The education sector in most developing countries is the most neglected sector, which should be the sector with the largest share of the budget. The reason for this anomaly is more political than technical, since most of the leaders of these countries dedicated more funds to perpetuate themselves in power than to the development of the economy. Notably, most developing countries spend less than 20% of the national budget on education, which is the minimum recommended by UNESCO. Most of the developing countries whose economies are developing rapidly and which have left that category, such as Singapore, South Korea, spend a lot on education and human resource development.
The advent of the Internet and the information age have greatly aided the delivery and cost-effective access to educational content, from the basics to the highest emblems of education, which is literally the source of any educational content on the superhighway of information. Resources and human capacity development requirements to develop the workforce for a developed economy can be found on the Internet. It is no wonder then that most developed economies have the majority of their tertiary education enrollment online: online education in most advanced economies has more than 40% of their tertiary education online.
They take advantage of the Internet and distance learning technologies to offer quality educational content to the majority of their population, especially the workforce. The economy becomes more fluid and mobile as the workforce has access to education and retraining without having to leave their jobs. Regardless, the purpose of distance learning is to remove the distance barrier to access to education. However, in this era, the barrier of both space and cost is being removed. Online education is known to cut the cost of access by more than half.
The easy and noticeable restriction in developing countries is at the limit of the following
- Inadequate access to educational opportunities, such an inability to exploit leverage, and opportunities for human capacity development from distance and online education provide economies in this information age.
- Lack of educational workforce trained in education for development in 21St. century especially in online and distance education in this information age
- Low funding, especially in
- Primary, Intermediate and Tertiary Education,
- Teacher remuneration, Training and Retraining,
- Pedagogical and instructional materials,
- Conditions of the facilities of the basic educational infrastructure,
- educational technology system
- Institutional autonomy
- Poor quality assurance mechanisms and inadequate maintenance system to support the self-preservation of national education policies and plans.
One of the main dynamic and easily observable aspects of education in this information age is the use of digital technologies for learning. These have evolved over the decades from contiguous electronic, information, communication and telecommunications technologies that have made online and distance education a true tool for human resource development both in the short and long term. The adoption of these technologies, which are very profitable compared to the traditional mode of education, will help these developing countries to take the leap and advance their economies.
