Planning for social development this present era is very critical considering the fragility
of very important life support system, the ecosystem which compromise the economy and affect the society. One of the identified
development tools which will help develop lifelong learners is ICT. This tool has contributed to awareness and understanding through education that initiates sustainability. The objectives of the study are to explore the role of ICT in education for social development process through School Based Telecenter (SBT) for
sustainable society to this time and for the future. This SBT is utilizing the granted ICT infrastructures which is connected to wireless internet and installed with various educational programs. This is not only for students and teachers’ capacity building but for the community for research, computing and communications.
It was found out that in the context of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). SBT has played an important roles in education by improving the academic performance and ICT skills through ICT enabled integration which are not only confined inside the classroom, but students and teachers began to collaborate with other development facilitators such as agricultural technician, health workers, environmentalists and other experts and began to patch the gap of social and technological development through ICT in SBT.
The SBT has extended the services to the community in a lowest price per hour and per page of printing. The impact of cheaper price of goods increases the number of users, thus increasing the demand of the commodity. The SBT has operated for 2 years and has able to sustain its operation and even improving.
The significant role of ICT in sustainable development are providing real time information, venue for interaction with development specialists, processed information and translated into goods and patch the gap between the technology providers and the users through students and teachers. The impact of bridging gap between the providers and users, students are learning the real world environment through reading, comprehending, collaborating and building knowledge relating to farming, entrepreneurship and many others.
It is highly recommended that ICT should be integrated in all social development efforts to bridge the gaps between and among the student, teachers, experts, policy makers, implementers and community of users to attain a sustainable society that should take now or tomorrow it might be late.
Keywords: School Based Telecenter, ICT, Bridging the gap, ESD, Sustainable Society, Real time information, knowledge workers, knowledge driven economy, capacity building, empowerment.