Global Perspectives on E-Learning

Rhetoric and Reality

Alison A. Carr-Chellman

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN: 9781412904896, 9781412904889
• eBook ISBN: 9781452236971
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

"The committee felt that Global Perspectives on E-Learning: Rhetoric and Reality was a remarkable commentary on the disconnect between the rhetoric of online learning (anywhere-anytime, open access, democratization, increasing economic opportunity) and the realities in regions as disparate as North America and sub-Saharan Africa (education as a "consumer good," increasing economic and social distances within populations, education for global consumerism rather than civic participation)."
--DISTANCE LEARNING COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

"Global Perspectives on E-Learning offers an authoritative compendium of online teaching and learning in a cross-section of nations around the world. This is a state-of-the-art review of promising online programs by authors who have participated in the movement. Rarely do we find such current and authoritative information about educational technology developments in more than a dozen countries in six continents."
—Don Ely, Syracuse University
 
"We need more critical and reflective texts on distance education and its evolution within a global framework. The authors provide the reader a social and political context for thinking about global education."
—Roberto Muffoletto, Appalachian State University

"Global Perspectives on E-Learning is a fascinating expedition on the road to democratizing online/distance learning through the dichotomy of rhetoric and social realities in countries around the world."
—Paul Gathercoal, California Lutheran University

"I think this is an excellent text. It provides the reader with a broad international perspective of distance education, something that is in short supply."
—Chris Zirkle, College of Education, Ohio State University

E-learning is growing around the world, with applications from schools to non-profits to business and industry and, of course, higher education. It has been heralded as the next democratizing force in education for offering access regardless of physical limitations, job status, geography, etc. It has also been challenged as representative of the myth of meritocracy for exacerbating the view that education alone rectifies failures to meet social needs. Further, the financial incentive to privatize education leads many to question its democratic merits. Global Perspectives on E-Learning: Rhetoric and Reality presents several cases of international online education and the rhetoric that surrounds this form of teaching and learning.

Editor Alison A. Carr-Chellman examines the impact of online distance education throughout the world in an effort to understand more deeply the merits of such initiatives. Written from a critical perspective, the book sheds light on some of the problems faced by international distance educators. It particularly focuses on who benefits, and who does not, by the advance of international e-learning and how we can respond to the needs of the disenfranchised. This book is intended to supplement what has to this point been largely a positive, how-to literature in distance education. It offers a balanced perspective on the problems and possibilities of distance education worldwide.

Global Perspectives on E-Learning is perfectly suited as a supplemental text for a variety of graduate-level education courses. Professional educators, policy makers, and anyone interested in international online education should consider this a vital addition to their libraries.

Key Features

• International case studies and discussions that show how initiatives interface with the international e-learning movement
• Focus questions at the start of each chapter help readers construct an advanced schema
• Numerous unique viewpoints from around the world provide a sophisticated and comprehensive overview
• Coverage from a number of countries: China, Taiwan, India, Namibia, Turkey, Ireland, the U.K., New Zealand, Australia, and the United States
• A matrix of case studies that groups the cases by focus and theme, allowing students and instructors to customize their use of the book

PART I

ONLINE EDUCATION IN ASIA:

An Analysis of
China, Taiwan, and India

Witness not the sages of the past,
Perceive not the wise of the future,
eflecting on heaven and earth eternal,
Tears flowing down I lament in loneliness.

—Chen Zi'ang

Asia and all Eastern cultures are far from being the same as Western cultures. I suppose this is perhaps one of the more obvious statements made in this text. But it is worthy of emphasis. Online learning, like all education, does not happen in a vacuum. This is part of the message of this book—that we recognize that learning is not a-cultural or a-contextual, but rather is highly dependent on the culture and context in which the learning and learners are embedded.

In the case of this section, we consider three very different contexts within the Eastern culture: Taiwan, China, and India. Jiang's examination of Taiwan is focused primarily on the ways in which Taiwan has focused on the industrialization of e-learning. In particular, Taiwan has focused most of its efforts on the use of e-learning in industry, but those who are more interested in e-learning for the purposes of advancing social equity are lonely voices indeed. As Jiang points out, the orientation from the government and policy makers has been to benefit those in the industrial marketplace. Yet industry's perpetual quest for higher profits should not be the goal of government policy. Taiwan wishes to create an R&D center that will serve the global Chinese community, which certainly may benefit the rural poor in Taiwan and mainland China, but the primary purpose is not to serve that population, but rather to serve the needs of industry in an effort to create a high profile for Taiwan's e-learning efforts.

Zhang's discussion of China's e-learning initiatives clarifies the complexity of the power relationships and the cultural difference from traditional Western contexts. As is the case in Taiwan and India, one of the primary motivators for governmental reach to disenfranchised populations is to create a large, educated, and skilled workforce. One of the interesting bits of rhetoric in these cases is the idea that policy makers and governmental officials are discussing the importance not only of honing a large skilled workforce, but also of transcending issues of class. This is rather a curious and complex orientation from China in particular as a traditional communist society. It is far more understandable from India, where the gap between rich and poor is notoriously enormous.

Another somewhat confusing aspect of China's case is that much of the rhetoric is centered on democracy, and access in particular, as the lived experience of democracy. Understanding that China is still a stalwart of communism, the notion that the rhetoric of democracy informs in any significant way the selling of public policy and public expenditures for the purposes of online learning seems an internal contradiction. One final interesting aspect of the Chinese case is the status that online or distance learning has traditionally held in Chinese society. As Zhang points out, there are many actual benefits for a person who chooses to remain employed while seeking a degree within Chinese society. What is most interesting is not that this performance is adequately rewarded; that would be expected given the communist nature of Chinese society. What is interesting is the idea that there is no differentiation between an online degree and one earned at a traditional bricks and mortar institution. Perhaps it should not surprise us that there should be less brand loyalty in Chinese culture; however, education abroad at specific institutions has long been prized in China. This is in stark contrast to India where, as Sharma points out, “Distance education in India has consistently been viewed as a second-rate education alternative, and traditional education is still reserved for elite, urban consumers” (p. 5, this volume).

In all three cases—Taiwan, India and China—there is a certain loneliness and silence that is apparent in the e-learning culture of these countries. Those in the rural countryside of all three nations have been left behind. In comparison to Western cultures, where class is the primary determinant of access and attrition rates among e-learners, Eastern cultures intersect class and geographic location for a double threat to equity. India offers a particularly poignant image of this threat. As the software and movie industry booms in the urban centers of India make the rich richer, those in the poor and remote villages are deprived of many of the most basic life needs, from electricity to learning. The result of this rural disconnect is truly a sense of loss and loneliness.

_________________

AUTHOR'S NOTE: An earlier version of this chapter was published as Carr-Chellman, A. A., & Zhang, K. (2000). China's future with distance education: Rhetoric and realities. Information, Communication and Society, 3 (3), 303–312. The author wishes to thank Dr. Ali Carr-Chellman for her active initiatives in this research project and her contributions to the earlier version.

ONE

CHINA'S ONLINE EDUCATION:

Rhetoric and Realities

Ke Zhang

Although little is currently known of distance education in China, especially in Western educational circles, there is a long-standing well-established instructional television system of distance education that has flourished in China since the 1960s (Howells, 1989). In fact, one of the world's largest education systems is the Dianda system in China, a combined radio-television university system capable of enrolling upwards of 100,000 learners (Keegan, 1994). With the advent of online education, however, China must face a brave new world of innovation. This chapter examines the political rhetoric surrounding the allocation of funds and energies to online learning, considers the critical components of that rhetoric, and discusses the impacts on the way China adopts the new online learning technologies. As you read this chapter, please reflect upon the following questions:

• How does the political rhetoric match or mismatch the reality of online education in China?
• How does the regional economical divide impact the implementation of online education in China?
• What would you question about China's online education as envisioned in the political rhetoric?
• How does online education in China differ from that in the United States? What causes such differences?
• What are the major challenges China is facing in its endeavor with online education? What would you suggest the Chinese government do to overcome the challenges?

It is clear from recent political statements that China is prepared to leverage distance education to reach a broader audience through the Internet. The latest survey on Internet development in China (China Internet Network Information Center, 2003) shows that as of June 30, 2003, there were 25.72 million computers through which at least one person has accessed the Internet and over 68 million Internet users in mainland China. The Ministry of Education (MOE) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) anticipated more than a million Chinese being able to access distance open higher education starting in fall 1999.

The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (1999) clearly emphasized the importance of the emerging educational technology in “Decisions on Furthering Educational Reform and Advancing Quality Education”:

Part 2, item 15: take full advantage of the modern distance education network to provide lifetime learning opportunities for all social members, to provide appropriate education needed in rural areas and outlying districts.

At the Sixteenth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, the national leadership (Jiang, 2002) emphasized again the strategic importance of education in national development and the strategy of using technology to leverage education at all levels. The MOE (2002b) made it clear in its Focuses for the Year of 2003:

[Focus on] piloting the network technologies and traditional face-to-face teaching methods… conducting research on multimedia and network-based courseware…. Actively develop the web-based public service system in education, create and share quality educational resources.

INTERNET DEMOCRACIES

The Ministry of Education (2002b) made the value of open access very clear in its goal statement:

[One of our goals is to] achieve equal access to education and fairness in education, [to ensure] everyone in the country has the opportunity to receive good education… establish an open educational system and a human resource development system that cover the entire country, both cities and rural areas, to create multiple-leveled, multiple-formed learning opportunities for all people.

At the 16th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in November 2002, President Jiang (2002) again stressed the strategic importance of education in his report to the congress, and mentioned in particular the great needs for more accessible and improved education in rural China:

We should…promote quality-oriented education to cultivate hundreds of millions of high-quality workers, tens of millions of specialized personnel and a great number of top-notch innovative personnel…. We should continue to make nine-year compulsory education universal across the country, intensify vocational education and training, develop continued education and set up a system of life-long education. We should increase input in education, give more support to rural education, and encourage nongovernmental sectors to run schools. We should improve the state policy and system for aiding students in straitened circumstances.

Thus, distance education is seen as a way to transcend social class, and it seems relatively clear that vocational/occupational education is an important component of Jiang's vision of China's education. In a similar fashion, Wei Yu (1999), vice minister of the Ministry of Education at that time, recognized the following as one of the key elements in developing China's modern distance education:

To provide more technologies for the peasants, to apply modern educational technology to promote education in our outlying districts, poorer areas, minority nationality regions, and less-developed areas. For those areas, the first and foremost is to promote nine-year compulsory education and to de-illiteracy, and then to improve the educational level gradually to advance economic development there.

In general, the educational level of people in rural China is significantly lower than that of the city populace, and so is the technology availability. Therefore, when the big cities are ready for Internet-leveraged distance education, the rural poor may just not have the technology or the knowledge and skills required for online learning. Precisely which areas would benefit from the advanced technologies, particularly the Internet, is not entirely clear despite the rhetoric. In a speech offered by Wei (1999), the importance of radio and television for rural areas seems clear:

We think that, although TV, as the major distance education deliver medium, is one-way broadcasting, it costs much less, especially given the fact that TV is highly accessible—in rural areas the average ownership of TV sets is ninety-two percent in 1997. In addition, currently the costs for the computer networking systems in our country are fairly high, and (the network systems thus) have limited availability. Therefore in the near future, especially in the rural areas, satellite TV education will still be playing an important role. However, as CERNET (the Chinese Education and Research Net) and other computer networking technologies develop, distance education is developing with a trend to be multimedia and interactivity…. As a developing country, we must watch the trends closely, and actively conduct related research. Also we must explore a development path based on our own situations…. Considering the regional imbalance in economic development, the Chinese government will develop informationized education through three stages: the first is to develop educational technologies, focusing on multimedia, and to promote school applications; the second is to spread knowledge on networking systems, to learn to take advantage of online resources; and the third is to develop Modern Distance Education, to build and provide enormous online resources, so to satisfy the ever-growing needs in the society for lifetime learning.

Thus, it would seem that while radio and television will continue to be the major educational media in rural China, it is not clear if many poor areas will benefit from the Internet connections in the near future. The three-stage development plan (Wei, 1999) seems to be based on the current status of the relatively developed regions, yet in reality, there is a serious shortage of schools, teachers and other basic facilities in rural China (MOE, 2002b), and not only are computer and network technologies not widely accessible there, but also the populace is not well prepared with knowledge and skills for online learning. The State Council (2003) has re-emphasized the importance of education in rural China and has specified that the key task there is to ensure education to all school-aged children by building more schools, making facilities and teachers available, and providing financial support to the poor families. Based on the real needs in rural China, the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Education (2002) specify the allocation of educational funds from the central government to the rural areas in the following fashion: school construction and maintenance (60%), information technology and teaching facilities (10%), purchase of desks and chairs (10%), books and fee waivers for the poor (10%), and professional development of teachers and principals (10%). Although it is envisioned that online learning will reach larger audiences and help fulfill the educational needs across China in the political rhetoric, the reality appears more controversial and challenging with the dramatic differences between the cities and the rural areas in terms of the educational needs and readiness for Internet enhanced education.

RURAL CHINA: LEFT BEHIND?

The Chinese government attempts to provide equal access to education nationwide, as clearly stated consistently in the political rhetoric (Wei, 1999; Jiang, 2002; MOE, 2002b; State Council, 2003). However, the regional economic conditions vary, drastically in many cases, and the immediate needs for education in those areas vary significantly as a result. The central government realizes the economic divide and attempts to resolve the unhealthy imbalance. The 16th National Congress has put more attention on the development of western regions, which are generally rural, remote, and poor areas. Many policies are established to help speed up the economic development in the western regions, and more money is allocated there for economical and educational development from the central government (State Council, 2003). Online education has been identified as one of the strategies to narrow the educational gap between urban and rural areas. One of the major efforts is to build a computer network system in 152 universities in the western region, with 900 million RMB Yuan (approximately US$108 million) special fund from the central government (MOE, 2003). However, it is not clear how Internet technology will serve the needs f...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I: Online Education in Asia: An Analysis of China, Taiwan, and India
• Part II: Online Education in Europe: An Analysis of Ireland, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and International Study Circles
• Part III: Online Education in North America: An Analysis of the U.S. and Canadian Contributions
• Part IV: Online Education Down Under: An Analysis of Aotearoa/New Zealand and Australia
• Part V: Online Education in Africa: An Analysis of Namibia and Sub-Saharan Africa
• Conclusion
• Index
• About the Editor
• About the Contributors