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Call On The Government To Galvanize Efforts To Overcome The Digital Divide In Malaysia Statement by Dr Tan Seng Giaw, DAP National Vice-Chairman and MP for Kepong on the Yang di-Pertuan Agong's advice to master the Information Technology, IT, skills on 3 June 2000. 4.6.2000 | |||||||
| About one million people have access to Internet in Malaysia. On 3 June 2000, the official birthday of the King, the Yang di-Pertua Agong said that Malaysians risked being marginalised if they neglected to master the various skills required to face the challenges of the new millennium. "The people should always exercise wisdom to make the most of the opportunities made available by the Government to prepare them for the IT era," His Majesty added. We have Internet providers such as Jaring and Tm Net and Multimedia Supercorridor, MSC. The Government sets up National Information Technology Council, NITC, and MSC Development Corporation, MSD. What types of opportunities are available to all Malaysians? Are they equal opportunities? These are some of the questions which have to be answered in the years to come. There is an increasing gap between those who have IT skills and those who have not--the digital divide. The gap between the rich and the poor is bad enough. The digital divide has made and will make this gap even worse. Rural folks, poor people, disabled people, the unemployed, those without formal education (those who do not know English) and senior citizens have little opportunity to acquire IT skills. We have to take precautions. In fair weather prepare for foul. We do not know the figures for those disadvantaged people. According to NITC programme director, A. Jayanath, there are about half the Malaysian population of 23 million or more than 10 million people who are being left behind in the IT or knowledge-based world, k-world. | |
We do not know how it arrives at these figures. Paying attention to the digital divide and identifying those who are being left behind are of paramount important. There should be a form of National Digital Policy, NDP, dealing with these on merit and need. It should be different from the New Economic Policy, NEP, the good and bad effects of which have yet to be investigated by the Government. The behemoth of NEP in the forms of the Civil Service and the public institutes of higher learning with their negative and fixed mentality will continue to affect Malaysians for years. If the Government does not deal with this behemoth seriously, no amount of allocations and exhortations will make Malaysia a developed nation by 2020. How many of the over 8,000 schools in the country have computer facilities let alone Internet? There are not many. What happen to the smart schools? Several hundred schools in remote areas still have no electricity supply. There is an attempt by the Government to train rural communities in IT through Demonstrator Application Grants, DAGS. This is scarcely enough. The Government should concentrate on areas within and outside the cities in need of IT irrespective of regions. We have asked the Government to publish a quarterly report of the use of Internet and e-commerce to see our progress in the k-economy. We have now urged the Government to pay serious attention to the digital divide. It is one thing to recognize the problem. It is another to take effective action. It may take months or years between recognition and meaningful action. In the last few years, we have spoken repeatedly in Parliament on the digital divide. We shall continue to do so.
Dr Tan Seng Giaw | |||||
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