Open and Flexible Higher Education for the Future We Want. Equity, Access and Quality Forum presentation by Dr Hemlata Chari Deputy Director-Academic IDOL, University of Mumbai, India UNESCO-ICDE Forum 9th June 2015

1. Online Open and Flexible Higher
Education for the future we want
Session 3
Dr. Hemlata Chari
Deputy Director- Academic
IDOL, University of Mumbai
INDIA
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

2. EQUITY
ACCESS
QUALITY2
Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

3. EQUITY, ACCESS & QUALITY
• Equity: Beyond access to ensure inclusion for the
unreached at the graduate and post graduate levels
in higher education.
• Access: It implies that educational institutions need
to provide entry into their education system without
bias (access to all)
• Quality: It is the outcome of the individual students
aspirations and future perspectives, keeping the
community and the nation in mind, it is holistic
development and integration of teaching
- UNESCO
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

4. Areas Identified under Equity, Access and
Quality for Teachers, Students & Stakeholders
 Conventional mode and online mode of teaching.
 Language as a medium
 Location.
 Communication
 Capacity building
 Delivery and Assessment
 Cost
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

5. Not one size fits all
 Tailor made teaching for each individual
 Individualized training – Inclusion
 Economic development of diverse people
 Global citizenship for all
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

6. Three legged
stool
EQUITY
COST ?ACCESS
Reclining chair
Q
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TRANSITION FROM THREE LEGGED STOOL TO
RECLINING CHAIR
Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

7. Concerns: How can faculty have a lead in creating the
future higher education that we want?
 Faculty issues- recalcitrance, not comfortable with pedagogical technology
based teaching.
 Lack of proper commitment, initiative
 Prefer face to face (comfort zone)
 Quality – Institutional management not very conducive- Only NAAC –
National Authority Accreditation Council, Internal Quality Assurance Cell
and governed by teachers’ Academic Performance Indicator scores
 Principals, Heads , State Gov. and National level Gov. – implementation of
policies not adequate – for 3Ls- Language, Learning and Localization
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

8. Concern: How will the work of higher education
contribute to promoting equity, access and quality
learning outcomes
 In framing the curriculum and syllabus there are biases- often
experts are not involved in framing curriculum and no training
or capacity building for course materials.
 The teachers need to adopt blended learning for student
learning autonomy, outreach to large numbers that
characterize this country like India.
 There is absence of quality study material and very little use of
OERs.
 The existing Government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi
is going all out to provide facilities for ODL and capacity
building of Indians, but the system lags in adoption of open
education, open access and open data
 Roles and collaboration of partners. 8
Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

9. Four Pillars-EAQ
(Chari H. & Haughey M. 2006)
Sustainability Organization
Learner SupportQuality
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

10. SUSTAINABILITY
 Sustainability refers to the organizations ability to
continue to survive through maintaining a balance
between its activities an the surrounding environment.
 Faculty recruitment and retention
 Mission statement of any institution/organization:
social development goals of the university first,
universalization and equity of educational
opportunities for all, in particular, the disadvantaged in
society through an emphasis of programs offered in
the local language
 The challenge is to sustain –Equity, Access and Quality
in Higher Education
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

11. • Sustainability is a positive concept in distance
education context it means the “ elements
and ingredients considered to operate in an
efficient manner” ( Broekhuis & Vos,2003)
Penfield and Larson(1996) concluded that the
factors for sustainability in distance education
two aspects were essential: a coordinated
infrastructure and an enthusiastic and
committed faculty
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

12. Quality
• Quality needs to be safeguarded through
effective evaluation systems.
• There need to be a balance between external
accountability and internal improvement. One
strategy is to use benchmarks but avoid a single
blue print approach.
• For a quality assurance system to be effective it
must involve those affected in the identification
of the indicators and they should see how they
could use the data they generate to improve their
own performance.
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

13. • Powar (2002) believes that “ massification” of higher
education has lowered the quality of higher education
in the average institution. He agrees that India has
meritorious institutions like the Indian Institute of
Technology and the Indian Institute of Management,
these co exist with other more mediocre institutions.
• The metaphor he uses them as “ islands of excellence
within a sea of mediocrity” (p.57)
• Thus with quality being regarded as a prime requisite in
the “knowledge era” universities are being encouraged
to balance access and equity with quality. (Chari &
Haughey,2006)
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

14. Learner Support Systems
• To ensure student success as independent
learners, more training should be provided to
the teacher counsellors to run sessions so that
students enjoy and participate in discussions.
• In highly competitive global world students
are no longer confined to their classrooms,
with the advances in technology , they look
forward to highly interactive and creative ways
of learning.
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

15. Organization
• Decentralization
• Open to new ideas, focus on development
• Clear communication- site- based
management.
• University should explore partnerships and
streamline processes that encourage better
communication among their departments,
regional and local study centres.
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

16. ROLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION-ODL
• Open Access and modular system
• Open access allows students who did not complete
their high school (grade 10th) or received weak
standard have access to further education.
• Multiple entry and multiple exit with well planned
vertical mobility –
• i) allows student to be able to afford courses,
• ii) maintain a balance with work, family and study, and
• Iii) more recently for graduates expand their
employment opportunities
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

17. QUALITY
• Quality refers to the extent to which
organizations meet their client’s or customer’s
needs.
• In educational organization this includes not only
the learners but also their employers-institutions
and the university at large.
• Quality is a global issue, but the way quality is
perceived differs. (Quality to Quantity-
enrollments)
• Need to introduce Licensing of teachers in their
profession to uphold Quality – NET( National
Eligibility Test for Teachers) is not enough to
ensure quality
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

18. • Quality assessment in higher education in India
began with independence and has continued
since.
• Stella (2004) points out that accountability and
self improvement are likely purposes for quality
assurance and relates that from the National
Assessment Accreditation Council (NAAC)
perspective the self study document aimed at self
improvement is the backbone of the framework.
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

19. • Besides, generic frameworks for open and
distance learning, other authors have
identified quality assurance processes for
specific areas of distance education such as
learner assessment (Koul,2004), learner
support services (Venkaih,2004), multimedia
learning system (Mukhopadhyay,2004) or
governance (Powar,2004)
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

20. Recommendations for EAQ
1. What concrete and SPECIFIC ACTONS can be taken to
ensure that increased access to higher education can
be achieved while at the same time ensuring quality
in both the design and delivery of learning and the
student experience as well as promoting the role of
higher education, especially online, open, and flexible
learning, as making a difference to society?
2. What are the big barriers to EQUITY in higher
education and what SPECIFIC ACTIONS, particularly
those related to online, open, and flexible
learning, can be taken to overcome these barriers?
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

21. Access to Higher Education
• Increasing catchment and holding the enrolled to
higher education by making it relevant to their
economic sustenance, life centeredness,
encouraging women enrollment into higher
education.
• Give English as well as regional language
education at all levels
• Promote learner autonomy and improve
assessment in education, shift from one jacket
fits all to quality education & assessment for
individualized education
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

22. • Learning design using technology will be participatory,
constructive, collaborative and relevant to the
economic development of the learner.
• Delivery of learning will be online and blended
learning, using platforms provided by Indian
Government like National Repository of OER(NROER),
Commonwealth Education Media Centre for Asia
(CEMCA) , National Programme on Technology
Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) – focus on life centered,
research based education for innovations.
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

23. Recommendations -Barrier to Equity in HE
• Barriers to equity are the dominance of
language of higher education- very little study
materials are available in regional languages.
• Not much quality efforts are made to learn
English in school as well as college education.
• Inadequate efforts in teaching academic
writing and self thought communications,
leading to plagiarism and lack of
communication of original ideas.
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

24. Specific roles of technology play in
enabling EQUITY, risks and limitations
• Technology has a major role to play for far off
geographic distances to bring under higher education
especially women and the adults for lifelong learning
too
• Provide online learning in English and regional
languages. Use educational content to fight
discrimination, reduce poverty by being life centered,
focus on economic development and vocational
education ,provide environmental education for
sustainable development.
• Encourage research from data on improving online and
blended learning
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

25. Risks and limitations
• Use of technology is misused as a tool for
restrictive , fixed and uniform minimal education
• The focus on life centeredness , health, economic
development, participatory has to be endorsed
• The assessment in education defeats all good
intentions of education by poor or inappropriate
tools and design of testing.
• In a country like India we are dealing in large
numbers, hence decentralization is required but
honesty and upholding quality must be upheld by
every education system.
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

26. Data from eclipse.mu.ac.in
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

27. Feedback from eclipse.mu.ac.in
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Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI

28. websites
• www.mu.ac.in/idol
• https://ww.eclipse.mu.ac.in
Hemlata Chari, Ph.D, IDOL,UNIVERSITY OF
MUMBAI
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29. References
• Broechuis, M. & Vos,F.J. (2004). Improving
organizational sustainability using a qualityy
perspective. Paper published by University of
Groningnen, Research Institute SOM. Retreived
june 4th 2015 from
http://ideas.repec.org/p/drg/rugsom/03a43.html
• Daniel. J. (1996). Mega Universities and
Knowledge Media: Technology strategies for
higher education. New York: Kogan Page.

30. • Koul ,B. (1996) Quality assurance practices and
principles. The case of Indian Distance Education. In
A.Tait (1997), perspectives on distance education-
quality assurance in Higher education: selected case
studies. Vancouver, Canada: The Commonwealth of
Learning.
• Mukhopadhyay,M.(2004). Quality Management in
multi channel learning system. Paper presented at The
National workshop on: “ Quality Assurance in Flexible
Higher Education: Approaches and Strategies” YCMOU,
Nashik, July 13th-15th 2004.

31. • Powar, K.B. (2004). Quality in governance: Key to a cost
effective open and distance learning system. Paper
presented at The National workshop on: “ Quality
Assurance in Flexible Higher Education: Approaches
and Strategies” YCMOU, Nashik, July 13th-15th 2004.
• Stella,A. (2004). Performance indicators for effective
institutional self –appraisal in the ODL system. Paper
presented at The National workshop on: “ Quality
Assurance in Flexible Higher Education: Approaches
and Strategies” YCMOU, Nashik, July 13th-15th 2004.