Mobile Phones, Developing Countries and Learning

Introduction

Even though, there has been an increasing usage and access to Information Communication Technology (ICT) worldwide during the last few decades, the digital divide between developed and developing regions still remains (ITU, 2009).

In developed countries a well established ICT infrastructure exists in industrial, business, governmental and home environments. The infrastructure is available in big cities as well as in small villages. In contrast to developed countries, with a few exceptions, developing countries have little access to ICT infrastructure. The access and availability of ICT among developing countries is unequal, even within the same country. While some developing regions face a lack of global ICT infrastructure in their territories; other developing countries have a relatively satisfactory ICT infrastructure in urban areas (and/or for the wealthier populations), and a poor or non-existent ICT infrastructure in rural areas (and/or for the poorer populations). Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America are representative examples of the former and latter situation respectively.

Although the earlier personal computer dates back to the end of the 80s and the Internet has been publicly available since the 90s, access to computers and the Internet in developing regions remains behind compared to developed regions. According to the data from ITU (2009) and the UN (2008) the proportion of household with computers in developed economies is over 75% in comparison to roughly 24% in developing countries. The proportion of households with Internet access in developed countries average 63% and only 16% in developing regions. Therefore, the majority of the population in developing regions has no access to computers or to the Internet, and it is very probably that many of them have never used or even seen a computer in their lives. Table 1 shows a summary of ICT access in households in developed and developing regions.