ICT for Development Forum 2013

Session on ICT for Education

• Publisher: Asian Development Bank
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9789292549169
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Education
• Index: Business

The ICT for Development Forum is an annual activity focused on knowledge sharing in the area of information and communication technology (ICT). This report, based on the forum held from 28 February to 1 March 2013 at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), attempts to gauge the impact of ICT on today's learning paradigms. What are the impacts of ICT developments on today's students and teachers? How is distance education changing the way education is being delivered? How is ADB helping developing members take advantage of ICT for education? How are massively open online courses and other disruptive learning paradigms affecting education? These are some of the questions tackled by experts from different countries and from ADB, and this report is the result of that discussion.

DISTANCE EDUCATION FOR DEVELOPMENT: FROM GUTENBERG TO COURSERA

FIRST SPEAKER:

Gajaraj Dhanarajan

CHAIR, BOARD OF GOVERNORS WAWASAN OPEN UNIVERSITY MALAYSIA

Distance Education: Development, Performance, and Value

Distance education has a history of about 50 years. However, some may claim that it dates back to the invention of the printing press in Gutenberg during the early 15th century.

In the last 50 years, distance education has gone mainstream that hardly any institution (particularly higher education institutions) with a form of campus education does not claim to have a form of distance education. However, this is not necessarily open learning. Distance education has benefited tens of thousands of people; in South Asia alone, all countries have distance education programs.

The Community of Learning describes distance education in the context of development and considers it a valuable tool across a wide range of activities, from farm training and farm management to postgraduation professional development:

“Development depends on the creation, dissemination and application of knowledge by everyone. Community of Learning believes that technology can greatly facilitate these processes. The techniques of open and distance learning give farmers the know-how to improve their livelihoods and rural women the knowledge to raise a healthy family… create communities of practice among teachers and give children access to the best materials… and, e-learning and the knowledge media are gradually enriching the curriculum everywhere.” (Community of Learning 2005)

Distance education, by definition, is the delivery of education to students who cannot attend a campus full time. The learning happens through self-instruction in accordance with the learner’s choice of time, place, and pace. This may be complemented by organized learning support such as tutorials, residential schools, laboratories, and peer learning forums.

Other important terms associated with distance education are

(i)	Open learning (OL). It is the foundation philosophy, while distance education is the technique. OL technically means people can learn as long as they have the opportunity to receive such learning. OL can be mediated in regular classrooms or through distance education. The combination of OL and distance learning should become a private, powerful tool in the provision of education. In OL, one may have access to formal learning for a qualification without having to demonstrate prior learning achievements. However, a demonstration may be required to ensure that learners are equipped to meet the challenges of higher-level learning or training.
(ii)	E-learning. It is learning through technology and learning in an educational environment mostly delivered through the internet. It has generated other developments such as online learning and virtual learning. E-learning can also take place on or off campus.
(iii)	Open Educational Resources (OER). A term that emerged in the last 5–6 years, it is not education per se, but it provides resources for education. OER takes open learning beyond current practices where resources for education are provided in open platforms, and free and unrestricted learning resources are made available by individuals and institutions for reuse, remix, and redistribution.
(iv)	Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). These courses have made a major appearance in the last 8–9 months, especially in North America. MOOCs are online courses aimed at large-scale participation and open access via the web.

In the last 50 years or so, the practice of distance education has evolved through generations of change. Gradually, as new technology became available, distance education has taken on new forms.

The evolution of distance education is considered to have gone through five generations or models:

(i)	First generation—Correspondence Model (print)
(ii)	Second generation—Multimedia Model (print, audio, videotape, CAL/CML, interactive video [disc and tape])
(iii)	Third generation—Telelearning Model (audioconferencing, videoconferencing, audiographic communication, radio, and TV)
(iv)	Fourth generation—Flexible Learning Model (interactive multimedia online, internet access to web resources, computer-mediated communication)
(v)	Fifth generation—Intelligent Flexible Learning Model (interactive multimedia online, internet-based resources to web online, computer-mediated communication using automated response systems, campus portal access to institutional processes and resources)

After the third generation, distance education has become more open, easily accessible, and flexible, and is not passive but highly independent and interactive. This development has occurred over the last 20 years. A question here is that whether OER and MOOCs can be considered the sixth generation (Table 1).

Table 1: Fourth and Fifth Generations of Distance Education

Source: G. Dhanarajan. 2013. Distance Education for Development from Gutenburg to Coursera. Wawasan Open University, Penang.

In South Asia, major providers of distance education are Indira Gandhi National Open University in India with about 2.5 million students and Allama Iqbal Open University in Pakistan with 1.6 million students. Other distance education providers in the region include Bangladesh Open University, Maldives Tertiary Institute for Open Learning, and Virtual University in Pakistan.

In East Asia, the Open University of China, earlier known as China Central Radio and TV University, has about 2.7 million students. In Thailand in Southeast Asia, three notable institutions offer distance education: Sukhothai Thammaithirat Open University, Ramkhamhaeng University, and Thailand Cyber University Project. Indonesia has Universitas Terbuka with 646,647 students.

Conventional open universities established in the 1970s offered traditional subjects for diploma, undergraduate, and postgraduate courses. The following are considered higher-level disciplines:

(i)	management;
(ii)	health sciences;
(iii)	hospitality;
(iv)	business (administration, human resources, marketing, sales, logistics);
(v)	financial services (accounting, banking, insurance); and
(vi)	technology (ICT, computing, networks).

Recently, some institutions are also moving toward lower-level disciplines including those relevant for livelihood. They deliver lower-level courses through distance education. The following institutions offer lower-level courses:

(i)	Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University of India. Gardening, fire and safety engineering management, beauty parlor management, tailoring, domestic wireman, and mobile repair
(ii)	Indira Gandhi National Open University (India). Food and nutrition, and guidance and tourism
(iii)	Bangladesh Open University. Livestock and poultry, pisciculture and fish processing, education, management, computer science, and youth development
(iv)	Open University of Sri Lanka. Preschool education, professional engineering, entrepreneurship, wildlife conservation, and tourism.

At present, there are limitations on the disciplines taught through distance education. The main barrier is a professional accreditation system. For example, getting accreditation for engineering programs delivered through open and distance education is very difficult. This is why there are no undergraduate engineering programs offered through distance education.

Professional accreditation agencies for engineering require students to have highly advanced skills to practice such profession arising from very high level of laboratory and classroom time and interaction with mentors before accepting a degree for professional accreditation. This can, however, change in the future with the use of more intelligent technology.

Other major issues in distance education include

(i)

Quality concerns. Distance education is generally considered to be not at par with traditional education delivered through the classroom. Many of the institutions providing distance education will claim that they provide the necessary active support and effective pedagogical practices and, therefore, quality of education is not compromised. Governments are willing to address these issues. National quality assurance systems and international benchmarkings prompted open universities to become more responsive in terms of quality demands and expectation. Countries such as India, Indonesia, and the Philippines subject open universities to regular accreditation systems. Malaysia, for example, has a system of equal accreditation for distance education in place. In a recent rating exercise in Malaysia, two open universities were classified as among the top 35 un...