During the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army discovered that initial training/educational programs failed to adequately prepare troops for the complex combat environment in Vietnam. After millions of dollars of research, and testing of many instruction methods, the Army developed a series of "gaming programs" that required soldiers in training to engage in detailed problem solving for conditions, situations, and combat conditions they would probably encounter in Vietnam. With the aid of computers, similar gaming programs could be created for K to 12 level instruction in the classroom. Each of the games would simulate real life situations, and require age appropriate solutions using math, words, problem solving, and other skills to find answers needed to win any one game. With the addition of competition and rewards for students, such gaming methods could create a new generation of eductional opportunities for developing nations where students have access to computers. There are a number of qualified individuals and computer gaming companies that could be used to help create the gaming programs suggested. (For the developing nations, where students do not typically have access to computers, I am suggesting that there are other educational needs and opportunities as explained below.)
If we hope to solve many of the world's problems, we must now begin to educate the 2.9 billion people, worldwide, who generally have little or no access to classrooms or computers. For the most part, these are the same 2.9 billion people who lack potable water, sanitation, and/or electricity, while living on less than US$2 per day (assuming they can find work). Without electricity, telephones, computers or classrooms, we must find another way to educate these populations so they can begin the urgently needed process of self-help. In the event we long fail to help provide for their education, we must expect that their anger, pain, and frustration will provide "seedbeds" for terrorism for many more years to come.
To provide education for populations that are impoverished, often isolated, and without services, we must use distance education means via Radio Schools with quality programming in all subjects needed. Such Radio Schools have long been used in Australia to educate children living on remote ranches far from any regular school. Radio Puno, in Puno, Peru, was used in the mid-1960s to teach self-help and development skills for remote Quechua Indian populations then being recruited by communist insurgents. This effort was so effective that it ended frustrations that had previously caused Quechua villagers to support the insurgents. Such a Radio School effort is being planned for remote Kurdish villages, in Iraq. Inexpensive crystal radios, with hand-crank generators, will allow thousands of villagers to receive broadcasts.
Radio Schools allow you to make the best use of your most qualified instructors, programmers, and language translators for an entire audience. Cost, travel and security problems are all greatly reduced. Existing radio stations may be used for contract broadcasting so that there is no immediate need to construct new radio stations. Radio School organizers may be trained for every village and community to help form classes, and get the people who need instruction in front of the radio at the right time. Radio Puno had the organizers keep records of student attendance, and assign I.D. numbers to each student. Using this technique, students could take exams given over the radio and sent their tests (by mail or runner) for grading. As a general rule, there is 50 minutes of instruction each hour followed by 5 minutes of local news and 5 minutes of popular music. No propaganda, ads, or religious messages are ever broadcast. The programming is custom designed to give the target audience a good mix of all the education, self-help, health, jobs creation, redevelopment, security, and other essential subjects needed to achieve well-being.
For more than four years, security problems in Afghanistan and Iraq prevented the teaching of redevelopment and self-help skills at the village and community levels. As a result, villagers could not see any advantages gained from all the many sacrifices they were making. It was not until we increased our security efforts that a critical civic action program started. Our war "machine" would have been far more effective if we had used Radio Schools to provide the needed instruction to these populations. At the time, DOD (the U.S. Dept. of Defense) and USAID (the U.S. Agency for Intl. Development) had no personnel with any understanding of why Radio Schools are critical in a "nation building" effort in nations having terrorism and insurgency problems. This is a major U.S. national security weakness that needs to be corrected.
There are one or two programs with the objective of providing every child in the world with a computer. The reality is that the number of computers needed will not be available until many more years have passed, and when it happens the Radio Schools would help target populations make better use of their computers. One charity, NPI, and GIT Satellite have worked to develop a two-way, satellite-type, text-messaging pager with hand-crank generator and "burst" transmission capability. This will give Radio School and computer users a means to quickly and inexpensively get answers to better make use of these systems. These pagers will provide two-way communications for isolated populations and refugee camps that now have no communications. The pagers will have foreign language capbilities, and provide a basic educational tool themselves. In brief, these new technologies mean we can bring education to 2.9 billion people currently having almost no access to a real education.