It should be possible to use technology to help bridge the gap. Session 2 The Virtual University concept in education for sustainable development - state of the art. The impact of distant education as a tool to capacity building and environmental information provision. The user friendliness for third world users needs to be developed. However, it seems that simple courses do not need much bandwidth on the internet.
Costs depends on level of sophistication.
When using existing, traditional courses these represent an initial cost, but the existing courses make it fairly easy to adapt on-line. Breakeven is often obtained with 16-18 students. The pedagogical issue is probably more important than the technology. Experience shows that when the first courses start out simple, as an electronic correspondence school with problem-oriented education, links etc., the costs are fairly low. The feedback obtained from students so far, indicate that many students wanted mainly web-pages, new information, new exercises.