lifelong learning and distance higher education - Asia Pacific Region

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CHAPTER 2LIFELONG LEARNING FOR EQUITY ANDSOCIAL COHESION: A NEW CHALLENGEFOR HIGHER EDUCATIONSuzy HalimiCHAPTER SUMMARYAt the start of the twenty-first century, lifelong learning is regarded as a necessity, andnational governments make it a political priority, at least in most of the industrialisedcountries. Globalisation and the international competition that goes with it; the swiftevolution of knowledge and its swifter diffusion through the dizzying development ofinformation and communication technology (ICT); modern aspirations towards a betterquality of life for human beings – all of these are features of our contemporary situationthat make lifelong learning a requirement – indeed, a necessity.This involves meeting the needs of adults – not the traditional clientele, and until nowunder-represented in higher education. This clientele suffers from three handicaps:economic (in the case of those who need to find a place in the job market, in a lifetime),psychological (people who are shy of the school system: many will have left it afterfailing in some way, and may not relish the prospect of applying for more teaching), and,finally, academic, since they do not have the normal qualifications for access to highereducation.This is the challenge which higher education has to meet in opening its doors tothis clientele: a teaching challenge, to be ready to listen to learners and offer themindividualised courses; an organisational challenge, demanding changes in the way space,time and human resources are managed so as to suit the needs of learners with particularconstraints and expectations; and the ethical challenge of providing this “fragile”clientele with high-quality learning and qualifications that are as well recognised as thoseof conventional education. Such difficulties can only be overcome by partnerships thatenable all the parties concerned to pool their resources so as to achieve the objectives byjoint action.11
INTRODUCTIONIn his 1996 report to UNESCO, Jacques Delors championed “Learning throughout life”as “the heartbeat of society […] one of the keys to meeting the challenges of the twentyfirstcentury.” (Delors, 1996). In the decade since then, intergovernmental organisationshave all taken notice of this issue, consulting experts, organising debates and seminars,gathering examples of good practice, and drafting reports addressed to the partiesconcerned, including political decision-makers.The European Commission declared 1996 as the Year of Lifelong Learning, and has sincethen continued to conduct surveys and studies. In 2000 it published a Communicationcontaining six “key messages” to facilitate the practical implementation of itsrecommendations. It completed all this with a first review in 2003. The OECD, whichpioneered this field in 1973 with the publication of a study entitled Recurrent Education:A Strategy for Lifelong Learning, continues to reflect on the best way, in terms of itsown purposes, of investing in “human capital”, to use a term that features in the OECD’sEducation Policy Analysis (1997). The Council of Europe, whose ideology is mainlyconcerned with the defence of human rights and equal opportunities, has conducted overfour years a programme of work on the subject of Lifelong Learning for Equity andSocial Cohesion, which we have taken as the title for the present chapter (Council ofEurope, 2001).Such preoccupations of course reflect those of the member governments of theseorganisations. They are concerned about what they see as one of the major challenges ofour age and of our “knowledge society”, in which knowledge has become an economicissue, as well as a factor in combating exclusion, and one of the keys to a better qualityof life. Parliaments and educators have the task of finding ways to turn words into actionand to give everyone who wants it the opportunity for self-education throughout life.The task is not an easy one: the situation is complex, as shown, indeed, by the evolutionof the terminology. Thus in addition to “continuous or ongoing training”, whichemphasise vocational training and the upgrading of employable skills, we now have“lifelong learning”, a much broader concept, when we recall the four objectives JacquesDelors assigned to education: learning to do, learning to be, learning to learn, andlearning to live together (Delors, 1996). As for the expression “lifelong”, it recalls LordBeveridge’s grand design as he prepared the United Kingdom’s Welfare State at the endof the Second World War, proposing that it should look after its people from one end oftheir lives to the other, “from the cradle to the grave”.Today there is another change, as “education” gives way to “learning”, the formerindicating a process established (and therefore, perhaps, imposed) by society, the latterinvolving rather the voluntary acts of individuals who want to acquire knowledge at theirown pace and in their own way, for purposes of their own, which may not necessarilybe the same as their neighbour’s or those of the whole community. This is why we havechosen “Lifelong Learning for Equity and Social Cohesion” as the title for this chapter.We shall tackle the issue under three headings: “A new context”, “A new clientele”, and“A new challenge for higher education”.A NEW CONTEXTThe changing and proliferating meanings associated with ”lifelong learning” reflect thevarious facets of the problem, themselves connected with the manifold requirements of ourknowledge society. To emphasise one particular aspect or another will give this concept12
Page 1 and 2: PERSPECTIVES ONDISTANCE EDUCATIONLi
Page 3 and 4: The Commonwealth of Learning (COL)
Page 5 and 6: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSIn addition to the
Page 7 and 8: These are some of the issues that a
Page 9 and 10: What are the trends and issues in l
Page 11 and 12: of policy implications relating to
Page 13 and 14: evince important differences that c
Page 15 and 16: inequitable regulations governing t
Page 17 and 18: associations and groups of countrie
Page 19: THE CONTRIBUTORChristopher McIntosh
Page 23 and 24: Lastly, our analysis of the situati
Page 25 and 26: diploma or similar certificates of
Page 27 and 28: force of the undertaking. Here agai
Page 29 and 30: RELEVANT INTERNET SITESUNESCO Task
Page 31 and 32: Notes1. This phrasing has been used
Page 33 and 34: goals (Daniel, 1996). Lifelong lear
Page 35 and 36: eported that group activity had red
Page 37 and 38: NEW AREAS FOR DISTANCE EDUCATION:WO
Page 39 and 40: targets systematically for the use
Page 41 and 42: Rausch, A.S. (2003). A case study o
Page 43 and 44: correspondence teaching systems tha
Page 45 and 46: significant differences between syn
Page 47 and 48: In distance flexible- and blended-e
Page 49 and 50: STATE-FUNDED DUAL-MODE SYSTEMS ATUN
Page 51 and 52: Table 4.2: Fundable elements in dis
Page 53 and 54: sciences in 21 countries of the reg
Page 55 and 56: How a system is funded depends in p
Page 57 and 58: Litto, Fredric M. (2004). Digital l
Page 59 and 60: CHAPTER 5LIFELONG LEARNING IN THE A
Page 61 and 62: education, which was initiated by C
Page 63 and 64: So the virtual classroom acted as a
Page 65 and 66: In June 2002, when the course came
Page 67 and 68: RELEVANT INTERNET SITESFORCIIR proj
Page 69 and 70: 11. The approximate rate for 1€ w
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The term modern distance education
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the National Networked Consortium f
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important resource for undeveloped
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standards have been proposed for th
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The development of e-learning withi
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RELEVANT INTERNET SITESCCRTVU Onlin
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MoE (2004b) The Notice on Running N
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CHAPTER 7QUALITY ASSURANCE SURVEYOF
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(Paris, France, 28-29 June 2004) in
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Examples of elaborated QA policies:
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plans and produces its conventional
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SHTVU (China)• Teaching• Teachi
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offers its programmes to Turkish ci
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mega universities apply a set of st
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RELEVANT INTERNET SITESThe Commonwe
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2. QA initiatives or publications b
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assurance of ODL. This DST will be
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Educational Planning has been respo
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A system of weighting of the key qu
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RELEVANT INTERNET SITESHigher Educa
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CHAPTER 9THE FINNISH VIRTUAL UNIVER
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foreign providers. In Finland, the
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to make the best use of new educati
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The foremost task for the Service U
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part of quality management. The aim
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online courses; an educational tech
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polytechnics, research institutions
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CHAPTER 10PROMOTING CROSS-BORDERREC
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The Bologna Declaration was followe
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indicators currently being used for
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the qualification resulting from th
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Table 9.1: Outline of the portfolio
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• Make sure that incoming student
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CHAPTER 11CHARTING THE EVOLUTIONOF
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Another common characteristic was t
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the current capacity of the educati
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conditions for success. Conditions
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Cultural and ethical issues in inte
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the cost and maintenance of learnin
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Research can be a useful tool for c
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REFERENCESBates, A. (1995). Technol
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Twigg, C. (2001). Quality Assurance
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y, for example, entering into partn
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and even greater steps, and the dec
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