Gov't underemphasising ICT
Published:Sunday | April 24, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Environment Readiness Usage
2010- 2011- 65 57 77
2006-2007- 47 55 35
Dr Paul Golding, Guest Columnist
The lead story in The Gleaner on Monday, April 18 indicated that over the last four years, Jamaica has tumbled 28 places on the World Economic Forum, Network Readiness Index (NRI). The NRI has mapped out the enabling factors driving network readiness, which is the capacity of countries to fully benefit from new technologies in their competitiveness strategies and their citizens' daily lives. This decline must be analysed within the framework of the broad Vision 2030 National Development Plan and the role that information and communication technologies (ICT) is expected to play in national development.
It is widely accepted that ICT drives innovation, productivity, and efficiency gains across industries, as well as to improve citizens' lives. The World Economic Forum predicts that ICT will not only continue to be a key catalyst for change, modernisation and innovations, they also predict that this trend will accelerate. The Vision 2030 Plan is geared towards transforming Jamaica into a developed country by 2030. Within the plan, ICT is considered an important industry and an important enabler in national development. Within this context, the decline in NRI is cause for major concern, as it suggests that we are regressing or late non-starting. Jamaica has shown an accelerating decline over the last four years, 45th in 2007; 46th, 2008; 53rd, 2009; 66th, 2010; and 73rd, 2011. Contrast this with Trinidad and Tobago, which has shown one of the largest improvements in the NRI in 2010-11, climbing 16 places to 63rd.
Trailing behind
The region as a whole, Caribbean and Latin America, trails behind in international best practices in leveraging ICT advances. No Caribbean or Latin American country appears in the top 20 of the NRI, and only a handful feature in the top 50: Barbados (38th), Chile (39th), Puerto Rico (43rd), Uruguay (45th) and Costa Rica (46th). Brazil is at 56th; Colombia, 58th; Panama, 60th; Trinidad and Tobago, 63rd; Jamaica, 73rd; and Mexico, 78th. The 2010-11 NRI ranked 138 countries.
The NRI measures 71 variables and is broken down into three broad segments or sub-indices: environment component, readiness component, and usage component. Environment gauges the friendliness of a country's market, regulatory and infrastructure environment to innovation, and ICT development. The Readiness sub-index measures the preparation and willingness of individuals, business and government to use tech-nology. Usage measures the actual usage of ICT in the economy. A comparison between the NRI in 2006-2007 and 2010-2011 makes sobering reading. While readiness has remained relatively stable, there has been significant decline in environment and alarming decline in usage, of more than 120 per cent.
A closer look within each sub-index provides additional insight. The environment sub-index ranks Jamaica very low on venture capital availability, extent and effect of taxation, burden of government regulation, total tax rate as a percen-tage of profits, and number of days to enforce a contract. We are also very low on the availability of scientists to support a national network infrastructure. The index shows strong positive signs on financial market sophistication, number of days to start a business, numbers of procedures to start a business, and freedom of the press.
While the readiness sub-index has shown a marginal decline, three areas within the sub-index, all relating to education, show serious cause for concern: quality of math and science education, quality of the education system, and adult literacy rate. The index has also shown declines in Government prioritisation of ICT, the importance of ICT in the Government's vision, and the procurement of advanced technology by Government. On the positive side, residential phone installation, fixed-phone and mobile-phone tariffs, and the extent of staff training by businesses are all very good.
The usage component has shown the largest decline. The factors that have contributed significantly to this decline are: our capacity for innovation, patent cooperation treaty, high-tech exports as a percentage of exports, extent of government online service, the level of e-participation, and the number of cellular subscriptions with data plans. There are not many positives in the usage component only: Internet users per 100 in the population, impact of ICT on access to basic services, Government's success in ICT promotion, and mobile subscription per 100 of the population.
No surprise in findings
None of the findings in the NRI is particularly surprising. The Government has de-emphasised ICT, the quality of math and science education is poor, and the extent and the effect of taxation is high. Additionally, there is a high degree of congruence in the issues raised in the NRI and areas highlighted for action in the Vision 2030 Plan. What the NRI has done is to spotlight what is not happening with the Vision 2030 Plan and that we are losing ground in international competitiveness. The plan is a well-written, comprehensive document, but without execution it is only a plan. The PIOJ must take the lead in the adoption and execution of the plan as it did in the development.
The roles of private sector, Government, educational institutions and the public must be defined, along with measurements of our achievements or lack thereof. Private-sector institutions should look at the synergies between Vision 2030 and their strategic plans, and so should the University of Technology, the University of the West Indies, and Northern Caribbean University. The universities, for example, must foster greater collaboration with the private sector, and the quality of education generally, and math and science specifically, must be improved. The political parties should have as a major part of their manifestos their plan for national development, and it should be based on the Vision 2030 Plan.
Dr Paul Golding is senior lecturer at the School of Computing and Information Technology, University of Technology, Jamaica. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and pgolding@utech.edu.jm.