Open and Distance Learning and Development - Back to basics
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Open and Distance Learning and Development - Back to basics Helen Lentell Director Centre for Educational Development, University of the South Pacific.
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We live in a world where the potential of technology to offer new ways of learning and communicating is seemingly limitless. It is exciting. It is empowering. Technology holds out the promise that education can reach people and parts of the world previously denied access. Get the technology out there and educational provision will be scaled up and children from the developing world will have the access to learning so long denied to them. Vast amounts of money are being spent promoting this view. Many careers are being built. Many reputations are being made. But can this happen? Using the case study of the University of the South Pacific and my experience of working for the Commonwealth of Learning I want to argue that this a dangerous fallacy. Sadly the promoters of this approach have forgotten, or ignore, what practitioners on the ground know so well. ICTs like educational media and the simpler technologies of blackboards and chalk are merely tools. If these tools are to provide ongoing sustainable provision, (long after the development agencies and personnel have moved on to the next “sexy” topic), attention has to be given to long term engagement with the need to build on the ground competent educational institutional leadership and management and institutional operational capacity at all levels. This will not happen overnight. In failing to address these issues we are promoting a model of technology in education in the developing world as the difference that makes no difference, the change that brings no change.
Transcript of Open and Distance Learning and Development - Back to basics
Open and Distance Learning and Development - Back to
basics
Helen Lentell
Director Centre for Educational Development, University of the South Pacific.
GREETINGS!
BULA
MALO E LELEI
TALOFA LAVA
KONAMAURI
YOKWE
KI ORANA
GRITING
TALOFAYOU ORAIT NO MOA
OMO YORAN
FAKALOFA ATU
TALOHA NI
GREETINGS!
Objectives
1. Reassert importance of ODL for development
2. Give context of USP
3. Celebrate achievements/share frustrations
4. Identify some key variables for successful implementation of ODL in developing societies. No quick fix.
Terminology
• ODL / open and distance education• DFL / Distance and flexible learning• Technology enhanced as appropriate• An adaptive systems model for providing access
to education and training
Background and context: Diversity
• Cultural and linguistic diversity
• Language of formal study is English
• Educational systems shaped by colonial heritage
Background and context: Commonalities
• Inadequate access to schooling/increase in demand
• Poorly/under qualified teachers• Shortages – resources• Inappropriate curricula• How to use scarce resources?• Poor quality
Why DFL? The implications of birth rates:
Country Classroom
Fiji 1.6 classrooms daily
Vanuatu 1 classroom every 2 days
Kiribati 1 classroom every 4 days
Nauru 1 classroom every 30 days
Samoa 1 classroom every 2 days
Why DFL? The implications of birth rates in the Solomon Islands:
Classroom1.5 new classrooms
per day547 new classrooms
per day547 new primary
school teachers
Why DFL? Applying Population data to Resources in the case of the Solomon Islands would mean:
Classrooms Resources in $
547 classrooms @ $5,000 US$2,735,000
547 teachers @ $3,000 US$1,641,000
Total Education US$4,376,000
(SI$30.6million)
DFL: Issues for USP
• Heterogeneity of students • Expanding demand• What should the curriculum be?• Local development needs vs. international
labour market demands• What should a relevant Pacific curriculum be?• Distance• Political instability• Resources – human and financial
USP Income 2007 & 2006
Income 2007 2006
Government grants 38% 37%
Student tuition fees 18% 20%
Aid and donations 19% 16%
Trading activities 14% 15%
Other income 8% 10%
Release of deferred revenue
2% 1%
Interest receivable 1% 1%
Total operating income 100% 100%
USPNet
Whose concerned about distance learners when:
• Resources are scarce and over-stretched • Technology gets donor funding• Educational provision becomes defined as a
technical engineering problem rather than a complex interplay between needs of learners and what technology can enable.
Success factors/back to basics
• DFL is an integrated, holistic systems model• Leadership• Technology – enabling and not determining• Institutional Policy• Planning and communicating• Management, team work and partnership• Staff development• Quality – benchmarking, feedback and
accountability
In failing to address these issues we are promoting a model of technology in education in the developing world as the difference that makes no difference, the change that brings no change.
Vinaka Vakalevu!
