lifelong learning and distance higher education - Asia Pacific Region

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