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272 WORLD DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2016
Box 5.10 Massive open online courses (MOOCs): A promising tool
for lifelong learning (continued)
following its introduction in summer 2012, open courses
offered by HarvardX and MITx, and hosted by edX, attracted
an average of 1,300 new participants per course per day. a
MOOCs are promising. People from anywhere around
the world can access postsecondary education from prestigious
institutions with only a gadget and access to the
internet. Among adults who work and who have a certain
level of skills, online education can be a powerful force for
lifelong learning. These are individuals who would appreciate
the flexibility (since they can combine it with work,
which is one of the usual barriers for retraining). These are
also workers who are likely to be best prepared for selfguided
learning. In addition, the courses provide access
to specialized topics that may not be available in the local
economy. At the very least, MOOCs can complement offline
learning.
Coursera and edX have started to evaluate their programs.
One study finds that a slight majority of MOOC
students are seeking certification, and those opting for
fee-based, ID-verified certificates have higher rates of completion.
The study also finds that literacy and motivation
to self-study are necessary characteristics to access and
complete MOOCs, but so are more basic elements such as
high-speed internet and digital skills.
Yet, while their potential is large, there are questions
about financial sustainability, the value of online education,
and the evaluation methods. Another study argues
that MOOCs are an improvement on noninteractive, online
courses, but that the current model is unsustainable.
Eventually, content will no longer be free, and star instructors
will have to be paid like stars. And although they can
be an efficient way for transferring content and reinforcing
learning, especially in basic courses, the lack of face-toface
interactions, the absence of individualized feedback
from faculty, and the lack of access to complex infrastructure
such as labs, make MOOCs an unlikely competitor to
existing postsecondary education institutions, especially
in the developed world. b Finally, in terms of evaluation,
MOOCs are complementing multiple-choice and shortanswer
questions with peer-grading and peer-commenting
systems, in which students help each other with assignments
and comment on each other’s work.
a. Ho and others 2015.
b. Hoxby 2014.
Institutions: Connecting for
a capable and accountable
government
Digital technologies have had limited impact on
strengthening government capability and accountability
because of the misaligned incentives of policy
makers and service providers—a gap between institutions
and technology. They have helped willing and
able governments serve their citizens better, but they
have not yet empowered citizens to make unwilling
governments more accountable. The policy agenda is
thus to use digital technologies to strengthen institutions
by tailoring policies that are compatible with
the incentives of politicians and providers. The policy
choices for different country contexts are informed
by the findings in chapter 3 that for some services,
digital technologies can substitute for weak institutions
and be transformative—while for other services,
digital technologies are only complementary and
require strong institutions to have an impact.
Technology mixes appropriate to
institutions
The policy agenda needs to be guided by the country
context, classified here as emerging, transitioning, or
transforming depending on the extent to which government
uses digital technology and the quality of
political and administrative institutions (figure 5.10).
Emerging countries are characterized by weak
institutions and, in fragile contexts, the institutions
may be failing. Politicians are often kept in power by a
narrow set of elites who are largely unaccountable to
the poor. The bureaucracy is largely patronage-based,
with little incentive to deliver services. These reform
contexts are the most difficult, as the state is failing
not only to deliver services but also to perform the
most basic functions of maintaining security. The
priority in these countries is to lay the institutional
foundations so that governments can start performing
basic functions. They should ensure that teachers
and doctors show up to work and are paid on time.
They should curtail the outright theft of public funds