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20 Years of Distance Education in the Garden of EDEN: Good News and Bad News

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20 Years of Distance Education in the Garden of EDEN: Good News and Bad News

  1. 1. 20 Years of Distance Education in the Garden of EDEN: Good News and Bad News   Sir John Daniel Commonwealth of Learning
  2. 4. Trinity College, Dublin
  3. 5. Ope Open University Degree Ceremony
  4. 6. Trinity College Dublin
  5. 7. University College, Dublin
  6. 8. BUDAPEST PLATFORM
  7. 9. Wenceslas Square, Prague
  8. 10. Gottfried Leibbrandt David Sewart Tamas Lajos Alan Tait Andras Szucs Erling Ljosa Founding President
  9. 12. LINK – The Open University’s partner in Russia
  10. 13. Sergei Schennikov & Brenda Gourley
  11. 15. 20 Years of Distance Education in the Garden of EDEN: Good News and Bad News   Sir John Daniel Commonwealth of Learning
  12. 18. TECHNO LOGY
  13. 19. SUCC ESS
  14. 20. <ul><li>The Central Challenge </li></ul><ul><li>ACCESS (wider) </li></ul><ul><li>QUALITY (higher) </li></ul><ul><li>COST (lower) </li></ul>
  15. 21. COST ACCESS QUALITY
  16. 23. COST ACCESS QUALITY The Iron Triangle
  17. 24. COST ACCESS QUALITY
  18. 25. COST ACCESS QUALITY The Iron Triangle
  19. 26. COST ACCESS QUALITY The Iron Triangle
  20. 27. COST ACCESS QUALITY The Iron Triangle
  21. 28. COST ACCESS QUALITY “ an insidious link between quality and exclusivity”
  22. 29. COST ACCESS QUALITY
  23. 30. <ul><li>The Technology Revolution </li></ul><ul><li>ACCESS (wider) </li></ul><ul><li>QUALITY (higher) </li></ul><ul><li>COST (lower) </li></ul><ul><li>ALL AT THE SAME TIME! </li></ul>
  24. 31. <ul><li>Two Generations of Technology </li></ul><ul><li>Productive technology: the industrial revolution </li></ul><ul><li>Digital technology: the information revolution </li></ul>
  25. 32. <ul><li>Principles of Technology </li></ul><ul><li>Division of labour </li></ul><ul><li>Specialisation </li></ul><ul><li>Economies of scale </li></ul><ul><li>Machines and ICTs </li></ul>Adam Smith 1723-1790
  26. 33. DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY “ networked individualism” “ participating, collaborating and producing as part of a community” “ connectivism”
  27. 34. productive technology + digital technology Is it scalable?
  28. 35. Professor Tony Bates “2011 Outlook for Online Learning and Distance Education” (www.contactnorth.ca)
  29. 36. United States Enrolments in eLearning courses increased by 21% between 2009 and 2010 compared to 2% for campus enrolments.
  30. 37. <ul><li>goals for eLearning are unambitious </li></ul><ul><li>costs are rising </li></ul><ul><li>no evidence of better learning outcomes </li></ul><ul><li>failure to meet quality standards </li></ul>
  31. 38. United States the for-profit sector has a much higher proportion of the total online market (32%) compared to its share of the overall higher education market (7%).
  32. 39. Tony Bates “ a growing market that is not well served by campus-based education” &quot;If public institutions do not step up to the plate, then the corporate for-profit sector will&quot;.
  33. 40. Will higher education split over the coming years into a public sector focussed on research and a for-profit sector doing most of the teaching?
  34. 41. The World Conference on Higher Education UNESCO Paris - July 2009 “ The New Dynamics of Higher Education
  35. 42. Massification “ Nearly one-third of the world’s population (29.3%) is under 15. Today there are 165 million people enrolled in tertiary education 1 . Projections suggest that that participation will peak at 263 million 2 in 2025. Accommodating the additional 98 million students would require more than four major universities (30,000 students) to open every week for the next fifteen years.   1 ISCED levels 5 & 6 UNESCO Institute of Statistics figures 2 British Council and IDP Australia projections
  36. 44. UNIVERSITY RANKINGS
  37. 46. “ A disruptive technology, which online learning may prove to be, rarely favours existing providers”
  38. 47. “ over 80% of US students are expected to be taking courses online in 2014, up from 44% in 2009”
  39. 48. Higher Education: a Great Divide? Teaching Research
  40. 49. Higher Education: a Great Divide? Teaching Research Private Public
  41. 50. COST ACCESS QUALITY The Iron Triangle
  42. 51. COST ACCESS QUALITY
  43. 52. SUCC ESS
  44. 53. “ Distance education faces a new wave of hostility to its values and methods”
  45. 55. <ul><li>Contesting the values of ODL </li></ul><ul><li>Openness to people Quality does not mean excluding people </li></ul>
  46. 56. <ul><li>Contesting the values of ODL </li></ul><ul><li>Openness to people Quality does not mean excluding people </li></ul><ul><li>2. Openness to ideas Independent study = independent thinking </li></ul>
  47. 57. <ul><li>A strange paradox </li></ul><ul><li>Distance education is booming </li></ul><ul><li>More and bigger mega-universities and open universities </li></ul><ul><li>Most campus universities engage in distance teaching </li></ul>
  48. 59. A strange paradox Distance education is booming BUT Opposition to ODL is emerging all over the world
  49. 60. The World Conference on Higher Education UNESCO Paris - July 2009 “ The New Dynamics of Higher Education and Research for Societal Change and Development” Stamenka Uvalić-Trumbić
  50. 61. <ul><li>WCHE New Dynamics </li></ul><ul><li>Rising demand (massification) </li></ul><ul><li>Diversification (providers & methods) </li></ul><ul><li>Private provision </li></ul><ul><li>Distance education </li></ul><ul><li>Cross-border education </li></ul><ul><li>Quality assurance </li></ul><ul><li>Teacher education </li></ul><ul><li>Challenges to the academic profession </li></ul>
  51. 62. The current wave of opposition to ODL will not prevail against it!
  52. 63. The clock will not be turned back!
  53. 64. Ethiopia “ an egregious and startling case” August 26, 2010: Ministry of Education announces All distance education programmes in private and public institutions scrapped. ‘ distance learning education is unnecessary at this stage in the development of the education sector’
  54. 65. Meles Zenawi … in the 1990s the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, and most of his cabinet studied successfully for the UK Open University’s MBA…
  55. 66. The ban affects 75,000 students in 64 private institutions, which were a major contributor to raising Ethiopia’s gross enrolment rate in HE from 1% to 5% in a decade
  56. 67. But the answer is an effective quality assurance regime, not throwing the baby out with the bathwater!
  57. 68. The ban affects 75,000 students in 64 private institutions, which were a major contributor to raising Ethiopia’s gross enrolment rate in HE from 1% to 5% in a decade The ban has now been lifted and a quality assurance system put in place. The private institutions must also observe a strict 70-to-30 ratio between natural sciences/technology versus social sciences/humanities.
  58. 69. India A flawed and ineffective quality assurance structure for distance education because the Distance Education Council is nested within the Indira Gandhi National Open University, creating a grave conflict of interest.
  59. 70. India A flawed and ineffective quality assurance structure for distance education because the Distance Education Council is nested within the Indira Gandhi National Open University, creating a grave conflict of interest. Proposal: No new university can offer ODL for five years.
  60. 71. United States <ul><li>State-subsidized loans for students of private for-profit institutions </li></ul><ul><li>Abuses blamed on distance learning not on poor regulation of subsidies </li></ul><ul><li>No subsidized loans for US residents studying with foreign ODL providers </li></ul>
  61. 72. o <ul><li>Other barriers to ODL </li></ul><ul><li>No government employment for ODL graduates </li></ul><ul><li>Distinguish between ODL and F2F on transcripts </li></ul>Ecuador Proposed Legislation: ‘(Academic diplomas and degrees) should make mention of the modality in which the studies were completed…’
  62. 73. o <ul><li>Other barriers to ODL </li></ul><ul><li>Specifying the blend: </li></ul><ul><li>How much face-to-face needed? Brazil 80% Malaysia 20% </li></ul>
  63. 74. o Other barriers to ODL Specifying the blend: ‘ Blended learning’ can be a large fig leaf to deceive people!
  64. 75. The Opportunity 1. Explain to governments that ODL is a key part of the answer to expanding higher education at low cost.
  65. 76. Ethiopia “ an egregious and startling case” The World Bank was advising Ethiopia to expand ODL and private institutions in order to increase participation rates.
  66. 77. The Opportunity 2. Explain to governments that ODL fosters self-directed learning Self-directed Spoon fed
  67. 78. The Opportunity 3. Explain to governments that ODL is an effective mechanism for innovation in ICTs in higher education
  68. 79. 300,000 downloads of the UKOU’s materials per week account for 10% of all iTunesU traffic
  69. 80. The Opportunity 4. Clean out the bad apples
  70. 81. <ul><li>WCHE New Dynamics </li></ul><ul><li>Rising demand (massification) </li></ul><ul><li>Diversification (providers & methods) </li></ul><ul><li>Private provision </li></ul><ul><li>Distance education </li></ul><ul><li>Cross-border education </li></ul><ul><li>Internationalisation of Quality Assurance </li></ul><ul><li>Teacher education </li></ul><ul><li>Challenges to the academic profession </li></ul>
  71. 82. We should campaign for our countries to maintain strong and independent quality assurance agencies that have all higher education under their purview, public and private, classroom and distance.
  72. 83. UNESCO and the Council on Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) developed suggestions for effective practice on degree mills through an expert group UNESCO and COL are alerting developing countries and small states to the threat of degree mills The UNESCO Portal is one response
  73. 84. BEWARE DEGREE MILLS & BOGUS COLLEGES
  74. 85. 20 Years of Distance Education in the Garden of EDEN: Good News and Bad News   Sir John Daniel Commonwealth of Learning
  75. 86. Expand Higher Education Encourage self-directed learning Effective use of ICTs Clean out the bad apples
  76. 87. COST ACCESS QUALITY The Iron Triangle
  77. 88. COST ACCESS QUALITY
  78. 90. THANK YOU For text and slides www.col.org/speeches
  79. 91. THANK YOU For text and slides: www.col.org/speeches

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