IT and Education for the Poorest of the Poor:

Even reaching the so-called 'ordinary' poor would entail challenges of electrical power, telecommunications connectivity, human resources infrastructure, and the like. Reaching the 'poorest' would be even more difficult due to wider gaps in those parameters just mentioned (DotForce, 2001). But, in addition, there would be the parameter of limitations in the human skill competencies of this target population (OECD/Statistics Canada, 1997). By human competencies, we refer here to a broad range of skills that often fall into the general catch-all term 'literacy,' but in fact include a wide variety of discrete skills ranging from reading and math, linguistic and multi-linguistic fluency, content knowledge in specific domains, eye-hand coordination, typing (and 'mousing') skills, and so forth. This list is, in reality, relatively long when operationally specified.