lifelong learning and distance higher education - Asia Pacific Region

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CHAPTER 12CONCLUSIONChristopher McIntoshLooking back over the contents of this volume, we find, on the one hand, a large measureof consensus over key issues, trends and challenges in the field covered and, on the otherhand, a diversity of approaches and perspectives. Clearly all the contributors are agreedon the following facts:1. Higher education institutions throughout the world are coming under increasingpressure for reasons already described.2. With the advance of globalisation, higher education is increasingly crossing national,sectoral, institutional and disciplinary borders, bringing many new challenges.3. Lifelong learning is becoming increasingly essential in a world of rapid social,economic and technical change.4. The explosion of information and communication technologies (ICTs) offers a wayof meeting these challenges and holds vast possibilities for the future of distancehigher education.However, in specific contexts – national, institutional or sectoral – these facts can leadto different scenarios. And herein lies the first salient point to emerge from the book:that those engaged in making policies relating to distance higher education and the useof ICTs are constantly having to strike a balance between universalising tendencies(globalisation, student mobility, the need for international standards and norms etc.) andthe demands of different nations, cultures, population groups and constituencies.Taking the national level, it is clear from several of the contributions how much countriesvary in their educational needs, their technological capacity, the attitudes of students andteachers towards modern learning technologies, and the scale on which it is practicalto apply ICT-based learning. The much discussed digital divide is of course one of themajor factors here. As long as this divide persists it will be necessary for policy-makersto adapt their plans to what is technically possible in a particular national context. TheFinnish Virtual University, described by Marja Kylämä, is made possible by, amongother things, Finland’s high rate of Internet access and its computer-literate learners. Avery different situation prevails, as Olivier Sagna tells us, in Africa where “the numberof people possessing a home connection to the Internet is insignificant”. Nevertheless,as Mr. Sagna’s example from Senegal shows, some African higher education institutionsare finding inventive ways of carrying out ICT-based learning despite the digital divide151
y, for example, entering into partnerships with private companies to make computersavailable part-time to students doing courses online. The situation is again different inChina, where there is both an external and internal digital divide, but where e-learningprovision is developing at high speed within a well planned and co-ordinated strategy,in which the government is playing a key role. Each of these countries offers usefulexamples to planners elsewhere in the world, depending on the level of digital technologyand provision in the country concerned.Countries also evince wide differences in the attitudes of learners towards distancelearning in general and ICT-based learning in particular. In countries such as the UK,as is shown by the case of the Open University, described in Mary Thorpe’s chapter,distance higher education and ICT-based courses enjoy a high acceptance in the learningcommunity. By contrast, in China this form of learning is at present regarded as a loweroption for those studying towards a degree. As Ding Xingfu, Gu Xiaoqing, and ZhuZhiting report, most of these have only taken the e-learning route because it is the lastchance for them to receive higher education. The authors also report widespread lack ofunderstanding, among both learners and teachers, as to the nature of e-learning and whatit requires. Students often lack the necessary motivation and self-discipline, and manyteachers think that they can simply put educational materials online and then wait for thestudents to use them.Providers of e-learning also face a cultural diversity that can sometimes create difficultiesor barriers when programmes cross frontiers. As Mary Thorpe writes:“When the [UK] Open University sought to open its courses to US students, ithad to break down long courses into shorter modules, fitting with the US semestersystem, and also with the concept of regular instructional activity led by a tutor,on a weekly basis. Course materials may also include content that is too culturallyspecific, or even offensive in some contexts.”Linguistic diversity is a further challenge at a time when English is becoming more andmore dominant as the language of cyber-space.While countries differ widely in the ways already mentioned, they also have manycommon problems. One of these, albeit varying greatly in degree, is that of funding, dealtwith in the chapter by Greville Rumble and Frederic Litto, which helps us to understandhow cost patterns are changing with the growth of distance and ICT-based learning.Another common problem is that of standardisation. The Chinese authors, describing thischallenge, write:“Hundreds of ICT companies are competing in the Chinese e-learning market.Consequently, many e-learning systems developed by various educationalcompanies are experiencing difficulties in resource sharing and harmonising theirsystems owing to the different technology standards used. In 2001 the Chinesee-Learning Technology Standardisation Committee (CELTSC) was established,which is responsible for developing a standardised framework for e-learningtechnology systems.”The importance of standardisation is also highlighted by Marja Kylämä whendescribing the work of the Finnish Virtual University’s Service Unit: “The foremosttask for the Service Unit is to support university ICT co-operation. This includesdefining joint university standards, harmonising practices in electronic service accessand ICT, and drafting standardisation agreements together with the parties to the FVUagreement.” Clearly standardisation is likely to become an increasingly complex issue,152
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PERSPECTIVES ONDISTANCE EDUCATIONLi
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The Commonwealth of Learning (COL)
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSIn addition to the
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These are some of the issues that a
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What are the trends and issues in l
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of policy implications relating to
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evince important differences that c
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inequitable regulations governing t
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associations and groups of countrie
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THE CONTRIBUTORChristopher McIntosh
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INTRODUCTIONIn his 1996 report to U
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Lastly, our analysis of the situati
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diploma or similar certificates of
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force of the undertaking. Here agai
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RELEVANT INTERNET SITESUNESCO Task
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Notes1. This phrasing has been used
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goals (Daniel, 1996). Lifelong lear
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eported that group activity had red
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NEW AREAS FOR DISTANCE EDUCATION:WO
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targets systematically for the use
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Rausch, A.S. (2003). A case study o
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correspondence teaching systems tha
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significant differences between syn
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In distance flexible- and blended-e
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STATE-FUNDED DUAL-MODE SYSTEMS ATUN
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Table 4.2: Fundable elements in dis
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sciences in 21 countries of the reg
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How a system is funded depends in p
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Litto, Fredric M. (2004). Digital l
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CHAPTER 5LIFELONG LEARNING IN THE A
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education, which was initiated by C
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So the virtual classroom acted as a
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In June 2002, when the course came
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RELEVANT INTERNET SITESFORCIIR proj
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11. The approximate rate for 1€ w
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The term modern distance education
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the National Networked Consortium f
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important resource for undeveloped
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standards have been proposed for th
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The development of e-learning withi
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RELEVANT INTERNET SITESCCRTVU Onlin
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MoE (2004b) The Notice on Running N
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CHAPTER 7QUALITY ASSURANCE SURVEYOF
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(Paris, France, 28-29 June 2004) in
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Examples of elaborated QA policies:
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plans and produces its conventional
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SHTVU (China)• Teaching• Teachi
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offers its programmes to Turkish ci
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mega universities apply a set of st
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RELEVANT INTERNET SITESThe Commonwe
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2. QA initiatives or publications b
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Page 109 and 110: RELEVANT INTERNET SITESHigher Educa
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Page 113 and 114: foreign providers. In Finland, the
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Page 125 and 126: CHAPTER 10PROMOTING CROSS-BORDERREC
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Page 151 and 152: REFERENCESBates, A. (1995). Technol
Page 153: Twigg, C. (2001). Quality Assurance
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