Open and Distance Learning for Sustainable Development

Well functioning teacher education systems are clearly central to the development of Africa.
This is the appropriate time to reflect on the contribution that distance education does and
could make to teacher education.
This paper explores this issue with respect to five key questions:
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• What is the role of distance education in the context of teacher education?
• Why use distance education for teacher development?
• Does distance education deliver?
• What are the challenges for improving teaching practices?
• What is needed for effective teacher education through distance education in the
future?
What is the role of distance education in the context of teacher education?
Extensive and increasing use is made of distance education for teacher development globally
(Robinson & Latchem, 2003) and in Africa in particular in pursuit of EFA goals and a global
shortage of teachers in general and primary level teachers in particular (ADEA 2002, 2004;
Mattson 2004; Sayed 2006). Distance education is used in the
• initial professional education of teachers (IPET)
• the continuing professional development of teachers (CPET)
• IPET for teachers already in service
• development of education management.
In South Africa, in teacher education, distance education has long since played a far greater
role – at least in respect of numbers enrolled and graduating than face to face education. This
phenomenon may well be repeated in other African countries like Kenya, Nigeria and Malawi
which have seen large scale development of distance teacher education provision. Distance
education may well be moving to the centre-stage in teacher education. We need to
understand why.
Why use distance education for teacher development?
In responding to this question, we need to have a common understanding of what it is we
mean by distance education. In the context of teacher education and particularly given the
range of knowledge, skills and values outcomes associated with teacher education, we have
found it useful to understand distance education not as a mode of delivery with one identity,
but rather as a collection of methods, deployed in various combinations to support identified
educational outcomes:
Distance Education needs to be conceived as a sophisticated collection of methods for
the provision of structured learning in situations, increasingly the norm, where
students are unable primarily to attend fixed classes at a centralised venue and in the
physical presence of a teacher (SAIDE, 2003).
It is increasingly clear that the conventional system of full-time, contact-based Colleges of
Education and Education Departments in Universities is unable to meet the growing need for
teacher development. Some of the reasons for this include that the numbers required exceed