All-Africa Ministers' Conference on Open Learning and Distance Education 1 – 4 February 2004 Cape Town, South Africa DISTANCE EDUCATION: IS IT STILL RELEVANT IN 2004? Sir John Daniel Assistant Director-General for Education
The King is dead Long live the King!
Continuity Change
The King is dead Long live the King!
Doubts about DE 1) Changing Technology Changing Nomenclature
WHAT’S IN A NAME? Virtual education Online learning Distributed education Flexible learning e-learning Open learning
Doubts about DE 2) Use of DE techniques in the classroom
Open LearningDistance Education All-Africa Ministers' Conference on Open Learning and Distance Education 1 – 4 February 2004 Cape Town, South Africa
The International Council for Correspondence Education
The International Council for Distance Education
The International Council for Open and Distance Education
open universities (purpose) distance education (practice)
Distance education has achieved one of the rare revolutions in the history of education.
COST ACCESS QUALITY The Eternal Triangle of Education
COST ACCESSQUALITY
Example OPEN UNIVERSITIES
The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) - one million students - one of the top ten Indian universities for teaching quality - low costs
BRITAIN’S TOP NINE UNIVERSITIES Quality Rankings of Teaching based on all subject assessments (Sunday Times University Guide 2003) 1CAMBRIDGE 96% 2LOUGHBOROUGH95% 3=LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS88% 3=YORK88% 5 THE OPEN UNIVERSITY87% 6 OXFORD86% 7 IMPERIAL COLLEGE82% 8 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON77% 9 ESSEX77%
THE SECRET: deconstruct the educational process
The Educational Process - Design - Plan - Implement - Evaluate
The Educational Process - Design - Plan - Implement - Evaluate all done by the teacher
The Educational Process - Design Plan Implement Evaluate --- division of labour
THE SECRET: deconstruct the learning process
Two types of learning activities: INDEPENDENT
Two types of learning activities: INDEPENDENT INTERACTIVE
Balance: INDEPENDENT INTERACTIVE
COST ACCESSQUALITY
INDEPENDENT - listen to radio - multi-media
INDEPENDENT = Economies of scale such as: - printing books - broadcasting TV - downloading software
INDEPENDENT = QUALITY of scale such as: - printing books - broadcasting TV - downloading software
Balance: INDEPENDENT INTERACTIVE
= PEOPLE
INTERACTIVE = PEOPLE (division of labour)
CanINTERACTION occur throughINDEPENDENT media?
APPLICATION TO AFRICA
UNISA is an African MEGA-UNIVERSITY
NIGERIAN OPEN U will be an African MEGA-UNIVERSITY
INDEPENDENT media have falling costs - webcasting - broadcasting TV/radio - downloading software
COL and UNESCO are encouraging the OPEN COURSEWARE movement
African Virtual University Virtual University of Small States of the Commonwealth
Teacher training/retraining = a vital application of DISTANCE EDUCATION for Africa
Do not be traumatised by the digital divide!
WANTED!! - clear thinking - good organisation - specialisation - division of labour - teamwork
COST ACCESS QUALITY
COST ACCESSQUALITY
All-Africa Ministers' Conference on Open Learning and Distance Education DISTANCE EDUCATION IS VERY RELEVANT TO AFRICA IN 2004!