The term information society now has been used and has become a vernacular since the 1980s. It was first used in Japan in the late 1960s and was the focus of the 1972 Plan for an Information Society (Masuda, 1981), a plan to ensure all levels of the society can eventually use information technology. Forerunners to information society include the terms Age of Cybernation, used widely in various forms during the 1960s; Electronic Age and Age of Information, both proposed by Marshall McLuhan in 1964; Knowledge Society, described by Peter Drucker in 1969; and Technetronic Society, suggested by Zbigniew Brzezinski in 1970. However, societal labels come and go and new terms have been proposed in recent years. Will information society last to the year 2000? A new variant might come into usage by then, but whatever the new term might be, the importance of information or knowledge will remain.

Although information has always existed and been of value, it has only recently come to be regarded as so important that it represents the very symbol of our society -- the information society. Developments in the ways in which we transmit and process information have been altered drastically by the meshing of new technologies that have made it possible for information to be available to us in greater volume, with better accuracy, and at a much greater speed. The importance and significance of information and knowledge in an information society can be compared to the role of raw materials in an agricultural society or capital in an industrial society. But it is apparent that the term information society cannot be explained solely in terms of its importance and significance only to a certain sector of the society, increased amounts of information used in the nation based on the use of information by a certain group of the society or in terms of the use of technology for its processing, nor can it be based on the changes in the ways in which some people in the society spend their working lives. A true information society -- or more accurately an information-rich society -- would require a conscious effort by the whole nation to inculcate information values to permeate the whole society and thus provide the necessary infrastructure and education in all aspects of commercial, technological, religious, cultural, and other human activities in the society. Nations, both developing and developed, have a large task ahead of them in order to achieve this goal. One cannot deny that in the process of arriving at this goal, a nation has to ensure that its people are literate and the ultimate goal is to ensure that the country achieve a 100% literacy rate. This is to ensure that there is a balance between the information-rich sector of the population and the information-deprived or information-poor sector of the population.

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Based on the aspirations to become an industrialized nation, Malaysia has made many conscious efforts to improve and develop literacy so that it will achieve a literacy rate of 100% by the year 2020. The country still has a long way to go but there are positive indications that the literacy rate is increasing. The World Education Report (1993) states that Malaysia then had one of the lowest literacy rates (78.4%) compared to her other Southeast Asian neighbors, like Singapore (100%), Indonesia (81.6%), Thailand (93%), and the Philippines (89.7%), respectively. Today, the country's population is close to 20 million, the Malaysian literacy is 85%. However, it is possible that the rate is higher because comprehensive research on the literacy profile of the population has not been undertaken for many years (however, a study has just been completed at the time this article was published).

In this information age, literacy not only should be considered the ability to read and write in the vernacular language or the second language of the country, but also has to be dealt with in a wider connotation and that includes computer literacy. In Malaysia, it is estimated that 20% of the 4.2 million school children have some understanding of computer applications, such as word processing, using spreadsheets, and using some educational courseware. As would be expected in developing countries, the school children in the urban areas are more computer literate than their counterparts in the rural areas. This rate is increasing steadily as more and more schools form their own computer clubs and teach computer literacy out of their own initiatives. Currently, 35% of the schools in Malaysia have computer clubs and conduct computer literacy programs. The present government also has plans to use computers to disseminate knowledge in schools to enhance teaching and learning. In 1992, a Computers in Education project was launched. About 20 rural schools in the state of Selangor were chosen as pilot schools to use computers in the teaching and learning process. Both teachers and students were trained in computer literacy. Each school also was equipped with 20 computers in its computer lab. Presently, more than 100 schools are involved in the project. In fact, a new subject called Reka Cipta, or Creative Design, has been introduced to the secondary school students. The subject involves teaching students how to use Computer-Aided Design software (both international and local software) in designing their creations.

The Malaysian government also plans to develop the "smart school" concept in the country and plans are being geared into this by various organizations (for example, universities, private companies, and the Ministry of Education). The collaboration among these organizations, termed a consortium, is aimed at developing the delivery concept (i.e., the architectural concept on how the lessons will be delivered) and the development of the content or the courseware itself. By the year 2000, all primary and secondary school teachers will be computer literate, which will also mean that more schools will conduct computer literacy programs and lessons will begin to be introduced through courseware via the Internet. It is anticipated that network computers will be used in schools instead of personal computers because of their less expensive cost. The courseware will be put in a regional or local server and students can then download them to their computers and run the programs.

In higher institutions, the computer literacy rates among lecturers and students are very promising, and one can safely conclude that the degree of computer literacy among the university and college population is above 80%.

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The population of Malaysia comprises three main ethnic groups: the Malays, Chinese, and Indians, although there are other minority groups like the Sikhs, Eurasians, and others. The three main ethnic groups have their own mother tongue and dialects within those mother tongues. However, the national or the official language of the country is Bahasa Malaysia, which is the mother tongue of the indigenous Malays. Bahasa Malaysia became the national language when Malaysia became independent from Great Britain in 1957. The national language was used in official functions of the country but English still became an important second language. Generally, the population is biliterate; that is, they speak and understand their own mother tongue and the national language. In fact, some people are triliterate; that is, they speak and understand their own mother tongue, the national language, and English (the second language of the country). There were two mediums of instruction in the Malaysian education system: the Malay medium schools and the English medium schools. Apart from these two types of schools, Chinese and Tamil schools (with Chinese and Indian mediums of instruction) also were conducted. It was not until after the 1969 racial riot that the government realized the people of the country must make a conscious effort to ensure unity and racial harmony. One of the steps taken was to have a policy whereby the system of education in all government schools and higher institutions from primary level to tertiary level will use Bahasa Malaysia as the medium of instruction. This meant that all the national-type schools (English, Chinese, and Tamil medium schools) were converted to national schools with Bahasa Malaysia as the medium of instruction. But there still exist today private schools in the English, Chinese, and Tamil mediums of instruction. Since 1970 all government universities use Bahasa Malaysia as the medium of instruction. However, English has remained an important second language in the education system.

Although these changes have shown positive results in terms of national identity and national unity among the population generally and the younger generation particularly, it has created some serious literacy problems that need to be addressed. When the medium of instruction was converted to the vernacular language in the universities, there were not many books written in the vernacular language to support learning and teaching, and both lecturers and students had to resort to books in English, especially in the fields of science and technology. The scenario has not changed much today, although there are efforts being made to encourage more works to be written in the vernacular language by local writers. Because of the fact that students (both in schools and universities) must constantly refer to English references and then translate them to Bahasa Malaysia, not only is their command of the English language deteriorating, but they have not improved in their own vernacular language.

Academics and the government have expressed their concern over the deteriorating level of proficiency in the English language among the students in Malaysian schools and universities. It is felt that, as part of the nation's objectives for the education system under Vision 2020, Malaysia should aim at creating future generations of Malaysians for the 21st century who will be professionally and culturally proficient in the national language (Bahasa Malaysia), and the global "languages" of science, commerce, communications, and cultural literacy generally (i.e., English). Fundamentally, there is no educational conflict, but the policy issue that arises is one of balance and priority: How can the country encourage that capability in both the national language and in a variety of other languages (primarily English) among new generations of Malaysians? Sound educational and language-learning theory suggests that the development of this capacity in the national language is not in competition with, but must be the foundation for, the acquisition of similar capabilities in other foreign languages that in the future Malaysians will increasingly want and need to master. Such an amplification of the Malaysian language and education policy to encourage the simultaneous development of proficiency in both the national language and in English is congruent with the challenges that the country faces in creating a fully developed information-rich society.

Vision 2020 is a vision of Malaysia not just as a modern economy within the digital economy era (Tapscott, 1995 ), but as a completely holistic modern society that is authentically Malaysian-a caring, civilized, and a well-informed society. Formation of any modern civilized national culture must be based on an intellectual culture that should include a central science- and technology-based component, but it requires more than that. What is crucial is an education system that can both be practical and contain human values in an era of rapid and ever-accelerating social, cultural, and technical change. Thus, any proposed remedy that focuses exclusively on the scientific and technical component is bound to be limited and piecemeal. In other words, it is important that Malaysia must aim to reevaluate the present education system, not to reverse it or simply oscillate forward and backward within the same unchanging parameters, without ever conducting a critical evaluation of where, how, and why things went wrong.

The government must therefore set up an educational reevaluation or reform program or a national enquiry committee to look seriously into the Malaysian education and develop a set of realistic, practical, and forward-looking ideas for improving the national education system in accordance with the requirements and ideals of Vision 2020. However, the more immediate task is to prepare the future human resource of the nation with the ability and intellectual skills to adapt to the expansion of the Malaysian economy and its globalization. Thus, the anxiety of the academics and the government over the deterioration in proficiency in the English language is well founded. However, simply requiring the use of English in the teaching and training of students in science and technical subjects is a rather short-sighted strategy -- one that fails to acknowledge adequately the future cultural needs of the emerging holistic modern Malaysian society.

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Realizing the need to improve the rate of literacy to 100% by the year 2020, various organizations have taken steps to ensure Malaysia's aspiration to develop a modern information-rich society. The current efforts are in the form of projects and research.

Research on Development of Early Reading Package ("Bacaan Awal" or BAWAL)

Developing an information-rich society means that there has to be enough local reading material to meet the needs of the people. Because reading should start at a young age, a group of researchers from the Education Faculty, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia began a research project to develop a preschool reading model that would be appropriate for children between the ages of 4 and 8. The package, which is in the national language, consists of 50 books divided into three levels: Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3. The approach adopted is the whole language, interactive approach. The first edition of this package was published in 1992 and the various research conducted to test its effectiveness has shown positive results. The second edition of the package was published in 1996. There also have been attempts to integrate BAWAL during storytelling sessions with computer graphics using a local software called S-CAD developed by researchers from the Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Results of these attempts have shown very positive results.

Research on Family Literacy

Improving literacy rates of the population must begin with the younger generation, particularly the very young who in 25 years will represent the information-rich society that Malaysia aspires to. It is for this reason that family literacy projects and research were carried out by a group of researchers from various organizations two universities in the country: Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and University of Malaya (UM). Some of the family literacy projects carried out are discussed in the following section.

Family Literacy Project in Serting, Negri Sembilan

The family literacy project and research carried out in the Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) settlers area of Serting, Negri Sembilan (one of the states in Malaysia), was conducted in 1993 by a group of researchers with the aim of improving literacy among the preschool children of the FELDA settlement. The project was funded by the Ministry of Unity and Social Development for 2 years with a budget of about RM200,000. The initial research conducted was to find out the economic background of the settlers, the amount of time the settlers spend working in the farms, the ability to read among the adult settlers, the type of materials they read, the number of children they have and the breakdown of their age groups, academic achievement of the children, facilities leading to literacy development available in the homes and in the settlement, the problems faced by the parents in trying to inculcate literacy among their children, and the possible solutions to the problems.

Findings of this initial research are summarized in the tables that link to this article. Table 1 shows the distribution of the average income of the FELDA settlers. The table shows that the majority of the settlers have an average total income of between RM250.00 and RM500.00 (US$100-US$200) a month. Based on the observations made by the researchers, the settlers live a simple life with minimal physical facilities. The majority of the families have only one wage earner, but many women work part time to supplement the family income.

Table 2 shows that the number of women settlers who cannot read either the Arabic or Roman script in the national language is small compared to those who can read. This was an important finding because the researchers were interested in educating the mothers to teach their children and other children in the settlement to read. Women became the research samples because they spent more time in the home than their male counterparts. It was felt that they would be trained to conduct literacy programs to the target children (i.e., the preschool children) identified by the researchers. Preschool children were targeted for two main reasons: First, they will be the future adults of Vision 2020; second, they form the biggest group of children in the settlement, more than 79.6%.

The research findings revealed that the settlers face a number of problems relating to their children's literacy development. Among them are the lack of study area in the settlers' homes to carry out any reading activities and the fact that children are not guided to use their time effectively for reading, parents are not aware of ways to encourage reading among their children, and children are not motivated to read.

Among the solutions recommended by the research group were to set up a literacy center in each of the main divisions of the settlement, set up home libraries or reading corners in people's homes, set up a group of volunteers known as "reader motivators" to encourage reading among the children, and train the reader motivators in reading techniques and storytelling techniques suitable for children in this area. It also was recommended that the family literacy program to be conducted should adopt an interactivity approach; that is, there should be close collaboration among the parents, the teachers in the settlement, and the reader motivators. The whole language and interactive approach was used in the literacy programs conducted with the children.

When the research first began, the percentage of preschool children who could read, those who were motivated to read, and those who showed signs of reading readiness were very small (only 16.6%). There were 20 reader motivators. Two years after the research project was completed, the percentage of preschool children who could read, those who were motivated to read, and those who showed signs of reading readiness had increased tremendously (72.9%), and the number of reader motivators had increased to 90. The project is now extended to the other FELDA settlements in the other states of Malaysia.

PUSMAPEN Family Literacy Project

Another successful family literacy research project is the PUSMAPEN ("Pusat Sumber Anda Kementerian Penerangan" or Your Resource Center, Ministry of Information) literacy project conducted in the state of Kedah, headed by a researcher from UKM and sponsored by the Ministry of Information. The research was carried out in three villages in the District of Yan. Like the research in Serting, the PUSMAPEN project was directed to the preschool children and the motivators. The 1-year research project indicated that the children were more motivated to read and showed positive behavior toward literacy after going through the PUSMAPEN program. The project also has been extended to the other villages in the district.

Research on Reading Profile

Research on Literacy and Information Technology

There is also research on the development of a multimedia literacy program to encourage reading that was undertaken by UKM under the IRPA (Intensified Research Priority Areas) grant given to priority areas of research in the country. This research is also targeted to the young population of the country to prepare for the information-rich society. Computer-Assisted Learning (CAL) and Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI) have been proven in various research to be able to motivate learning, particularly in the subject areas of mathematics and English. For this particular research, the courseware for motivating literacy will be in the vernacular language (the national language). A multimedia approach was felt to be most suitable because a variety of media -- graphics, text, sound, voice, animation, and video -- can be integrated in one digital environment. Another advantage is that it is interactive and children can learn at their own pace.

Another related research project that will be carried out is a RM3million (US$1.5 million) multimedia research project to develop educational courseware to enhance teaching in schools conducted by UKM and sponsored by an established local information technology company. Initially, the research will study the best method of delivering mathematical knowledge through the computer, and eventually it will also cover other subjects in schools like reading in English and the national language. Although the research is not directly related to literacy, the development of courseware will help to encourage children not to be afraid of the computers and to develop computer literacy skills indirectly. This is what the government hopes to aspire in the year 2020. In fact, the Ministry of Education is proposing that by January 1, 1999, four subjects -- science, mathematics, English, and Bahasa Malaysia -- will be taught using computers based on the smart school concept. This is a step toward developing an information society in a truly information environment.

Research on Language and Biliteracy

Various research is being carried out at Malaysian universities on the problems relating to biliteracy, particularly pertaining to methods to improve the proficiency of using of the second language at schools and higher institutions. In UKM, research was carried out to study a more effective method to teach English to the students at the university. As a result, a more individualized model, based on a student's proficiency and fluency, was developed. This model is presently being adopted in the university and has shown more positive results.

As mentioned in an earlier section of this article, Malaysia feels that it is imperative that the population be proficient in global languages in order to participate competitively in the economic globalization. Thus, since 1990 Malaysia has made constructive efforts to train more teachers in English in order to increase the number of qualified English teachers in schools. In 1993, a large percentage of science teachers were trained to teach English as their second teaching methodology due to the lack of English teachers in schools. Currently, universities are training more teaching English as a second language (TESL) graduates, and colleges are conducting joint programs in TESL with either local or foreign universities from England, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States in the effort to increase the number of trained and qualified teachers.

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Literacy and biliteracy research has never been more crucial for Malaysia than it is today. Because the world is now entering the digital economic era, Malaysians will have to be prepared for this information environment in order to be a true information-rich society by the year 2020. This means that proper strategies will have to be undertaken to create a fully literate society with a 100% literacy rate. Not only must the society be an information-rich society that possess characteristics such as a high literacy rate, ability to read and write fluently in the vernacular as well as the second language of the country as well as possibly a third language, citizens who are motivated to read, and citizens who seek knowledge, but also they must possess the information technology skills (at least, computer literacy skills) because more and more information will be available in electronic form and the citizens will have to equip themselves with the necessary technology skills in an information environment.

Malaysia is currently making the necessary strategies to meet these aspirations. One of the strategies undertaken is to conduct various literacy research and projects to ensure that the citizens share the aspirations of the country. This is also to ensure that the necessary infrastructure is provided for in the future information-rich society.

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References
Brzezinski, Z. (1970). Between two ages: America's role in the technetronic era. New York: Viking.

Drucker, P.F. (1969). The age of discontinuity: Guidelines to our changing society. New York: Harper & Row.

Mahathir, M. (1991, February 28). The way forward. Working paper presented at the Inaugural Meeting of the Malaysian Business Council.

Masuda, Y. (1981). The information society as post-industrial society. Bethesda, MD: World Future Society.

McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media: The extensions of man. New York: McGraw Hill.