GLOBALISATION, as defined by the rich, is a very nice thing, the former US president Jimmy Carter once reflected. “You’re talking about the internet, you’re talking about cell phones, you're talking about computers,” Carter said. “This doesn't affect two-thirds of the people in the world.”

That was in 2001; a lot has changed. In Kenya, mobile phones have become an integral part of cash transfer schemes, enabling poor people in urban areas to buy food. In remote rural areas of Peru, computers provided by the Euro-Solar programme are fuelling an appetite for learning among children. And the senior US political adviser Alec Ross — acknowledging the galvanising influence of social media on the Arab spring — has described the internet as “the Che Guevara of the 21st century”.

If the global spread of technology can do all this, what else might it achieve? Quite a lot, according to the authors of a report prepared by the GSMA mobile industry body and published to coincide with last week's eLearning Africa conference in Cotonou, Benin.

Shaping the future — realising the potential of informal learning through mobile, explores mobile technology's potential to improve access to education for young people in developing countries. The study looks at Ghana, Morocco, Uganda and Maharashtra, in India, identifying young people's aspirations and priorities, exploring the education and employment challenges they face, and scrutinising their mobile phone use.

The endgame is to establish how the mobile industry and international development community can pool their expertise to create m-learning services that improve teaching and learning, and therefore promote long-term development.

“It's a big step in the right direction in terms of putting the possibilities in front of the GSMA's members and raising awareness of the commercial and business opportunities education represents in the developing world,” says John Traxler, professor of m-learning at the University of Wolverhampton in the UK. “Clearly it's a small sample, covering only four countries, so it's indicative rather than representative. But if the networks get the message, it's a valuable piece of work. Networks don't need to hear it's virtuous, they need to hear it's profitable — just enough to encourage them to get out there and do something.”

Mobile phones are increasingly ubiquitous in poor countries, which now account for four in every five connections worldwide .

As Elsie Kanza, of the World Economic Forum, recently said: “Regardless of social class, almost everyone [in Africa] has a mobile phone, or two or three. Even in remote villages, mobile phones have replaced the bicycle or radio as prized assets.”

An obvious caveat is that voice-calls far outstrip data use in poor countries, which remain an emerging market for smartphones and other data-enabled devices. One reason is cost. A quarter of the young people surveyed — and almost half of those from Ghana — said a shortage of money was the biggest obstacle to accessing educational resources. Even so, the rapid spread of mobile technology offers clear possibilities for learning. Of the young people participating in the study who had accessed the internet, half had done so on a mobile device.

One female student from rural India told the GSMA researchers: “In class, I sometimes record the lectures on my phone so I can listen to them later in case I forget or don't understand. I can use the calculator to help me with my maths. My favourite subjects are maths, science, history and economics. If you could get these on your mobile it would be good.”

Enthusiasm for learning was a common thread in the feedback. Only family and health were felt to be of greater importance by the study's participants, 30 per cent of whom said having a good career ranked higher among their priorities than marriage or home ownership.

By arrangement with the Guardian