Answering the World's Education Problem, Gap

The United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations (UNWGIP) in 2002 instituted the advent of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (PFII). The intended purpose of this forum became to increase the representation of indigenous populations in the United Nations, via all necessary means. While the resolution of issues such as culture, health, human rights, environment, and education as pertaining to indigenous peoples is important, a special emphasis must to be placed on education. Education is the means by which these people will achieve the representation they desire, and educating a population of the future is a task that will facilitate the use of unconventional methods. The fastest growing occupational field in the world today is that of the future: information technology. Because of these facts, replacing deduction with ignorance would be highly injudicious in this situation, where, such a palpable answer exists. Information technology,

Widespread support for the increased representation of indigenous peoples in the UN is easily found. Nations all across the world recognize the importance of affording indigenous peoples the representation they deserve as an entity, even though they do not, in most cases, maintain sovereignty. Some states insist that indigenous peoples should ascertain representation within their local governments before aspiring to representation in the UN. However, many of these states refuse to provide indigenous groups the rightful representation they deserve. Such states are subject to prosecution under the provisions of the International Humanitarian Law as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Despite this verity, very little, if any, action has been taken by the international community in solving issues of this nature. The United Nations’ various subsidiary bodies have made several recommendations with regards to methods by which indigenous peoples and the sovereign nations within which they reside, can better work together. Respect needs to be paid to a more concrete aspect of this process, however, than simply “social issues,” or “economic dilemmas.” This element is that of education.

It is plausible to assume that a better educated populous will be better suited to representing itself in the global commune, and in doing so, demand greater respect and consideration. A perambulatory clause to the UN resolution A/RES/51/104 illustrates just this:
“Convinced that … education should involve more than the provision of information and should constitute a comprehensive lifelong process by which people at all levels of development and in all societies learn respect for the dignity of others and the means and methods of ensuring that respect.”

Educating indigenous peoples will serve to provide them with the tools needed to communicate properly and be taken seriously in the professional environment within which the UN operates. In order to appropriately address the issue of education in any nation, the source of the issue must first be analyzed. The deteriorating infrastructure of so many school systems worldwide can be attributed to myriad factors. Most notably, is the rule of oppressive governments or leaders that have become unwilling to sacrifice bullets for books. The citizens of these nations have thereby become deprived of a more worldly knowledge, and the consequences of this reality include falling educational standards, as well as distorted educational content. A direct correlation between the representation of indigenous peoples and the education level of those peoples can been seen. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recommends that all nations increase public expenditures on education to at least four percent of their GDP. Israel boasts a GDP spending of over twenty percent on education, however the less than four percent GDP that nations such as China, South Korea, and Japan spend on education, cannot begin to compare. It cannot be ignored though, that indigenous peoples are not a concentrated entity in any single part of the world. Such populations are vast and require attention elsewhere in the world too. For this reason, a GDP expenditure increase on education by four percent, not to four percent, is obligatory. For nations containing the bulk of the world’s indigenous peoples, the surplus of cash resulting from a measure of this sort has the potential to make quite a significant difference in the lives of many of these peoples. For most nations, the net cash flow produced in this case will be proportional to that required for the nation to substantially improve its educational program. Nations concerned enough for the sake of their indigenous populations will not hesitate in implementing, if not this measure, then one closely resembling it.

In order to survive in an ever changing world, indigenous groups more or less abide by the unwritten rule that adaptation is necessary for survival. Groups that do not embrace this notion will, on the whole, not become successful and prosperous entities in the future. It is these peoples that the Darwinian self-fulfilling prophecy of natural selection will undoubtedly lay claim to. On an equal note, the method by which UN indigenous representation is increased should not be one that conflicts with allowing those peoples to maintain their identity as a separate culture. Because of the nature of human progress and the facts stated above, it is necessary to elucidate that the following evocation is, in scope, limited to those indigenous groups that do not excoriate the utilization of information technology. One particularly contributory specialization of IT is the immensely popular realm of artificial intelligence. During the summer of 2005, the World Exposition held in Aichi, Japan, featured a bilingual robot that could direct visitors to any venue in the Expo. Interacting first hand with such technology resulted in the inspiring notion that I soon thereafter found myself contemplating.

The most industrialized nations of the world work ever constantly to improve the capabilities that machine possesses. This combines with the fact that education is critical to the societal development of indigenous populations in gaining representation within the UN. The result is thus: with advancing technology on the rise, the means by which to educate indigenous peoples is through artificial intelligence. Any indigenous group not opposed to such an approach, would learn all it needs from the machines the local government provides it. Through increased expenditures on education by four percent GDP over the next ten years, sovereign governments will obtain the ability to purchase or manufacture artificial beings, capable of conveying vast amounts of knowledge. If a robot can give directions, then why can it not teach someone how to write better? The answer is, quite simply, that it can.

With such a straightforward solution to solving problems associated not only with indigenous representation in the UN, but with education in general, would there truly be an ethical justification for not enacting such measures? One could not justly assert that a more ignorant world would be a better one. Teaching the alphabet, in any language, would be an elementary task for an AI robot. Recapitulating a masters-level thesis on genetic modification would be just as easy. In a rapidly developing society where change is the only means of survival, the notion of educational deprivation of indigenous peoples is ludicrous. Such an act would be, metaphorically speaking, genocidal to such populations.

At the Indiana University School of Informatics, Hershey Foods has arranged for a robot, previously optimized for sample preparation, to begin teaching graduate level coursework. The class, INFO 1510 Data Acquisition and Lab Automation, will be taught by a Zymark robot. This robot, just as any robot that will be teaching an indigenous group, does not eat, sleep, take breaks, or consume any resource other than electricity. Replacing a full-time salary with a monthly electric bill that is microscopic in comparison, would recover the initial investment for these robots in a matter of only a few years. Just as any teacher, a robot bearing artificial intelligence capabilities, as advocated here, will also learn over time. It will have the ability to recognize weak points in its students, and in turn counteract these deficiencies by making adjustments in its curriculum or behavior, etc. Granted this technology does advocate certain financial hardships for some nations, the pros of such a measure greatly outnumber to cons. As with any other material instrument, the prices of this advanced technology will only decline as time passes. Each robot produced would be specially programmed for the indigenous group that is intended to utilize it. Nearly any skill will be teachable by robots in the near future, causing such a notion to be, quite manifestly, a logical system through which unambiguous results have the potential to materialize. This is a system by which indigenous peoples can become educated and not only experience greater prosperity, but achieve the level of acceptance and confidence that is required of any entity seeking representation in the United Nations.