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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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