1 Funding Public Distance Education NADEOSA 2001

2 Overview  Proposed Funding Formula and Rationale  Observations  Constraints  Possible Alternative

3 Proposed Components of the Funding Formula  Earmarked Funding  Block Grant

4 Earmarked Funding  National student financial aid scheme  Institutional development and redress  Interest and redemption payments on approved loans  Approved capital projects  Research development  Other development projects identified in the national higher education plan

5 Block Grant  Institutional set-up subsidies  Research output subsidies  Teaching subsidies:inputs  Teaching subsidies:outputs

6 Proposal and Rationale  Work out a clear definition for distance education  For distance education, FTE teaching subsidy input price reduced by 50%  Rationale: giving UNISA and TSA even 70% of FTE subsidy would increase their share of the higher education cake drastically

7 Research subsidies: outputs  Publication units:0.75  Masters graduates:1.00  Doctoral graduates: 4.00

8 Teaching subsidies: outputs  3 yr degrees and diplomas: 1 unit  2 yr certificate/diplomas, post- graduate diplomas, honours degrees etc : 0.5 units  Professional 1st bachelors degrees (4yrs)

9 Teaching subsidies: inputs  FG Undergraduate Honours Masters/ Doctors  1 Y 2Y 3Y  2 1.5Y 3Y 4.5Y  3 2.5Y 5Y 6.5Y  4 3.5Y 7Y 10.5Y

10 Observation 1  Notion that “distance education” is always low-cost is wrong  Cost drivers  curriculum development costs  numbers of students per study unit  amount of personal or small group interaction (queries, tutorials, assessment)  SAIDE’s costing database can generate different scenarios

11 Observation 2  Quest for a definition that can be used for purposes of discrimination is futile

12 Constraints  Can’t propose that all provision be funded on same basis regardless of mode of delivery (even though England and Australia do)  Can’t propose more than two types of modes of delivery

13 Possible Alternative  Define low cost, non-interactive correspondence or tele-learning provision  Reward UNISA, TSA,Vudec, and large scale distance education providers generally at 50%  Ask UNISA, TSA, Vudec and other large scale distance education providers to motivate for full subsidy for particular programmes

14 Possible Alternative  Do this on basis of  curriculum and course development costs  extent of personal or small group interaction  ?costing  Verify periodically

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