(E-168/00)
September 20, 2000 Click here to watch the video
DISTANCE EDUCATION INITIATIVE GETS
VICE PRESIDENT'S SUPPORT
Supporting a proposed distance education system to link the
countries of the Americas via satellite, United States Vice President Al Gore said it
would help "build a true global village."
Mr. Gore's comments were conveyed in a letter read today at
an Organization of American States (OAS) Forum on the EDSAT-Americas Project, a
multicultural initiative to use satellite and land technologies to create a
distance-education infrastructure serving the people of the Hemisphere. The letter was
read by Greg Rohde, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information.
In his letter, Mr. Gore enumerated the benefits of the
proposed system that would be cooperatively operated by the countries, noting:
"Certainly, it would enable all of us to harness and share distance education
technologies to strengthen democracy; overcome geographic difficulties; expand access to
various forms of communications and commerce; improve the delivery of education, health
care and other services; and create new jobs and even whole new industries as yet
unimagined."
OAS Secretary General César Gaviria welcomed the
participants and recalled the central mandate surrounding education, issued by the
region's leaders when they met last time at the Summit of the Americas in 1998. "By
focussing on an educational infrastructure linking the countries of the Hemisphere,"
said Mr. Gaviria, "we are laying the foundation for sound, collective action so that
all of our children, no matter where they are or what their station, can have affordable
access to educational opportunities."
Among the private sector participants, Karl Savatiel, a
Vice President of Lockheed Martin Global Telecommunications, underscored the need to move
quickly on the project. "Technology alone will not do the job. We need the will and
commitment of our leadership to make this thing happen."
Ambassador Michael Arneaud of Trinidad and Tobago, a lead
country on the effort, moderated the Forum and spoke on behalf of that country's Minister
of Training and Distance Learning, Rupert Griffith.
So far, 13 Latin American and Caribbean governments, a
number of private corporations, universities and civil society groups have joined the
EDSAT-Americas initiative, which has a technical planning team to work out the details of
how the mechanism will operate, when it comes onstream.
Shelly Weinstein is President and CEO of NETO-EDSAT, the
Washington-based non-profit organization coordinating the effort, for which the OAS Social
Development and Education Unit serves as technical secretariat.
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