Distance Education: Growth and Diversity

• Author: Michael Potashnik/Joanne Capper
• Position: Head of the World Bank's Education and Technology Team/Senior Consultant to the World Bank's Education and Technology Team
• Pages: 42-45

Distance education is becoming increasingly popular as economic forces encourage, and new technologies facilitate, its spread. What advantages does it offer, and what should course providers consider before embarking on new ventures?

Page 42

THERE IS tremendous growth and diversity in distance education-in the number and types of individuals learning outside traditional classrooms, in the variety of providers, and in the range and effectiveness of new technologies serving as delivery tools for learning. Distance education is becoming increasingly global, creating myriad new alliances as traditional educational institutions join with businesses, foreign governments, and international organizations to offer and use distance learning. Developing countries now have new opportunities to access knowledge and enhance their human capital.

Technology is a major contributor to the dramatic transformation of distance learning. Although the use of technology for distance learning is not new-radio and television have been used effectively for more than forty years-satellites and the Internet are transforming the world into a borderless educational arena, benefiting both previously underserved citizenries and education entrepreneurs. Although many developing countries still have limited access to these new technologies, major new investments in telecommunications and information systems are going to dramatically improve their access.

Uses and purposes

Distance education is used in a variety of settings and for a broad range of purposes. Universities use it to increase the number of students who have access to higher education; companies use it to upgrade their workers' skills and keep them abreast of rapidly advancing technologies; individuals use it for their own professional development and to enhance their career opportunities; governments use it to provide on-the-job training to teachers or other workers, to enhance the quality of traditional primary and secondary schooling, and to deliver instruction to remote rural areas that might not otherwise be served.

Various technologies have been used for distance education, but print-based correspondence courses have been, and will continue to be, the dominant delivery mechanism in both the developed and the developing worlds. Print is still the cheapest technology, and, even if the costs of using high-tech dissemination tools fall below those of print, it will be some time before many countries have adequate infrastructures.

Higher education. Within the university setting, some institutions offer only distance education, while others provide both distance and conventional education. Those that offer only distance learning are referred to as "open universities," and most are modeled after the United Kingdom's Open University. Mega-universities are large open universities, each of which enrolls more than 100,000 students per year; combined enrollment is some 2.8 million. Table 1 shows the 11 mega-universities, most of which have been established within the past 20 years in an effort to meet the pent-up demand for higher education. China alone produces more than 100,000 graduates a year through distance education, with more than half of China's 92,000 engineering and technology graduates having attained their degrees through distance education.

Although many conventional universities also have offered distance learning opportunities for some time, many others are just now beginning to experiment with them, in large part because they are unable to meet the increasing demand for higher education. Even some elite universities that would not previously have considered getting involved in distance education are cautiously entering the arena. For example, Johns Hopkins University in the United States offers a managed care course, using video and computer technology, as part of Page 43 its "Business of Medicine" certificate program. Duke University offers a Global Executive MBA (master's degree in business administration), an $82,500 course, to students in Europe, Asia, and Latin America using technology that permits them to communicate and do course work. The possibility of attracting students from overseas is one incentive for these institutions to offer distance education programs.

Virtual universities. Entirely new structures are being created to take advantage of the Internet and other technologies to increase access to and improve the quality of higher education. For example, virtual universities-universities without walls that use the Internet and satellites to deliver their courses-allow teaching resources, libraries, and even laboratories to be shared by people and organizations in widely scattered places.

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