of literacy. 70 Table 4.3 : Distribution of telecentre users and non-users by their level of education, (Seelampur ICT Centre Project, India, as % of total) Education level Telecentre Users Telecentre Non-users Illiterate - 36.36 Primary - 9.09 Middle 3.33 36.36 Secondary 66.66 - Graduate 30 18.18 Total 100 100 4.2.2.4 Seelampur Women: Economic occupation remains elusive The field study finds that the factor strikingly common among all these women enrolled at the telecentre for training is, their employment status—none of them have a regular job. The responses of the women interviewees clearly show that women in the community are willing to, and given an opportunity do engage themselves in some kind of economic activity depending on their abilities and skills. Women took part in income generating activities such as mehndi, embroidery and bag-making — work that could be generally done in their own homes. Women in the community were not employed in formal jobs outside because of a number of reasons. First, they can not easily step outside their house premises to take up a job due to restrictions imposed by families and community. Secondly, regular jobs are not easily available to these women given their educational and professional backgrounds. Lastly, the work pressure on the home front is a factor that discourages many women from sustaining any occupation that does not ensure them a regular income. 71 It is significant to note that New Delhi with a total population of 13.78 mn, of which 6.21 mn are females (Census of India, 2001), had a total of only 3.89 mn employed population in 1999-2000 (Economic Survey of Delhi 2003-2004). In fact, Economic Survey of Delhi (2003-2004) reports decline in the percentage of employed people to total population from 33.04% in 1992 to 29.28% in 1999-2000. Such decline indicates that finding a regular job even if allowed to go out and work, is difficult for women of Seelampur, given their social and educational background. In February 2006, some of the ICT trainees were giving private tuitions to youngsters to make a little income which they generally contribute to their families. There were some who used to make a small income by tutoring but later quit it because they could not get time for it. Razia Khatoonvii said, “Earlier I used to do beautician’s work. Then did mehndi work, embroidery and bag-making. But finally, could not continue with any of these on a regular basis because there was not enough time. I have to raise two young children and do housework. So, there’s hardly any time left for anything else.” The low participation of women in the employment sector is also reflected in the Census of India (2001) data which shows that of the total 649,451 workers in Delhi slums, only 78,225 are women, making only 12% of the total workforce. The experiences of Seelampur women illustrates that they can’t do a regular job because of their domestic responsibilities in the roles of wives, daughters or mothers. This finding resonates with the feminist literature which highlights that works of women are almost by definition non-technological. Cockburn (1985) states that “…..Women’s work means staying at home with sick children if need be.” 72 4.2.2.5 Reasons for Adopting ICT training: An analysis As discussed, the over-all unemployment is high in the city (Section 3.2.4) and women make only 12% of the workforce in Delhi slums (Section 5.2.4), partly due to prevalent social-cultural milieu and lack of specialized training or skills required for securing a job. These two factors make it increasingly difficult for these women to enter the employment sector. Seelampur ICT Centre trainees who chose to enroll for computer training are mostly in the age group of 18-25 yrs possess some level of education from government-run schools where the quality of education has always been in question and the medium of instruction is Hindi, the national language of India. Although it is widely argued that knowledge of English is a crucial aspect in gaining proficiency in computerbased learning including Internet surfing as English covers roughly 69% of all web pages (ITU, 2003). All these factors together with the constraints of social and cultural practices like confining women to their homes and immediate neighbourhood puts women in a peculiarly disadvantaged situation. But these very same factors have influenced the local women to join the telecentre as it is affordable and a woman-only place (which is crucial in order to get familial and community’s permission to register for the training). But the ultimate factor to join the telecentre for women thus situated in their social milieu, is the hope of finding a “computer-based”, “decent” job after they have acquired the ICT skills. . The interviews show that most of the women trainees perceive computer knowledge as a “sophisticated” skill and believe that it is a necessity to know computers in today’s work environment where computer is omnipresent. And hence, finding employment on the basis of this skill would be relatively easy. Such perceptions are wellreflected in the quotes from the interviewees. Shahana Khanviii said, 73 “I am very new to computer so do not know its benefits exactly but I believe that it is beneficial in every field. It will help me get a job; then I can support my family”. Several other women interviewees at the telecentre including Shaziaix expressed similar perceptions and expectations from their ICT training. Shazia said, “I hope to get a job after the computer training. I will do any kind of job; depends what I get.…..People have been trying to get me job, but (there is) no success till now………As of now, I don’t experience any benefits from computers in the real life but I am hopeful that success will come soon”. Saira Jamarx shared a different reason for seeking employment through ICTs, “After the training, I’ll do only computer work because that is desk work. I can’t do work like surveys because people are not good. So, I don’t want to be in the field…….I am looking for a job for the last one year now. But haven’t got one. I have told Guddi (the trainer) about it and requested for her help if she can help me in getting some employment”. The findings show that it is the perception of ICTs as a potential employment generator that has influenced ICT adoption among women limiting its association only with younger women with relatively better educational levels within the community. It is argued that such perceptions and the given social and cultural conditions that restrict their mobility, have brought women of the local community to the telecentre for training in ICT. However, the benefits in terms of employment have not been realized. 74 4.2.2.6 Employment Status: A Reality Check Except one, none of the trainees at the telecentre, those who are presently enrolled and even those who have already completed their ICT training, have been able to find an employment based entirely on their computer skills. The centre’s trainer informed that “probably”xi one trainee who graduated from the Centre earlier is teaching computer in a private school. The data shows that telecentre users do not experience any benefits from their training. Yet, due to their educational, economic and social positioning and subsequent lack of better job related avenues, they attach hopes of employment to computer skills. At the telecentre only a few have seen the multimedia vocational CDs (developed by the telecentre initiators) but have never applied those learning in real life. Data shows that users never combined traditional forms of skills like tailoring and embroidery with the use of ICTs through market their products through e-shopping, as is claimed by the initiators who have also created a portal www.seelampurmart.org . Interviews with the trainees in the Embroidery and Tailoring Course showed that none of them have ever used a computer either for marketing their products or learning embroidery and tailoring skills, vocational CDs of which are present in the telecentre. Shamaxii , the embroidery teacher who visits the telecentre room almost every hour as her embroidery class is just across the corridor said, “I know nothing of computers. I have never used it. I have never seen anything related to embroidery on a computer. I know my embroidery from my mother. I have been doing this for many years now. I teach my girls (trainees) what I know. I don’t need a computer for that.” The data shows that telecentre in practicality is only being used for ICT training (MS Office and Desktop Printing) purpose and supports no other service. 75 4.2.2.7 Hopes Vs. Reality Given that Seelampur telecentre is only being used for computer training purpose, we juxtapose ICT trainees’ hopes of getting employment and the reality in terms of the rate of computer jobs acquisition. It is found that there is a wide gap between the two as the rate of IT-based employment is almost negligible. Now in the larger picture where, unemployment rate has gone higher and women make only 10-20 % of the total IT workforce and also, IT jobs are mainly focused on skills like programming, web-designing, and are mainly in the hands of highly qualified skilled workforce (as depicted in Table 4.1), or with the well-educated, English-speaking urban elite, there is a question mark on the expectations of securing a job which is being fondly nurtured by the women trainees at the telecentre. The fundamental issue that has to be addressed is of absorption of this segment of unprivileged IT ‘skilled’ workers. Even though they might possess some technical training, yet their employability potential in the market remains low because of their nontechnical assets which have been determined by their socio-economic and cultural contexts. This disadvantaged social positioning of women was also acknowledged by the local Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA)xiii, Chaudhury Mateenxiv who while talking of computers’ benefits for women said, “It would definitely be very difficult for these girls (trainees at the ICT Centre) to find a job because of their educational background of which English is a very important aspect. Almost all have studied from the government schools where the medium of instruction is not English.” It is seen that even though women have acquired basic computer skills, they face multiple problems of lower educational level, non-English background and lack of other soft skills which are barriers to their employment in the Indian IT industry, including 76 ITES and BPO sector. Emphasis on non-technological and soft skills is also stated in Kathleen Cotton’s review report as cited in Baker et.al.(1999). “Kathleen Cotton reviewed 63 documents on employability skills and reports that employers’ dissatisfaction with young job holders is not primarily due to inadequate technical knowledge and skill, but rather the non-technical, employability skills, categorized here as basic skills, as in math and writing, higher-order thinking skills such as problem solving and decision making, and social skills and traits such as dependability, positive attitude, and cooperativeness” (Baker et.al,1999). Hence, it is found that even though women trainees at Seelampur telecentre have acquired some basic IT training, their over-all employability potential remains low given their socio-cultural background which determines their educational background, proficiency in English and social skills. 4.3 Thailand 4.3.1 IT in Thailand: An Overview A comparison between data of phone and mobile subscription, and computer and Internet usage gives a clearer picture of different levels of penetration for IT equipments. According to World Telecommunication Development Report 2003, Thailand has 10.4 subscriber lines per 100 inhabitants and 26.0 mobile subscribers per 100 inhabitants compared to only 7.8 Internet users per 100 inhabitants. It is interesting to note here that though mobile phones show most impressive figures of all, Thailand witnesses a relatively poor Short Message Service (SMS) usage with only 5 million SMS sent in a day compared to 50 million in the Philippines in August 2001. Some of the factors that might be responsible for this low usage is first, the 77 language barrier as there is no Thai interface developed for GSM phones to date; second, unlike some other countries SMS was never free in the country and third, lack of content and especially local language content is a major problem. (ITU, 2002) Out of 7.8% Internet users in Thailand, it is important to note that most of these users are in Bangkok region. ITU figures show that about 71% of all Internet users are in Bangkok, 19% in other urban areas, 1% abroad and 9% in rural areas, which is a clear picture of digital divide between the urban and rural conglomeration (See Fig 4.1). Figure 4.1: Distribution of Thai Internet Users by Location (in 2000) (Source: ITU, 2002) Figure 4.2: Thai Internet market (Source: ITU, 2002) 78 According to ITU (2002), the number of Internet users increased from 950,000 to 2.3 mn in 1999-2000 period boosting the ‘Internet user penetration’ from 1.5% to 3.7% in the same time period (See Figure 4.2).Yet, this figure is nowhere near the perceived potential to bridge the digital divide in the country. The Economist Intelligence Unit/Pyramid Research e-readiness ranking which actually rates the country’s readiness for e-business ranked Thailand on 46th position with e-readiness score of 3.75 on a scale of 10, which puts it below Malaysia and Philippines. 4.3.2 Human Resource in IT Reliable data on employment generated in the IT industry within Thailand is difficult to find. Even the National Statistical Office (NSO), Thailand- published data on Employed Population disaggregated by Industry does not mention any figures exclusively for IT industry as a separate category. The ICT Survey 2005 by NSO, Thailand shows that there are 25,373 software specialists in all the establishments in the municipal areas of the country. Out of which 56.9% are Software developers and maintenance programmers, 23.7% are computer systems designers and analysts and 19.4% are web-programmer and web-masters. So, out of 896,789 people using computers in the establishments, only about 25,373 are software specialists (NSO Thailand, 2005). It might be inferred that majority of the users are not in the core IT specializations like software development and webprogramming rather using computers for more administrative and general management work. This is further supported by Laosiriratxv (2000) which states “programmes installed and used in businesses are mainly for general management” including accounting, 79 inventory management, cost administration, sales and client administration , production control and quality control. In fact, this fact about usage of computers mostly for general management purpose gets corroborated by the field study at Jakkarat T-Centre. More than 65% of the users enrolled with the Centre are ‘General Management’ graduate students from a local university who are undergoing ICT training with expectations of employment. It should be noted that these students are doing ICT training at the T-Centre as a part of their 3 month attachment with the CBIRD Centre—a requirement for the completion of their graduate programme at the university. During the vocation period, the students undergo a 12 hr training in MS Office, Basic computer and Internet use at the T-Centre for which they pay THB 450. 4.3.3 Computer Usage Pattern in Establishments An understanding of the total number of establishments, their computer usage pattern and the factors responsible for not having computers at the establishments, could elucidate on the nature of IT workforce requirement in the Thai employment sector. Thailand has a total of 832,043 establishments in the municipal areas of the whole kingdom with at least 1 or more persons engaged in it (NSO, 2005). Of these, 96.3% is small scale establishments with 1-15 persons working in them, 1.4% with 16-25 persons, 0.4% with 26-30 persons, 0.7% with 31-50, 0.9% with 51-200 and 0.3% with more than 200 persons (NSO, 2005). Out of the total only 20.5% of all the establishments use computers (NSO, 2005). The largest establishments has the highest average of 92 computers per establishment, 80 and the total number of persons using computers in all the establishments is 896,789 (NSO, 2005). According to NSO (2005) survey, the biggest reason against computer usage as given by 91.8% establishments is ‘not appropriate/unnecessary for business’s form or goods and services’. The chart below (See Fig 4.3) shows other reasons that discourage or work against computer usage by establishments. The survey reported that in 2006, only 2.7% of the establishments are planning to use computers. Figure 4.3: Percentage of establishments against computer by reason and planning in year 2006 (Source: National Statistical Office (Thailand), 2005) 4.3.4 The Jakkarat Telecentre under Thailand Canada Telecentre Project The findings presented here are based on interviews of users and non-users of the telecentre, conducted with the aid of semi-structured questionnaire. The sample size was 28, of 81 which 14 were users of the Seelampur ICT Centre and 14 were non-users but residents of the same or nearby villages. 4.3.4.1 Distribution of telecentre users across age groups Around 79% of the telecentre users are in the age group of 16 to 30 yrs and only 7% in the age group of 31-35 yrs and 14% are over the age of 40 years (See Table 4.2). The users above 40 do not visit the telecentre for computer training but for Internet surfing. Unlike Seelampur telecentre, the Jakkarat telecentre apart from offering computer training also functions as cyber-café where people come for computer usage and pay on an hourly basis. It is to be noted that 50% of the total usersxvi visiting the telecentre are students enrolled in Bachelor’s degree of General Management in a local university who, as a part of arrangement between the CBIRD Centre and the university, are attached to CBIRD Centre, Jakkarat. Two undergraduate students of Khonken University, visiting telecentre for their personal usage come to the Jakkarat CBIRD Centre for their 3-month vocational training in Agricultural Sciences. Laipanxvii said, “In my work (agriculture), we have to be in the fields in the scorching sun. So, sometimes we (she and her peer in the agricultural course) come to the telecentre to sit in the air-conditioner and then also take the opportunity to surf internet.” Two local studentsxviii, who just completed their ‘A’ level and would be joining undergraduate course soon, prefer to come to this telecentre instead of going to another cybercafé for two reasons: first, this is less expensive than the privately owned cybercafés and second, “not many people come to this T-Centre so computer terminals are easily available for work. We don’t have to wait.”xix The study finds that majority of the telecentre users are college level students and are in the age group of 16 - 30 yrs. Some of them visit the telecentre to meet the mandatory requirements for their graduate programmes. And most of the other casual visitors visit the telecentre for more frivolous reasons than actual ICT training or use of ICT services. 82 4.3.4.2 Distribution of telecentre users across educational levels Distribution of telecentre users of the Jakkarat telecentre across educational qualifications clearly shows that those coming for computer training or computer usage for personal purposes are well-educated and have good educational qualifications. Field data shows that 85.71% of the users are either graduates or about to graduate soonxx and 14.28% have obtained secondary school qualifications.xxi (See Table 4.4) Table 4.4 : Distribution of telecentre users and non-users by their level of education, (Jakkarat Telecntre Project, Thailand, % of Total) Education level Telecentre users Telecentre non-users Illiterate - - Primary - 57.14 (8/14) Middle - 7.14 Secondary 14.28 28.57 Graduate/graduating 85.71 7.14 Total 100 100 Among the non-users category, the field data shows 57.14% of the sample have primary level qualifications, 35.71% to have middle/secondary level qualifications and only a meagre 7.14% to be graduates. This trend shows a striking similarity with the case of Seelampur in that the community has much higher concentration of primary qualifications and only 7.14% possess graduate degrees. The users of the telecentre show very high involvement of graduates at an overwhelming 85.71% mark. A comparison of Tables 4.3 and 4.4 shows that it is relatively better educated in a community who access telecentres implying that the educational background of the participants 83 have a crucial role in determining ICT adoption and usage. Such an observation also implies that this lop-sided access to technology has to be addressed, and the target of the project implementers should be designed in a way to include the illiterates or lesser educated of the community too. . 4.3.4.3 ICT: Associated perceptions The field data from Jakkarat T-Centre shows that the telecentre users apart from taking training in MS Office, Basic computer, Internet usage, engage in other activities too like listening to music, playing games and surfing Internet. Yet, what makes computer and its training highly significant is the demand of basic computer skills in job market and thereby, the “ease” in getting employment. This perception of ICT as primarily helpful in securing employment or securing a better-paid job runs across the field data. Runodipxxii, a General management student at the Lachapat University who is coming to the T-centre for almost a month believes, “Computers are helpful in getting information on education, health, employment, government schemes, in doing university assignments, and also as a source of entertainment and e-shopping. But computer training is most valuable to me because when I write computer trained on my resume, it provides me much better chances of success in my job-hunt”. Even those visitors to the telecentre who are not enrolled in computer training hold similar views that suggest computers importance is associated with its promise to get employment. Wilaipan Supasrixxiii said, “I became aware of the T-centre when a meeting was held here in this (telecentre) room and when I saw air-conditioner my first reaction was I must come here….I enjoy playing online computer games….but computers remain most important in terms of employment. If you have training in MS Office it is so much helpful in getting a job.” The significant finding is that even the non-users of the telecentre and people not using computers like farmers and businessmen—men and women alike—also share 84 exactly the same view on the use and benefits of computer skills. Data shows that the non-users of the telecentre consider computers and its related technologies to be relevant for the ‘educated youth’, especially those seeking employment. By the same argument, the local community –men and women alike—feels that computers are “irrelevant” for them as the pre-requisites for learning it are good educational base and young age, time when one is striving to make a career. Pin Sanpenxxiv is a Primary 4 pass out who runs a food shop. In her interview while talking of computers and its benefits, she said, “ “…………But I want my children to learn it because getting a job becomes much easier. And this I can confidently say because my granddaughter learnt how to use a computer and she easily got a job in Korat Central . ………I am too old for that (learning and using computer skills) and secondly, it is of no use to me………And anyways I do not have any time. I have to be at the shop or on the farms all the time after my domestic work.” Similar to the elderly intervieweesxxv, even the not-so-old ones share similar Riaxxvi, an illiterate woman who has not even seen a computer in her life views. believes, “computers do benefit …… it gives knowledge. But I don’t know what kind of knowledge….Except the word computer I don’t know anything about it. But one day in future my sons would study it and it would help them in their lives………then they can find some job in an office.” The dominant reasons cited by the local village community for not associating themselves with computers and the telecentre are lack of time and non-relevance. Analysis of text data shows that such an understanding has its basis in their constructed meanings and views on computer ‘as a technology for the youth and the educated; beneficial mostly in seeking employment’. 85 As a result, the elders-- men as well as women-- in the community do not participate in any ICT activities. The young boys and girls mostly have the option of using computers at their schools or universities so, they don’t see a reason in coming to a telecentre and use computers on per-hour payment basis. 4.3.4.4 ICT: Expectations Vs Reality The empirical finding that computers are primarily associated with employment prospects when placed against the backdrop of the studies and figures on IT workforce and the nature of IT skills in demand in the employment sector in Thailand, it is derived that the expectations of women telecentre users are not misplaced and employment opportunities for the trainees at the Jakkarat telecentre are substantial. The ICT Survey 2005 figures show that only 25,373 out of 896,789 people using computers (in establishments) are into core IT work which means majority is employed in IT enabled services and general management. This scenario ensures good employability potential for the population skilled in basic computing like MS Office and Internet surfing. For the trainees at Jakkarat T-Centre, employment opportunities would not be scarce for two reasons: first, there is a demand for such skills in the job market and second, because these students are not merely IT trained; basic IT skills only make a part of their skill set which is collectively called ‘General Management’. So, the issue of employers’ dissatisfaction because of lack of non-technical skills as cited in Cotton’s report is taken care of as these students apart from computer training also possess other non-IT skills by virtue of being final year graduate students of General Management at an established university. 86 4.4 Perceptions and Actions at the two telecentre locations: A comparison As far as the opinions and views go, there are many similarities between the Indian and the Thai telecentre cases. In both places, as data suggest, there is high correlation between computer technology and employment, computer technology and higher education, and computers and youth as they are the ones who seek employment in the job market. The education distribution pattern further corroborates these perceptions and correlations with more than 85% of the telecenter users having graduate level qualifications and the remaining bearing ‘A’ level qualifications (in Jakkarat telecentre case). But attitudes and actions toward the ICTs housed within telecentre premises in respective locations are almost antithetical to each other in that in the Indian context the hopes of being able to find a job after computer training encouraged the women in the community to join the ICT centre while in the Thai context similar views that computers help secure a job easily had just the opposite reactions. The result is that apart from the students on vocational training with the CBIRD there are no other registrations for ICT training at the T-Centre. A key element to be noted in the Jakkarat telecentre case is that only 50% of the users are enrolled in computer training, and this 50% did not ‘choose’ to enrol solely for computer training. They are Bachelor students of General Management course of which CBIRD attachment is a part, and ICT training is a small part within that. Apart from the students taking training at CBIRD, the profile of the other users and their reasons for coming to the telecentre shows the telecentre is being visited not for work or income-related activities. Two elderly users who live 100 metres away from the telecentre come for casual Internet surfing, some visit for playing games and some visit for the sake of air-conditioned atmosphere of the telecentre. Telecentre users come to the Centre mostly for casual web-surfing and seldom for purposes of documentation/ accounting or 87 any serious job-related or professional work. For ICT training, apart from the female students doing their attachment with the CBIRD Centre -- and doing computer training as a part of it— there are no enrolments at the centre. After the description of the users’ profiles and their reasons for coming to the telecentre, it is concluded that the telecentre is not visited by the socially and economically disadvantaged women in Jakkarat. Such a differential behaviour in the adoption of ICTs exhibited by the women of the different communities (Seelampur and Jakkarat) is explained by the social context of the two respective underprivileged populations in India and Thailand. The Indian population submerged in the hardships of ghetto life desperately needs employment or a self-started low-cost small enterprise where they can make small homebased products. Their positioning in a major city like New Delhi has eliminated the options of low-cost traditional occupations of villages like agriculture, animal farming and plantations. Some women are involved in small businesses like bag-making and embroidery but avenues for marketing their products is very limited, and consequently, they can’t make any regular income. So, in a city where over-all unemployment rate is high, and in a slum where population belongs to the lowest economic strata, and a context where women face tremendous social constraints, the placement of a woman-only telecentre immediately emerges as an avenue with the promise of begetting employments. On the other hand, the Thai context of a village is completely different. Local community that is generally primary or secondary qualified (from the field data—57.14% are primary qualified, 35.71% are middle/secondary qualified and roughly 7.14% are graduates) see computers as an equipment for the educated, elite and youth who sooner or later have to look for an employment in the formal sector. And it is these constructed meanings combined with their self-concept which determines their behaviour of complete 88 aloofness from computer related technologies. Stanley (2003) points out the key psychosocial obstacles that undermine motivation of socio-economically disadvantaged persons for acquiring computer skills as: ‘relevance’, ‘fear’ and ‘self-concept’. Additionally, being a rural area provides options of farming, vegetable plantations, construction work, factory workxxvii as well as low-cost living (unlike New Delhi context), which keeps them continued with their traditional work and aloof from newer technologies like ICTs for which they don’t feel any need or relevance. Social positioning and psychological obstacles combined keep the Thai rural population to their more traditional occupations of farming and non-technical work like running a noodle-shop and working as a labourer in building construction, which provides them their means of livelihood. In Jakkarat, it is noticed that even the younger generation of females from the nearby villages do not visit the telecentre although the overwhelming understanding of the local community is that computer skills are suited for young and educated. This is explained by Thailand’s IT policies and initiatives that aim to promote computer technology especially among youngsters for which they are providing good levels of computer and Internet penetration in schools and universities. 89 Figure 4.4: Computer Penetration in Thai Schools (Source: ITU, adapted from NECTEC and Ministry of Education, Thailand, 2000) Figure 4.4 above shows that computer penetration in Thai schools and universities is substantial with 100% universities having PCs and Internet connection and 91% secondary schools with PCs and 44% with Internet connection, too. This together with the fact that combined gross enrolment ratio for primary, secondary and tertiary level schools for female is 72% and that for male is also the same (HDR, 2005) suggests that most of the young population has access to computer and Internet in their formal educational institutes. These figures explain why the school-going and college-going age groups are absent from the telecentre picture in Thailand while the same age group throngs the telecentre in India. It is concluded that the differential behaviour exhibited by the two communities has its basis in the larger social context. 4.5 Employment prospects of the two telecentre users: A Comparison Comparing the educational levels of the telecentre users, their social and cultural context and the IT industry workforce of the two different locations, we derive that the employment prospects for the trainees at the two telecentres are divergent. Some of the 90 specific factors that lead to this derivation are: first, over 85% of the users at the Jakkarat telecentre have or are enrolled in their graduate degrees whereas only 30% of the Seelampur telecentre hold graduate degrees; second is the factor of English language. Most of the users in the Indian case have had non-English (Hindi) medium education which works against their employment prospects as the official language in Indian public as well as private sector is English. Hence, working knowledge of the language is essential. In Thailand case, all the users have obtained large part of their school education in Thai and were introduced to English much later. As all the telecentre users at Jakkarat have higher than secondary level qualifications, they do have working knowledge of English. All the more, the official language in Thailand’s public and private sector is Thai so English does not become a barrier in job prospects. Thirdly as studies show, there is a requirement for specialized/ tertiary IT skills and qualification like M.tech/CA/MBA/MCA/B.Tech/B.E in the Indian IT industry or for Convent educated urban elite in the ITES sector. This scenario leaves the Seelampur telecentre trainees with not so good employment prospect. But in Thailand as Laosirirat (2000) states “programmes installed and used in businesses are mainly for general management” including accounting, inventory management, cost administration, sales and client administration, production control and quality control; hence the chances of finding a job for the users at the Jakkarat telecentre are much realistic. Fourthly, Kathleen Cotton’s report in Baker et al (1999) which states “employers’ dissatisfaction with young job holders is not primarily due to inadequate technical knowledge and skill, but rather the non-technical, employability skills categorized here as basic skills, as in math and writing, higher-order thinking skills…….” such as problem- 91 solving and decision making, and social skills and traits such as dependability, positive attitude, and cooperativeness. In the light of such reports, prospect of employment for Seelampur telecentre trainees having basic education and basic MS Office and DTP skills, is not very high, especially in the context of the city with high unemployment. In Thailand case, as all the telecentre users at Jakkarat are or going to be university graduates-- by virtue of which they potentially possess higher level “basic skills”, securing employment remains a high possibility. 4.6 Conclusion This chapter draws attention to the finding that adoption of ICT, specifically computers, is rooted in the social, cultural and economic conditions of a given community. It is the social and economic context which determines a community’s extent and nature of interaction with computers and subsequently, telecentres. Adoption and association with ICTs for the women of these underserved communities is largely determined by their constructed meanings and perceptions of computers as a technology for youth and educated and most significantly as a skill which enhances employment prospects. In taking a community level cross-national perspective we derive that though the perceptions of the two communities separated in space and time are the same, their interaction with ICTs show dissimilarities. Also, due to differences in IT industry scenario and the IT workforce requirements in respective countries, the outcomes for the women of the two communities are also not similar. In Seelampur, the women users of the telecentre continue to face difficulty in getting a job whereas the trainees at the Jakkarat telecentre are highly hopeful of getting employment. This again highlights the 92 significance of the larger social, economic and cultural context as determinants of the outcomes—beneficial or otherwise-- of ICT adoption and usage by community. Endnotes i Parvati Devi Sharma (Age: 50 yrs) was interviewed on February 18, 2006 at Seelampur. Sufia (Age:16yrs) was interviewed on Feb 20, 2006 at Seelampur. She is a non-user of ICT Centre. iii Maulana Zaffruddin was interviewed on Feb 13, 2006 at the Babool-ulm-madarsa. He wields significant influence in the political and social arena of the Muslim community in Seelampur-Zaffarabad area. iv In India, Middle school means Primary 6 to Secondary 2 education. v Secondary school qualification is equivalent to ‘O’ level. vi Census of India, 2001. Retrieved on Jan 29, available at http://www.censusindia.net/results/slum/Statement-II.pdf vii Razia Khatoon (Age: 27 yrs) was interviewed on Feb 15, 2006. viii Shahana Khan (Age:17 yrs) was interviewed on Feb 14, 2006 at the telecentre. She has left her home in another state and has come to live with her relatives in New Delhi in search of a job. ix Shazia (Age: 21 yrs) was interviewed on Feb 27, 2006 at the telecentre. She is physically challenged. She has mastered the art of functioning on the keyboard with her toes. Her inspiring story has found mention in many newspaper reports that hype the outcomes of the telecentre. According to her, she has been used to doing all her work from daily chores to selling of paper packets with her toes and feet, so operating the keyboard is “just another thing” for her. x Saira Jamar (Age: 20yrs) was interviewed on Feb 25, 2006 at the telecentre. xi The trainer said that a girl had found employment in a private school but was not sure if she is still continuing there. xii Shama (Age: 30 yrs) was interviewed on Feb 15, 2006. She is a divorcee with 2 kids. xiii MLA stands for Member of the Legislative Assembly who is democratically elected to the state government as a representative of the people of the respective constituency. xiv Chaudhury Mateen was interviewed on Feb 19, 2006 at his residence in Seelampur. xv Dr.Phanit Laosirirat is the Director of Research and Information Technology Division , Thailand Productivity Institute. xvi Total number of users means the number of users who visited telecentre in the researcher’s one-week stay at the field site. xvii Laipan (Age: 22 yrs) was interviewed on Mar 16, 2006 at the telecentre premises. xviii Mayan (Age: 18 yrs) and Hirini (Age: 18 yrs) were interviewed on Mar 14, 2006 at the Jakkarat telecentre. xix Warini quoted this segment during her interview on 15 Mar, 2006 at the telecentre. xx Nine of the users coming to T-centre are enrolled in their graduation; 7 in General Management Course at Khonken university and 2 Agricultural Sciences course in Lachapat university. xxi Hirini and Mayan have just qualified ‘A’ level and are about to join Bachelor’s degree in the coming intake. xxii Runodip (Age: 22 yrs) was interviewed on Mar 15, 2006 at the Jakkarat telecentre. xxiii Wilaipan Supasri (Age: 21 yrs) was interviewed on Mar 18, 2006 at the Jakkarat telecentre. She is a student of Bachelor in Agricultural Sciences at the Khonkan university and visits CBIRD centre as a part of 2 month attachment for vocational training in Agricultural science. xxiv Pin Sanpen (Age: 55 yrs) was interviewed on Mar 14, 2006 at the village Nangpuan. ii 93 xxv Pramoon (Age: 43 yrs) was interviewed on Mar 14, 2006 at the village Nangpuan. Ria (Age: 33 yrs) was interviewed on Mar 18, 2006 at village Nangpuan. xxvii There are six factories of multi-national companies that employ only local population in the factory level work; only the managerial and supervisory roles are occupied by outsiders. xxvi 94 5 Telecentre: Potential Site for Community and Social Capital This chapter takes a look at the community aspect at the two telecentre sites being studied for this research. It gives a picture of how and why the communities are being formed or not being formed at these sites; and, how the social and cultural context shapes such formations. And based on the nature of community formation, how social capital could be consciously and effectively generated to bring the ‘welfare goods’ to the respective communities. Based on the interviews of 41 respondents in Seelampur (India) and 28 respondents in Jakkarat (Thailand) case study, this chapter presents findings on the nature of computer usage patterns, relation of computer usage to educational qualifications, location of the respective telecentres, and their correlation with community formation and social participation. The chapter also dwells upon the views and understanding of the non-users of telecentres about computer technology. Steering through issues shaping the understanding of computer technology among communities, the chapter focuses on the socio-cultural aspects conditioning the gender-ICT interaction among these populations. Later, some recommendations are made on how to establish close linkages between gender and technology through telecentres by making it more accepted and effective in the real life of targeted populations. These recommendations would find its basis in the theory of social capital (elaborated in Chapter 1). 5.1 Community Building: The influencing factors 95 5.1.1 Seelampur Telecentre: Birth of a community The Seelampur telecentre in a corner of the ‘madarsa’ has become a hub for social interactions among the computer trainees and also between the telecentre trainees and the teachers and trainees at the embroidery and tailoring courses being run in the room opposite to ICT Centre. This community formed at the ICT Centre is strongly reflective of Tonnies’ Community of place and Community of mind or spirit. It can be classified as community of place as all the users belong to the same dense geographical locality but it is primarily the commonality of their ‘work’—training at the telecentre—which strongly binds them together. As Tonnies (2001) argues fatherhood to be the foundation for concept of ‘authority’ within a community, which in general, is complimented by feelings of reverence from others within the community. Similar picture is evident in the Seelampur ICT Centre where the computer trainer has an inherent position of authority as she moderates the goings-on and the trainees exuberantly exhibit a lot of respect for her; in telecentre users’ opinion she is not just a trainer but also a friend who always supports and helps. Salmai said, “… here it is comfortable because the trainer is good and helpful, in the previous centre there was a male teacher, so I had a lot of hesitation. But Guddi is very helpful.” Some of the factors that played a significant role in contributing to the formation of a community at this telecentre site are discussed in the following sections. 96 5.1.1.1 The Physical infrastructure The interviews and participant observation of the telecentre identifies a few factors responsible for the growth of a community among the telecentre users at Seelampur. Table 5.1: The physical infrastructure at Seelampur ICT Centre and Jakkarat T-Centre Infrastructure India Thailand No. of computers 6 9 Internet Disconnected (temporarily) Available Online Connectivity Unavailable Dial-up Printer/Scanner/Copier 1 (Non-functional) 1 Speakers 1 pair 1 pair Web-camera 0 0 Air conditioner 1 (mostly switch-off) 2 (mostly switched-on) Electricity supply Discontinuous Constant Back-up power supply Yes (mostly unused) - Approximate No. of Users 90 14 At the time of the field study, there were about 90 women enrolled for IT training at the Seelampur ICT Centre. The Centre is open on six days a week except Fridayii, from 8 am to 4 pm. On any working day, there are 4 batches of 2 hours duration each. Each registered girl comes for training on all the six days of the week, and the total duration of training is roughly one year, depending on the trainees’ decision. As we see in Table 5.1, there are only 6 computers against total enrolment of 90, it is obvious that the trainees have to share the terminals among themselves, leaving 3-4 usersiii to one computer. Normally, when there were 3 users at one terminal, each would 97 get a chance of hands-on experience for 40 minutes (one-third of two hours) and the other two would simply watch, comment, advise and learn by seeing the peer. This particular arrangement of accommodating 3-4 users at one computer terminal is conducive for the growth of a community when the very closely-sitting girls talk and share their views on a common subject and learn a common skill. It appears that the limited number of computers and even the absence of Internet have inadvertently helped the formation of a community. So, the time which could have been spent in web-surfing, emailing, chatting, buffering music and videos, basically engaging in activities in sole interaction with computers, is being utilized for training purpose and interacting with peers around while waiting to get their turn for hands-on training. It is to be noted that even when there was dial-up Internet connection at the Centre till December 2005, it was available only to one computer. So, this factor of physical arrangement of the infrastructure and the trainees, responsible for the onset of community formation dynamics, has been present at the Centre ever since its inception. 5.1.1.2 Computer Activities Data show that a meager 10% of the users had experience with chatting or emailing and only 5% had indulged in casual web-surfing and 5% in work like documentation/ accounting. None of them had ever used the Internet related to their occupation/studies or for watching films and listening to music or for playing computer games. The activity which ranks top in Table 5.2 is ‘training’ with all the users participating in it, and the activities which ranks at the bottom are web-surfing for work/studies and playing music/films and playing games. 98 Table 5.2 : Rank Order of Computer Activities undertaken by telecentre users at Seelampur ICT Centre, India Serial No. Rank order Computer Activities 1 1 Computer training (MS Office, DTP) 2 2 chatting/emailing 3 3 Web-surfing for casual indulgence 4 3 documentation/accounting 5 4 web surfing for work/studies 6 4 films/music 7 4 Playing games (Source: Author’s fieldwork, 2006) None of the users had ever indulged in Rank 4 activities as seen in Table 5.2 and a miniscule percentage very rarely were involved in emailing/chatting, internet surfing for casual indulgence and offline usages like documentation/ accounting leaving all of them only to one engagement that is training. This coupled with infrastructure arrangement (See Table 5.1), and 3:1 computer usage ratio where three to four users use one computer for 2 hours, it emerges that the Centre trainees do not have any other specific activity either on or off Internet/ during their training period, leaving them with time and a situation which encourages chatting, remarking, sharing concerns and feelings and ultimately building up a community therein. For instance, Asma iv while waiting for her turn on the keyboard pointed to the computer screen and guided her peer in the group, “no….first click this bucket and then choose a colour to fill in. Then you can have background of that colour”. Such instances and talk among common acquaintances and on common subjects in the neighbourhood fills the small room with closely seated girls with vibrant social interaction, all through the day. Based on the Time Displacement Hypothesis, Nie et al (2002) associate increased Internet use with negative social outcomes. The argument is that the time spent on one activity must replace the time spent on another. Thus, the time spent alone on the Internet is the time not spent in social activities. Some literature on the effects of the Internet on 99 family and social ties has established a negative relationship between increased use of the Internet and social life. For example, according to Kraut et.al. (1998), an increased use of the Internet also decreases communication within the family and negatively affects the size of user’s local social networks. In the backdrop of these studies, an evaluation of buzzing activity at Seelampur telecentre suggests that the absence of the Internet and lack of other resources like sufficient number of computers, games and multimedia CDs have contributed to physical, mental and even emotional closeness among the users, giving rise to a community of their own. 5.1.1.3 Location and Nature of the centre An important feature which must find mention is the strategic location of the ICT Centre. Its location in the annex of the mosque-madarsa building and presence of an old watchwoman taking note of people entering and leaving the premises has given additional confidence to families about their girls’ safety. As we see in Section 6.5, word of mouth has been the only mode of awareness generation (See Table 5.); and the location of the centre within the madarsa premises can be mainly credited for effectively disseminating information about the telecentre presence as most of the users and nonusers in the locality who are aware of it were informed only by the announcements at the mosque on Fridaysv, after the congregation of local men community has offered ‘namaaz’vi. The strategic location which helped disseminate information about telecentre, character of the centre which is all-women, presence of a middle-aged woman janitor and its location beside other women-specific training courses of embroidery and tailoring, make an ideal environment for a bustling community life. 100 5.1.1.4 Woman-Only telecentre It is noteworthy that such a vibrant community formation at the telecentre is rooted in the fact that the centre is an all-woman location which makes the place easily accessible for women, encourages permission from families to join the training, provides an enjoyable gathering where they feel comfortable, talk openly to peers and make new friends. As all belong to the neighbourhood and are parts of similar conservative social set-up, there is a high level associational factor working among them, which is clearly expressed in the informal chats, craning of heads towards other computer terminals with some quick chat, informal and sometimes even personal talks with the trainer, and generally a happy and vibrant atmosphere. The computer trainer, Guddivii said, “Sometimes I look for another job………’par kya Karen…mera mann bhi yahin lagta hai. Ladkiyon ke saath acha lagta hai’ (but what should I do…… I too like it very much here. It feels good to be with these girls).” The scenario, expressions and narrations exemplify Cockburn’s “woman-only” approach when she argues that “by far the most effective principle evolved to date is a separate, woman-only organization. …….autonomy works wonders for our feelings and our strength. We need, before all else, a great expansion of the autonomous women’s sphere in technology” (Cockburn, 1985). This principle is well reflected in the Seelampur woman-only centre and is corroborated by the feelings of the trainees there. The 20 yr old Saira Jamarviii who lives in nearby Timber market said, “It’s good to have all women centre because the ones in veils can come here. Even the families will be more permissive to send their daughters for this reason. Here, there is no hesitation among girls. We all comfortably chat and interact. We easily make friends here”. Razia Khatoonix, 27 yr old cheerful looking woman who has already completed her training keeps popping by at the Centre. She said, 101 “if there is some work or if I have to meet with my friends here, then I come over”. (In her short visit with a friend at the centre, she was chatting, giggling and interacting with a handful of telecentre users.) Table 5.3: Profile of the telecentre users interviewed at Seelampur ICT Centre, India Age range Employment No. of users (yrs) Education Level type interviewed 16-20 Sec. School Casual Labor 4 Unemployed 5 21-25 Middle Graduate Sec. School 26-30 Graduate Sec. School Unemployed Casual Labor Employed Unemployed Casual Labor Unemployed 1 4 1 3 1 5 Unemployed Casual Labor Unemployed 1 3 2 As we see in the previous chapter, girls/women join the training programme at the telecentre with specific intentions or “expectations” to become IT skilled in order to enhance their own employment opportunities and ultimately get a job. Though such beneficial outcomes of employment remain to be experienced (See Table 5.3), what women discover for themselves is that the telecentre is a pleasant and refreshing getaway from the confines of their homes and domestic responsibilities—practices that are socially determined. It is the formation of a ‘community’. Even though the study finds such a vibrant community formation at the Seelampur telecentre, it is significant to note that the formation of the community is an unintended consequence of the telecentre; it was not specified as an objective of the project at either design or implementation stage. Nonetheless, it emerges as the most obvious positive outcome of this ICT initiative. 102 5.1.2 Jakkarat T-Centre Similar to the Seelampur case study above in the chapter, this section would run through some of the factors influencing the community aspect in the Jakkarat telecentre. All the findings and factors identified are based on participant observation and interviews with 28 respondents—14 telecentre users, 14 telecentre non-users. 5.1.2.1 User Profile and pre-telecentre association The community dimension at the physical site of the Jakkarat telecentre gives a completely different picture in comparison to Seelampur centre. Here the community aspect is completely missing even though most of the visitors live in the same geographical location and bear commonality of social context. Table 5.4 shows the profile of the telecentre users who were interviewed. Seven students who belong to the same university and are doing their vocational training at CBIRD Centre do interact among themselves because of longer association at the university but they don’t mingle with others. The other two aged 21yrs and 22 yrs are enrolled with CBIRD Centre for their training in agricultural sciences; so they closely interact between themselves. Another two aged 18 yrs are again friends who live in a nearby village and have just qualified their secondary examination and come together to surf the Internet. A 54 yr old male teacher quietly surfs the Internet without ever seen to be chatting with anyone. The ‘housewife’ is the teacher’s wife who comes there occasionally to surf the Internet—another reason is the Centre’s proximity to her house which is 100 metres away. Then the CBIRD staff, a happy looking man is the only one who chats and interacts with some other users. But this could be attributed to the fact that 103 some are anyway his direct students and his general familiarity with office and the people around. Table 5.4: Profile of the Telecentre users interviewed at Jakkarat T-Centre No. of users interviewed 7 (all enrolled in training at CBIRD 2 Age (yrs) Occupation Education level Between 21 and 22 Students Graduating in General Management 21, 22 Students Graduating in agricultural science 2 18, 18 Students Secondary pass 1 51 Schoolteacher Graduate 1 45 Housewife Graduate 1 34 CBIRD staff Graduate One factor contributing to lack of community formation could be identified as dissimilarity of age groups which inhibits free and casual mingling. Another more immediate reason could be the fact that most of them have a predetermined friend or a group of friends which keeps them confined to their own social circle. 5.1.2.2 Socio-Cultural Historiography of Thai women Another factor for the lack of community formation could be that here the telecentre is not ‘an opportunity’ for girls / women to come out of their homes and establish social relations leading to greater social cohesiveness among the groups like the case in Seelampur telecentre. Although Thai history shows that the status of women was always inferior to men and they were generally subjected to do household chores, some changes in the women’s status started showing in the later part of 19th century with the efforts of then kings, and 104 especially after the revolution of 1932 which brought a significant change in the political system from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy (Thaiways magazine, 2002). Although there are works on women’s status in the post world war II Thailand showing increasing gender differences in social prestige, status and power to the disadvantage of majority of women (Muecke, 1984), it is widely observed that in recent times women are more at par with men in Thailand’s society and economy across urban and rural settings, which safeguards them from restrictions on physical mobility, participating in economic activities, choosing partner in marriage (after a certain age) and free communication with all, irrespective of sex. This kind of socio-cultural background could be a strong basis for ‘community formation’ as there are no restrictions on interaction even across gender, or lack of it as permissibility provides avenues to mingle openly anywhere anytime, not making community-building or friendship formation a separate agenda within the telecentre domain for the incomers. Some respondents mentioned making online friends. Mayanx said, “I actually use computers for searching data for term assignment. I read news and interesting stories online like stories in teen magazines. I do chatting, emailing….. and sometimes also make online friends.” So, responses and observation show there is not much physical interaction, sharing of thoughts and views, and making friends among the various groups present physically in the premises, though there are evidences of indulgence in making new online friends and chatting which could potentially be a building block for online community formation. 5.1.2.3 Jakkarat T-Centre: The physical set-up A look at the infrastructure set-up of the T-Centre as listed in Table 5.1 shows that there are nine computer terminals, all with Internet connection. And as there are only 105 seven regular IT trainees there, each have a computer to oneself, when training is in process-- officially they are enrolled for only 12 hrs of computer training in a period of three months of training with CBIRD Centre. So, generally they either play computer games alone or sit in groups of 2 or 3 to chat or indulge in self-grooming activities like nail-polishing or eye-lining. It turns out that not being resource-scarce has led the users to be comfortably seated in a big air-conditioned hall with a computer to each one’s disposal (if they want to use it) giving them enough space to spread out and indulge in online and offline activities of their choice with reasonable privacy. This is unlike the Seelampur scene where trainees are forced to squeeze together to watch the same screen and use the same keyboard which led to physical proximity. Secondly, in Jakkarat case, the students are present for the whole working day without any time constraint of releasing the computer in a couple of hours for another user, as was the case in Seelampur Centre. Apart from these seven General Management students, all other users visit once in a while for using Internet service. Each occupy a single terminal, and as they pay per hour, they focus on service usage and depart without leaving any scope for close interaction with others. 5.1.2.4 Computer activities Based on the interviews, this study finds that the users of the Jakkarat telecentre rarely associate with one another, keeping their focus intact on the Internet usage, playing games and listening to music. Data, as represented in Table 5.5 shows that the most favourite activity on computers among telecentre users is playing games with 86.6% of the total users indulging in it. 42.8% of all the users show involvement in listening to 106 music, 42.8% in surfing the Internet for fun and 42.8% use the computer for documentation and accounting purposes. Computer training ranks second in the table as many of the users are university students attached to the CBIRD Centre for their General management course of which computer training makes a part. Table 5.5: Rank order of Computer Activities undertaken by Telecentre visitors at Jakkarat TCentre, Thailand Serial No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Rank order 1 2 3 3 3 4 5 Computer activities playing games computer training (Basic, MS Office) films and music web surfing for casual indulgence documentation and accounting web surfing for work/studies Chatting/emailing (Source: Author’s field study, 2006) It is observed that although users believe that computer skill is a resource in employment prospects, data shows that computers are used mostly as an object of recreation by regular trainees as well as the casual telecentre users. This makes an interesting finding when contrasted with the views of the non-users of telecentres in the locality; 92.8% of non-users associate computers with serious, non-frivolous work with the understanding that it equips them to do data-entry, accounting and documentation. Such partial understanding of computer technology by the marginalized community brings into focus the awareness generation activities undertaken by the implementing agencies in the respective communities (See details in Section 5.1.3, ‘Role of Actors’). The nature of computer activities undertaken by the users and its effects on community formation is further explained by Nie et.al (2002) and Kraut et.al (1998), detailed above. 107 5.1.2.5 Location and nature of centre Unlike the Seelampur centre, Jakkarat T-Centre is not located in the midst of a village or a residential locality but is situated on a busy highway. Its location within the CBIRD centre is also strategic in that it has immediate reach to a few thousand members of the surrounding villages who work at the six big factories located in the premises. The Centre has occasionally made announcements on the public announcement system about the presence of telecentre in the campus and urged members to come there for Internet usage. Supidxi, a respondent who has never visited the telecentre herself said, “I got to know of the T Centre by self observation. But staff make public announcement within the CBIRD Centre for the factory workers. Generally the announcement is , ‘those interested can use computers here for THB15 per hour’.” Here again an analysis of data shows that the project implementers presume that villagers who are mostly educated upto primary level and are occupied as workers in the factories would visit the centre for using computers and the Internet simply by hearing about its presence. Although the project implementers realize and accept that it is difficult to usefully integrate computer technology in the local community as villagers do not find much relevance for it, still while making public announcements these realizations get ignored which is a critical issue in the effective implementation and achievement of promised deliverables of the telecentre projects. The character of the telecentre in Jakkarat is dissimilar to the case of Seelampur in that it is not an all-women location. In Seelampur, we found that the presence of an allwomen centre found unanimous support from the users whereas at the Jakkarat T-centre users held a very different view. Almost all felt that whether it is an open-to-all or a 108 woman-only telecentre is inconsequential; such a view can be attributed to the sociocultural context of rural Thailand. Such contrasting findings in different locations (India and Thailand) about the ‘woman-only’ concept reinforced by feminist perspective, are indicative of the significance of the socio-cultural context which shape a community’s opinions and beliefs. 5.1.3 Role of Actors (In Seelampur and Jakkarat Telecentre Projects) In a telecentre-specific sense, the beliefs and understanding of a community regarding computer technology is strongly correlated with the roles played by the actors in the implementation of any ICT project. The strategies developed and measures undertaken by implementing agencies in order to generate awareness about the benefits of ICTs, and mobilize opinion for undertaking computer training and using Internet, is of paramount importance. Table 5.6 shows that the measures adopted by the implementing agencies for creating awareness and mobilizing greater telecentre participation, leave much to be desired. There was some enthusiasm in the initial phase of project implementation which gradually diminished as time progressed. The only mode of mobilization was ‘word of mouth’ in both the telecentre locations even though they are widely dispersed in space. Table 5.6: Awareness/Mobilization activities carried out by telecentre project implementers Awareness/Mobilization Activities Formal group training Individual training A/V presentation Informal group discussions Word of mouth Pamphlet/ banner Seelampur ICT Centre, India No No No No Yes (initial phase) No Jakkarat T-Centre Thailand No No No No Yes (initial phase) No 109 In Seelampur telecentre, Guddi, the trainer at the centre said, “initially when the telecentre was about to start, some application forms were circulated in the locality asking people to fill it up and join the centre. But I don’t recall there was any survey or training or awareness generating workshop for the local community to make them aware of the benefits of these new technologies” Some trainee respondents in confidence pointed out the project implementer’s apathy by saying, “Badi madamxii kabhi kabhi aati hain. Woh sirf guests ko lekar aati hain. Jab guests aate hain sirf tab woh powerpoint ka baat karti hain. ………..woh sirf kehne ke liye madam hain. Woh sirf hunmko aur hamare kaam ko dikhlati hain. Aur guests ko vocational CDs dikhati hain.” (The senior madam comes here sometimes. But she comes only for guests. When there are guests around, only then she talks about powerpoint………….. Madam is madam only for the name sake. She only exhibits our creativity to guests. Only shows them the vocational CDs.” ) In the Jakkarat T-Centre case, there was little initial enthusiasm when announcements were made on loudspeakers and at least one training session was conducted for local government officials and village leaders with the assumption that through the village leaders the message of computer and telecentre would get disseminated to the local community.xiii This could be a misplaced expectation from the village leaders who themselves are alien to these new media to effectively disseminate the message. Naruemonxiv, Policy and Planning Analyst, Jakkarat TAO (Jakkarat District Administrative Office) said, “At district level we have computer training (in Microsoft Word and Excel) for heads of villages for the last two years. At times, they have participated But whenever these village heads submit reports/paper to us it is always in their own handwriting”. The interviews with users and non-users of telecentre shows that no such training programme were conducted for the local community, men and women alike. Data shows 110 that there were instances of dissemination of plain information through word of mouth. Jalan Wongnongxv said, “……One staff told us that we can send our children for computer training to this centre.” Lukchinxvi a noodle shop-owner doing business across the telecentre premises said, “….one CBIRD staff when he came here for lunch said, ‘if anybody interested in computer training then please go to our computer centre’. That’s all I know about the place. ” Such quotes reflect the casual approach towards the ICT diffusion initiatives undertaken by the project runners. Their approach is also indicative of their focus on youth which is also corroborated by the Policy and Planning Officer’s remarks, “there is no way to make computers useful for the locals, who are basically farmers. Even the families who own computers have it for their children who study in city and use it only when they come back home.” In the absence of any planned mobilization programme targeting the truly disadvantaged among the communities, it is difficult for the ICTs to penetrate the lives of the locals in a meaningful and effective way. In the Seelampur case, there are enrollments (until now around 500 enrollments) of girls from the disadvantaged group because it is a densely populated, close knit community where the mosque is the central point which makes information dissemination easier; but the motivation to join the telecentre lies in their social and economic context which forces them to attach all hopes of employment to computer training being offered in a desert of other avenues and options, and also in their cultural context which otherwise keeps them bound in a social isolation but for this allwomen telecentre which provides a getaway from the confines of home and offers a community of the likes. 111 5.2 Conclusion and Recommendations for Social Capital Generation Even as this section harps on formation of community and its translation to social capital, a lot of focus shifts on the roles of the project initiators and implementers who need to play a key role in integrating the ICTs with the disadvantaged communities. 5.2.1 Jakkarat Context, Thailand It is found that most of the users at the telecentre do not truly belong to the disadvantaged group, given their educational levels, family income and occupation. So, the first logical step is to involve the disadvantaged population including women in the telecentre project by designing the programme as a community project, which has often been the design for other developmental projects in the villages of Thailand. Literature review and fieldwork brought into focus many of the community development projects being run in the region. Some of the PDA run projects like CBIRD and TBIRD are good examples of integrating rural areas to various agencies for social and economic benefits of the villagers. CBIRD project covers various community initiatives like Nike Village development project and Vegetable Bank Projects, revolving Fund for Occupation project. TBIRD (Thai Business Initiative in Rural Development) is another similar project partnering between sponsoring companies/ organizations and rural areas. In this, the villagers with PDA’s mediation, become involved in opportunities provided by sponsoring companies to develop their communities and their own lives.xvii Of all the individuals/ families who have been interviewed, 75% have taken loan for various purposes ranging from investment, family consumption and education to investment for income-generation. Out of this 75%, about 60% have taken loans either from government run community loan projects like Million Baht project or private 112 company run projects like Nike Village Development Project or local co-operative societies. The success of these projects such as Million Baht and Nike Village Development Project, and the loan-taking behaviour of the community are indicators of active community participation for social and economic growth among rural Thai population in general. Most of these successful rural community projects are administered by the villagers themselves. They draw money from these project funds, replenish it within a stipulated time period and eventually, revolve the fixed fund amount among themselves every year, thus, demonstrating the role of social capital within the community year after year. Of course, some mediation is provided either by the government or local voluntary organizations. The telecentre and the computer technology placed therein have to be transformed into a ‘perceived good’ (‘Good’ is defined as a tangible product that satisfies human want)xviii by the community, so that it effectively caters to their everyday needs and lives. This brings us back to the argument of providing relevant and perceivably beneficial content, and also furthering avenues so that the community after its IT training/literacy/knowledge could get in sync with the mainstream eventually taking full advantage of their IT skills in their everyday lives. Only when computer technology is positioned as a ‘perceived good’ amidst the local community, that their participation with technology, and in telecentre domain, could be effected. One additional dimension would be the role of various actors like the state, civil society and the corporate sector to pro-actively and concertedly mediate such a purposespecific community formation and subsequent social capital generation for integrating 113 ICTs with the disadvantaged community in the light of the perception of computers as “sophisticated”, “irrelevant” and “for the educated and the elite”. 5.2.2 Seelampur Context, India The Seelampur ICT Centre presents a completely different picture, as described above. It has evolved and nurtured a vibrant community in its small physical space. But the story ends there—just at the level of ‘community’. The community dynamics just falls short of realization of social capital. Unlike the Jakkarat case, here the telecentre participants belong to the disadvantaged section of the local community as the family income of both groups –users and non-users of telecentre—are at similar levels. The range of monthly income for families of non-users is Rs.2000-Rs.5500 and that of families of users is Rs.2000Rs.6500. It also requires mention that about 40 trainees considered deprived by the telecentre runners, are enrolled without having to pay fee. The local MLA claimed that he pays the monthly fee for these deprived students. Each trainee is generally present at the telecenter for 2 hrs, and as per the dictates of social norms in the community, they return to their homes without much social interaction outside the ‘women-only zone’, that is, the telecentre –once again highlighting the dominance of socio-cultural factors. Emphasizing on the importance of social factors, Warschauer (2002) observes that the original sense of the term ‘digital divide’ attaches “overriding importance to the physical availability of computers and connectivity, rather than to issues of content, language, education, literacy, or community and social resources”. 114 It is exactly at this point that constructive intervention is required to transform this social participation of the ‘community’ into social capital, so that the ICT skills get translated into a ‘good’ for the telecentre participants. And similar to the recommendations in the Jakkarat case, it is for the mediating actors to take on the challenge to bring such a transformation by including social and cultural factors specific to the community and by transcending the IT trained community to the level of a ‘competent force’ (as Putnam defines it as “forceful, even quantifiable effects” on our lives) thus positioning themselves impactfully in the wider IT arena of the country or at least making them realize some tangible benefits in their real lives. ENDNOTES i Salma (Age: 19 yrs) was interviewed on Feb 28, 2006 at the telecentre. Friday also known as ‘jumma’ is the day of official weekend in many Islamic countries. iii Mostly there used to be 3 users to one computer, as some of the students in each batch would generally be absent. iv Asma (Age:18 yrs) was interviewed on Feb 16, 2006 at the telecentre. v Every Friday, muslim men of the locality congregate in the Babool-ulm mosque to offer ‘namaaz’ (prayer to their god). So, disseminating information to a wider audience becomes easier. vi ‘Namaaz’ is the five daily ritual prayers offered by Muslims to ‘Allah’. vii Guddi, the computer trainer was interviewed on Feb 27, 2006. viii Saira Jamar (Age: 20 yrs) was interviewed on Feb 25, 2006. ix Razia Khatoon (Age: 27 yrs) was interviewed in Feb 15, 2006. x Mayan (Age: 18 yrs) was interviewed on Mar 14, 2006 at the telecentre. xi Supid (Age: 38 yrs) was interviewed on Mar 17, 2006 at her shop on Jakkarat highway. Earlier she used to work in one of the factories at the CBIRD Centre Jakkarat. Now she runs a grocery shop. xii ‘Badi madam’ (Senior madam) is being referred to Sarita Sharma. She was the Seelampur Project Leader and Animator according to http://www.genderawards.net/gict_pr_db_result.shtml?x=91393&ayear=2005 ; Sarita is the action researcher and coordinator for the ICT initiative at Seelampur, according to http://www.unescobkk.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ict/e-books/ICT_for_NFE/Local_Content_Creation__Savithri_Subramanian_et_al..pdf ii xiii Information about announcements and training was provided by the T-Centre Manager, Mr.Samnarn Chaikot. 115 xiv The Policy and Planning Officer of the Jakkarat District Administrative Office was interviewed on March 16, 2006 at Jakkarat Administrative Office. She is in-charge of IT related matters at the district level. xv Wongnong (Age: 38 yrs) was interviewed on Mar 16, 2006 at her shop in Jakkarat village. xvi Lukchin (Age: 36 yrs) was interviewed on Mar 15, 2006 at Jakkarat village. xvii Compiled from the Official text resources provided by PDA during field visit. xviii See http://www.answers.com/topic/goods. 116 6 Conclusion Arguably, Information and Communication Technologies have been the prime motor of the processes of globalization in the last few decades, touching the lives of millions across the globe. It is being argued that this ICT-led era has brought (or will bring) social, economic and political empowerment to the entire world’s population. Based on these hopes, there has been an unprecedented growth of development programmes targeting to ‘connect’ all parts of the world and parts within nations. Telecentres is one such measure or movement. Yet, statistics shows only 16.6% of the world’s people to have experienced Internet (Internet World Stats, 2007). In this wide gap between IT ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ known as ‘digital divide’, the situation of women raises further concern as “Women’s relationships with new technologies have historically been mediated by problematic assumptions relating to the gender of ‘expertise’” (Cockburn, 1981, quoted in Page & Scott, 2001). It is the three streams –the promises associated with ICT, feminist perspective on women and technology (of which ICT is a part), and the dynamics between community and social capital and ICTs – that built up the foundation of this enquiry about effectiveness of ICT through the medium of telecentres, in social and economic development of women. Although there is a lack of reliable sex-disaggregated data on various development parameters related to ICTs, several studies show that women are further marginalized even within the population affected by the digital divide. The International Labour Organisation’s World Employment Report (2001) warns that “as teleworking [an area of ITES] is emerging as an important mode of working in the information economy, 117 existing social inequalities—particularly gender inequalities—will be reinforced unless proper policy measures are implemented”. At the same time, there are several recent studies that establish positive correlation between ICT and women development in terms of employment generation and community formation. As detailed in Chapter 1, literature shows that recent proliferation of ITES has generated employment opportunities for women. But a further review of literature draws attention towards the profile of women working in the ITES sector. It has been found that these women are mostly from the urban and educated sections of the society, which means that the emerging pattern of development will not significantly contribute in reducing unemployment of lower-skilled women workers in IT and could also reinforce the present socio-economic inequalities, in the long run (UN Division for the Advancement of Women, 2005). Two poor and marginalized communities geographically separated (one in New Delhi, India and the other in Korat province of Thailand), and having telecentres in their respective locations were selected for conducting empirical study. The main objectives were to examine the role of telecentres (a hub of several ICT services) in women’s employment generation and social empowerment through community formation. The Seelampur ICT Centre project in New Delhi, India and Jakkarat T-Centre (a part of Thailand Canada Telecentre Project) in Korat province, Thailand were chosen for field study spanning one month. The Seelampur centre was exclusively for women whereas the Jakkarat centre was open to all but was visited mostly by women. Detailed semi-structured interviews were conducted with the aid of a short-item questionnaire. The sample size in India was 41 and in Thailand it was 28. The sample was broadly 118 categorized as ‘telecentre users’ and ‘telecentre non-users’ with greater focus on perceptions and experiences of ‘users’. 6.1 Summary of Findings The field study finds that though Seelampur is a conservative Muslim-dominated area where women face several social restrictions, the presence of telecentre is showing signs of change for women as far as visiting the telecentre and undertaking ICT training are concerned. But these changes have occurred mostly for younger women reflected by the age group of telecentre users of 16-30 years. Almost 90% of these users are unmarried. In the case of Jakkarat telecentre too, it is mostly women in the age group of 16-30 yrs that visit the telecentre. The study finds that in both the case studies, it is the better educated in the community who visit the telecentre. In Seelampur case, over 95% of the telecentre users are either graduates or secondary qualified whereas the profile of the sample non-users shows that only 18% are graduates and the rest are either illiterate or have education up to primary or middle levels. These figures indicate direct co-relation between higher levels of education and ICT adoption, pointing to the need for robust education system in the society for better ICT adoption and diffusion. From the comparative perspective, it is seen that the Seelampur telecentre is also being visited by the disadvantaged population of the local community whereas the Jakkarat telecentre is not visited by the truly marginalized in terms of financial and education levels. In both the places, the users visit the telecentre with high hopes of getting employment after the ICT training. However, the realities experienced at the two 119 telecentres are different. In Seelampur telecentre case, in three years just one person got computer-based employment whereas in Jakkarat case, several women earlier have reported securing employment and the ones undergoing training also have high potential of getting employment. However, the poor, the less privileged and less educated in the community have not been among the users of Jakkarat telecentre, which puts a question mark on the success of the project design. This study finds that though the employment opportunities are abound for telecentre users at Jakkarat, these users are not representative of the real disadvantaged rural population. Hence, we argue that the telecentre project has not realized the economic development of the disadvantaged women in the community. New Delhi reported decline in the percentage of employed population to the total population from 33.04% in 1992 to 29.28% in 1999, bringing the number of employed population in New Delhi to 3.89 mn (Economic Survey of Delhi, 2003-2004). Secondly, studies show that opportunities of employment in the ITES sector are available to only those women who are urban elites or Convent- or English medium-educated. In the light of these studies and findings from the field as described in Chapter 5, this study finds that the employment prospects for the slum women of Seelampur in the IT/ITES sector of India is very limited. This thesis argues that the ICT training at the telecentre has not been able to generate opportunities of employment for the local slum women who are anyway affected by the characteristics of the slum economy like abysmally low employment opportunities, poverty and poor living conditions. Neither has the telecentre provided any other form of economic empowerment for the poor and less educated women of the marginalized populations. 120 This thesis further points out that the creation of these employment opportunities and subsequent economic empowerment is contingent on the social and economic conditions in which women are embedded. This study finds that ICTs have not been able to generate employment opportunities for the poor, less educated, non-elite section of women in the two countries—India and Thailand. Hence, in terms of employment generation, this study diverges from some of the existing literature (See Section 1.3.3) which observes that the IT/ITES sector has led to great employment opportunities for women. These opportunities have come up only for the urban elite and Convent-educated women. In chapter 6, we look at ICTs as an enabler of community formation and generator of social capital. In Seelampur, the telecentre has eventually become a meeting point for women who are otherwise, given the social norms and practices, not allowed to venture out of their houses. In India, particularly among Muslim community there are social restrictions on women’s mobility and social interactions; they are not even encouraged to work outside their homes. Given this social context, telecentre provides a useful platform for Muslim women to meet and socialize; it gives them an avenue to break-free from the social constraints. However, this has not led to creation of income generation activities or employment for women. The study further shows that lack of resources (for example, total number of computers) and absence of Internet led to the formation of a vibrant community among the telecentre users by way of influencing women’s activities on and off the computers. Location and the woman-only character of the centre were other factors that contributed to the formation of a vibrant community, which shows characteristics of Tonnies’ concept of ‘community’. The case of Seelampur telecentre 121 reflects the social shaping of technology in the ways in which women have adopted the telecentre and formed a community around technology. This provided for a potential site for formation of social capital around ICTs. Unlike the case of Seelampur, in Jakkarat, the social and cultural context does not encourage the community building at the telecentre. Thai society has very little restrictions on women taking active part in social and economic life. Hence, the telecentre was not perceived by women as an exclusive platform to mingle and interact, leading to indifference towards the community formation aspect of the ICTs. Therefore, this study emphasizes that ICTs in specific social and cultural contexts are facilitators of community building, like in the case of Seelampur in India. When other avenues for social and economic participation were closed for Seelampur women, presence of an all-women telecentre became remarkably significant in terms of social interactions. The finding similar in both the case studies is the lack of social capital generation at the telecentre sites. In Seelampur case, the community dynamics is limited to social participation whereas in Jakkarat telecentre case, there is no formation of a community at all. To achieve the goals and promises of ICTs, there is a need to form a vibrant community and then generate social capital. This together with macro-level development initiatives would lead to achieving the objectives of social and economic empowerment. However, project implementers have a crucial role to play by incorporating the social shaping perspective in their project designs. This study finds that at both the field study locations –in India and Thailand— active efforts to generate employment and social 122 capital which further leads to sustenance of benefits stream like employment or any income-generating activities, were lacking. The cross-national perspective taken in this study aided in better understanding the significance of social and cultural contexts in ICT’s role in women’s development through employment generation and social participation. 6.2 Recommendations It is recommended that organisational and infrastructural interventions are made at the macro and micro-levels together with ICT programmes in order to achieve the goals of social and economic empowerment through employment and social capital generation. A ‘cyber-libertarian approach to ICTs and development’ has also been advocated, which argues that the diffusion of ICTs in less-developed countries, especially in rural areas, would help bridge the development divide (Sreekumar, 2006). Lastly, it must be emphasized that there has to be a continuous learning from different ICT initiatives around the world to increase the chances of effective integration of computer technology into the disempowered sections of population. As Keniston (2004) puts it, “…..given the prevailing absence of successful models, and given the great difficulty in devising projects in which ICTs demonstrably enhance the quality of life for ordinary people , establishing networks of communication and evaluation among ICT projects with parallel goals should be among the highest priorities.” Though the nature of community formation has a basis (embedded) in the social and cultural context, integrating the learnings from various ICT initiatives would be possible. In order to achieve this, community informatics practitioners should “attend to 123 the social, cultural and organizational contexts in which new technologies are to be developed, accessed and used” (Scott and Page, 2001). If methods of social engineering could be employed by way of integrating lessons from the outcomes—intended or unintended-- generated by various ICT projects implemented in varied contextual landscapes, a good stride might be taken in the advancement of community informatics and also, in the area of women’s development. 6.3 Suggestions for Future Research This study has focused on India and Thailand by studying one case from each country. It would be good to conduct a large scale study of a few telecentre cases from each country and then take a comparative perspective spanning several countries for wider generalizations to be made. 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Submitted by Hickling Corporation and Syntel Consultancy to Industrial Cooperation Program (CIDA). 135 [...]... in Developing Countries argue that the jobs gained by women in the IT sector are largely associated with areas with high rates of female literacy in Latin America and Asia, notably in Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam 1.4 Bringing ICTs to the ‘Un-connected’ The role of ICTs in sustained development has been clearly acknowledged by policy makers and development practitioners leading to an array of ICT- based... economic development, including creation of employment opportunities An increased use of ICTs specifically telecentre, has reportedly shown varied positive impacts on the society and also the women within As ICTs are increasingly impacting the communities, there are perceived prospects of ICTs being able to play a crucial role in defining community formation and building social capital The generation of social. .. creating social environment for sustaining economic empowerment through social capital In literature, we find that these two areas emerge as critically important in understanding the role of ICTs in changing the socio-economic opportunities available for women This thesis looks at the potential of ICTs for employment and social capital 25 generation in a comparative setting It draws from one case study... Gender -ICT: A Recent Outlook Information and Communication Technology already considered a force in transforming the economic, social and political life is already being seen in some ways as gender equalizer within the ICT domain even in the developing countries The shift 13 towards ICT- based services in the Information Age has led to a rapid growth of call centres, Business Process Outsourcing and... stages in which the two have interacted in the last few decades to achieve the goal of gender mainstreaming It also presented the feminist perspective on ‘women and technology’ where scholars maintain that technologies have been constructed as ‘masculine’, ‘non -social and ‘sources of women’s subordination’ In the backdrop of such an understanding of women’s position in the trajectory of technological development, ... of male backlash against women when women-only projects are successful (Momsen 2001, 2006) Even though there has been progress in the agenda of incorporating gender in the development discourse, with special emphasis on mainstreaming gender in development, since the Beijing Conference in 1995, figures show there is yet a significant gender gap on various development parameters In no region of the world... also interested in becoming a part of the project An Argentina-based NGO, PRODEMU trained poor rural women in the use of ICT for better design ideas and marketing of their handicrafts Later, by packaging their products better and putting them online on a webpage, they reported increased sales keeping them profitably employed in their community (UN, 2002b) The community based learning centers in western... AIDS Intervention Prevention Project Group taught poor women including widows and also older vulnerable children from HIV affected families, about nutrition, trained them in skills needed to become socially and economically empowered, and also in taking care of those infected with AIDS The trained women were further organized into radio listening 19 groups and were trained in audio-video recording equipments,... district in Malawi The Government of Republic of Korea in 2001 and 2002 launched several IT projects for the economic empowerment of women The Gyeonggi Women’s Development Centre established in 1997 was an initiative which launched IT training programmes for women since 1999 in several phases The training course was designed for women in different life situations.vi A study on this Centre, as quoted in. .. importance in the discourse of development Next, we trace the various stages in which women and development issue evolved in respect of ‘doing gender’ with the ultimate aim of empowering women The next section looks specifically at the feminist perspectives on ‘gender and technology’ providing a backdrop for an understanding of more recent studies on women’s social and economic development through ICTs, including ... rates of female literacy in Latin America and Asia, notably in Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam 1.4 Bringing ICTs to the ‘Un-connected’ The role of ICTs in sustained development has been clearly... women within As ICTs are increasingly impacting the communities, there are perceived prospects of ICTs being able to play a crucial role in defining community formation and building social capital... within the ICT domain even in the developing countries The shift 13 towards ICT- based services in the Information Age has led to a rapid growth of call centres, Business Process Outsourcing and