Hanif Abbasi, a nominated candidate of Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz party for upcoming general election, takes a cup of tea as he waiting an anti-narcotics court decision at a district court in Rawalpindi, Pakistan July 21 2018. (Reuters)
Dignitaries and delegates from around the world participated at the 26th International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) conference held at Sun City outside Rustenburg in October.
It was the first time the ICDE conference took place on the African continent.
Hosted by Unisa, the conference was organised under the auspices of the ICDE, the leading global membership organisation for open, distance, flexible and online education, which draws its members from institutions, educational authorities, commercial actors and individuals across the world.
Said Unisa’s principal Professor Mandla Makhanya: “This is one of the most important conferences for all of us involved in higher education. My gratitude to those of you who accepted our invitation to share and to participate — we have almost 900 delegates from 67 countries.”
Dignitaries included the Minister of Research and Innovation as well as of Training, Colleges and Universities in Canada, Dr Reza Moridi, and the president of the African Council for Distance Education (ACDE), Professor Primrose Kurasha.
President of the ICDE, Professor Tian Belawati, rector at Universitas Terbuka, Indonesia opened the proceedings: “Through these forums, the ICDE is reconfirming our commitment to the further development of open, online, distance, flexible e-learning for the betterment of our lives and the future generations to come.
Africa: Consumer of knowledge
South African Minister of Higher Education and Training Dr Blade Nzimande, in his address to delegates at the ICDE conference, set the tone for the open distance learning conference.
“I am sure that delegates, as experts, academics, and practitioners from across the globe will have the opportunity to engage on many critical issues,” said Nzimande. “It is also an important historical coincidence that this conference takes place a few weeks after the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) by the United Nations General Assembly.
“Of even more significance is that unlike previous millennium goals that focused mainly on access to basic and school education, the SDGs are now correctly focusing on access to tertiary education and training, including access to vocational, adult and university education. This is important for our continent, as it will create opportunities for Africa to become a consumer of knowledge and to contribute towards innovation and the production of new knowledge.
“Education plays a key role in the social, political and economic development of the world. We need an accessible, affordable, and cost-effective post-school system that can service millions of people with high-quality education. We need to provide equal opportunities for education and training for people in disadvantaged areas; we need to increase access and improve quality and diversity,” he stressed.
Nzimande said the 2013 South African White Paper for Post-School Education and Training’s vision focuses on building a post-school system that can assist towards a fair, equitable, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa.
“The SDGs, together with other commitments, require that we must expand distance education, especially given the huge lack of adequate investment into education infrastructure in Africa and in many other developing countries. The world is not going to make meaningful advances towards the realisation of the SDGs unless we make full use of distance education and e-learning.
“Quality of education needs to be improved and the post-school sector needs focus on providing quality learning opportunities for young persons and adults who want to change careers, upgrade skills and [learning opportunities must] be accessible to people who have not completed their secondary education, and [to] the unemployed.”
Nzimande said South Africa’s infrastructure backlogs mean the country will not meet its goals of expanding opportunities for post-school education unless distance and e-education are utilised.
He said there is increasing evidence that many students, particularly but not only at historically black universities, find it difficult to attend full-time classes as they often have many paid and unpaid work commitments.
Overcoming barriers to learning
“For many students, the notion of attending classes all day is simply not possible,” he explained, “and we know that many people who are in full-time employment yearn to increase their job-related skills and knowledge as well as to broaden their education for its own sake.
“E-learning can provide access to students for whom traditional, full-time contact education opportunities are either inappropriate or inaccessible.
“It provides extensive opportunities to students who are unable or prefer not to participate in campus-based and fixed-time study, including access for those who experience barriers to learning.”
The minister cautioned that while it is an imperative to expand distance education provision, this must happen carefully; e-learning will require a comprehensive ICT infrastructure for all public post-school institutions and professional development programmes for staff in the various aspects of open distance learning.
Continuous research
“We need to establish a dedicated distance capacity for Technology, Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges and adult education, create a network of distance education providers and of shared learning and support centres.
This is even more important given the reality that distance education in any developing country often has a high failure rate.
“Distance provision cannot expand significantly until better retention, success and throughput can be assured. Continued research into factors affecting drop-out, stop-out and failure rates needs to take place and be acted upon to ensure success,” he stressed.
Critical debate
Vibrant debate was a highlight of the main conference day, with panelists Professor Tolly Mbwette, African Council for Distance Education, Professor Alan Tait, director of international development and teacher education at the Open University, United Kingdom and Professor Asha Kanwar, president and CEO of the Commonwealth of Learning. Leading the panel discussion was Professor Paul Prinsloo, Open Distance Learning research professor with Unisa.
In response to Prinsloo’s opening question about the current distance learning situation, Kanwar stressed that there are very important developments taking place which will have a major impact. “We are only now beginning to wake up to these developments. Reputations will be built on quality.
“We need to invest and earn credibillity based on learner support of Massive Open Online Courses, which will make the world a classroom.
“We need more emphasis on peer-to-peer and not just teacher-to-pupil. We also need flexibility in developing countries in terms of providing where there is limited connectivity. We also have to move beyond capacity to capability — moving from outputs to outcomes.”
“The finer distinction between resident universities and open distance education is dying away as all of us are evolving to use some sort of extended learning,” said Mbwette. He concurred with Kanwar’s comments about bandwidth, saying that the ever pressing question is whether the bandwidth in a country is sufficient to support distance education.
He also commented on the importance of online distance institutions seeking the world to ensure content is always of high quality. “Also, all lecturers need to be information technology literate.”
“There is fascinating change.” said Tait, “In my opinion, the open university is much higher on content excellence without being selective in terms of student. Students select us from their fractured educational pathways. We have a tremendus responsibility to support our students.
“Social, economic and political assumptions about who should study needs re-examination in all countries. The issue of girls and young women is still hugely under-represented in education, both in access and completion in many countries, yet education of women brings wide development outcomes for health, livelihood and futures of children. Inclusion relates to social justice — to effective and improved functioning of community, society and economy.”