Thinking about knowledge society in Costa Rica

Kemly Camacho

Last year Costa Rica was placed in the Report on the Human Development Index (produced by the United Nations) as one of the countries with the highest potential for becoming a knowledge society.� This placing is principally due to a low level of illiteracy, a high degree of telephone and electricity cover, a program of educative computer skills that has been going on for 15 years � giving priority to rural areas, a program of English as a second language in public schools, and foreign investment in the extremely important area of technology (for example, Intel, which contributes significantly to the Gross National Product.� Also, Costa Rica has one of the highest indices in Latin America for locally developed software.� However, it is not yet clear what a knowledge society means nor what its implications are for the country.� Without this consideration it will be very difficult to prepare the conditions for an appropriate entry by Costa Rica and other Latin American countries into this global dynamic.�

Several months ago took place the National Conference on the Knowledge Economy, in which the main guidelines were set out that are being promoted to �prepare the country� for the new economy.� Representatives from different national sectors participated in this event.� This document aims to make some contributions to a discussion on the knowledge society and the actions that have to be undertaken by the State for it to be incorporated in it.�

The vision of a knowledge society:� The above Conference emphasized the need to prepare the conditions for national businesses to be able to easily link up with multinational businesses.� To achieve the greater contact and interaction that this process will require, the creation of an improved telecommunications infrastructure is called for.���

However, the knowledge society needs to be understood more widely, since, although a transformation of capitalist society is not implied but rather a reinforcement of it, it does involve changes in economic structures and social fundamentals.�

Without wanting to mention all the fundamental changes, since that is not the aim of this paper, it is important to emphasize that the basis of this new economic structure is not companies, as until now, but networks.� This implies that individual and business competition, which might be for jobs or for products and services, does not only develop in a national or regional market but in a global market.� Material possessions lose importance in this new society, thus questioning the concept of private property on which the wealth of capitalist society is based.� What acquires value is knowledge and its continuous development, which is expressed through new technologies and new services.� So businesses reduce their assets, their facilities, and their demand for permanent personnel, from which appear new ways of recruiting.� This produces a redistribution of work, diminishing even further opportunities in the agriculture and livestock area, also reducing demand in the industrial area and expanding it in the area of services and knowledge.� The opportunities lost in other sectors are difficult to make up in the knowledge and services sector, since the training required in these new kinds of employment is expensive and ongoing.�

Aspects such as those already mentioned, whch are fundamental features of a knowledge society, are not yet being seen, and are not yet being discussed in the national Costa Rican environment, in politics, in national businesses, in teaching centers, nor in social organizations.� One of the most important of these aspects which have a bearing nowadays� is that of creating a series of national debates which could put on the agenda the vision that is held of the new society, other countries experiences and the implications for their people.�

Parallel investment:� Another of the important challenges that a State like Costa Rica has is trying to drive parallel investment.� The majority of the resources that are available to the knowledge society are being directed towards creating and changing the telecommunications infrastructure.� It starts with the premise of �It�ll be alright on the night�.� That is to say that, once the infrastructure is established, the rest of the aspects necessary to be successfully incorporated into the new social organization will develop spontaneously thanks to the availability of this infrastructure.�

However, parallel investment should be encouraged.� Scarce resources should be distributed between four important aspects:� a) infrastructure development,� b) change in working processes at all levels,� c) change in primary, secondary and tertiary education, including options of permanent education,� d) change in the legal and regulatory framework that would allow the country and its participants to be easily incorporated into this new social order.�

a.� The development of the telecommunications infrastructure as a State monopoly:� One of the most insisted aspects National Conference is about the need to eliminate the state monopoly of the telecommunications sector and allow free competition to make services offered in this area more efficient and cheaper.� This is also a requirement that large national businesses and multinationals are making to stimulate investment.�

On the contrary to what is proposed, the national state company that up till now has had responsibility for electrification, telephony, and currently telecommunications, in Costa Rica should be strengthened.� The satisfactory situation we have in our country in terms of the cover and quality of electrification and telephony (more than 90% of the national territory) has justly been due to this state monopoly.� The telecommunications sector should not have to be an exception and access to new technologies should be considered a right of the man in the street.� The only possibility to guarantee that knowledge technologies are a citizen�s right is for them to be put them under state control and for that to go on developing actions to provide universal access to technology.�� What is necessary is to eliminate obstacles in order to speed up the actions of the state enterprise and allow part of its resources to be invested in research and development of new technologies.�

That is a question of principle, which should not be undervalued by the pressure that the new model of development based on information and communication technologies could exert.�

b.� Work processes cannot go on as they are:� Another aspect that is unclear in the Costa Rican political, academic, business and organizational environment is the vehement need to transform processes by means of which products and services, state actions and organization in general are developed.�

The process of change, creativity and ongoing innovation that involves the knowledge society is not understood, nor is it perceived in the national environment.� There exists a magic perception that by incorporating new technologies into existing work processes changes will make themselves.� However, it is becoming necessary to reflect on, convert and reformulate traditional ways processes are carried out.� This implies time, effort, great willingness and a positive attitude to change.� This is the most difficult aspect to make clear and for this reason it is more complicated to convince the various participants that it is important to invest effort.�

c.� Education that goes beyond the needs of multinationals: �one of the aspects that attracted most attention was research that was undertaken to guide the country�s educational policies and job creation.� This was based on the needs that multinational companies have in respect of the kind of co-workers they need.� Broadly speaking, it talks about young people with specialized technical knowledge and an excellent command of English.�

Although Costa Rica�s good level of education is recognized, this is not reflected by such companies in the research, innovation, and creation of new knowledge in my country.� In this sense, one of the most important aspects in which it must have a bearing at a political level is in understanding that entering the new economy means more than just satisfying these necessities.�

Entry in the new knowledge economy requires new features in the training of human resources that are different from traditional processes.� Amongst them, ongoing education in place of finite education.� Inter- and multi-disciplinary education and not so much specific and closed training as at present, training in multicultural teams, training towards creativity, innovation and the ongoing generation of new knowledge, excellent use of new technologies and foreign languages, psychological education for an unstable and very competitive world of work, of great opportunities but with high degrees of uncertainty and stress.� I believe that this last aspect is extremely important in the new training; whereas at present the curricula of nearly all careers include some subjects for preparation for work in the world of business or of organization, the new curricula should include subjects for preparation for distance learning.�

d.� A user-friendly and flexible regulatory framework:� For those of us who are convinced of the importance of the State as a regulatory body in the service of development, a State like that of Costa Rica - with a universalistic character - guarantees to a certain extent the redistribution of resources and responsibility for those who have fewer privileges.�

However, it is clear that within the present regulatory framework, with its existing laws and current state processes, it is very difficult for Costa Rica to be able to succeed in its entry into the knowledge society, principally because the slowness with which changes and new initiatives get approved does not allow for the fluidity and agility that this kind of society implies.� The present regulatory framework restricts innovation and creativity.�

For example, it is difficult to favor new forms of employment that innovate and change the ones used at present to contract co-workers without losing the social guarantees that have been won by them themselves.� It is necessary to find a way of transforming national accounting processes that are still based on possessions and assets.� It is necessary to give support to working in networks and the flexibility that this implies for transforming and retransforming the institutions and businesses that participate in them.� It is necessary to have a regulatory framework and financial and training support for creating new small and medium-size businesses that work in the sector of services and knowledge (at present priority is given to small and medium-size businesses that work in production).�

The big challenge is in how to create a freer and more flexible regulatory framework that does not lose its universalistic character and does not give space for favoring only those who have most possibilities.�

In conclusion, I believe that there still exists very little clarity about what the knowledge society means in my country, how its development will affect us, how we can enter into it and what actions we need to take now to be prepared for the near future.�� Without this understanding we will be walking with a �blind man�s stick�, investing in cables and computers, creating websites in State institutions, but without a clear view of what is involved in the qualitative leap that has to be made with the effort of all the participants.�