3.1. Education and training
3.2. Increasing demands and expense
3.3. New technology for distance education
3.4. Financial implications
3.5. Current usage
3.6. The way ahead?
The distinction between education and training is often blurred. Education is usually perceived as being broader than training, not specifically task- or goal-orientated, but as an essential building block for personal development. While qualifications are an integral and important part of education, future and potential employment has not usually been an issue, until recently. Increasingly in the developed world and substantially in the developing world employment prospects are seen to be very strongly dependent upon educational success and qualifications.
On the other hand, training focuses very much on the goal and the end product. It can be defined more narrowly than education (of which it may be considered a subset) and usually offers a direct 'learning path' which is often skills-based. It frequently implies a short but intensive process undertaken to improve work-capability and often with promotion or employment in mind. It is seen by employers as more directly relevant to their business needs.
Increasingly, those involved in the business of education or training are having to define their target markets and ask themselves whether they are offering education or training or both, and to what end - as potential buyers are now much more concerned with such issues. In the face of growing unemployment, industrial restructuring, and the use of information technology in many parts of the world, purchasers of education and training are becoming more discerning about what they are purchasing and whether it will offer them an effective solution to their problems and a good return on their investment.
This also applies at governmental level. In the context of economic development, governments are having to take decisions, often on economic grounds, as to whether to offer education per se, or whether to concentrate on job-focused education or training with a view to employment. For example, in Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe education is both highly valued and in great demand, but as a result of the urgent unemployment problems there is a fundamental question of whether people should be educated "for education's sake", or whether the education system will have to begin to address the high unemployment problem amongst men and women, especially at the tertiary level.
Such decisions obviously have a great impact on the kind of education or training available within a country, and to whom it is offered, at what level and at what cost. Industry and business are generally more interested in targeted training, while students themselves are often - although not always - more attracted by a broader education. In the three countries investigated, the majority of younger students appeared to be more interested in studying the arts and humanities than in technical subjects such as engineering. In meeting these needs and demands, educationalists and trainers need to show both flexibility and responsiveness to the market place. Evidently this also applies to providers of distance education.
The education/training distinction is often further blurred by the current trend of considering whether learning should be trainer- or learner-centred. Trainer-centred learning typically involves a more traditional approach with the trainer offering direct instruction, while in a learner-centred system the learners learn for themselves through access to resources, demonstrations etc. Good distance learning is a learner-centred process integrated with active student involvement.
Demands on education systems are constantly increasing as the world's population grows and as people require ever more training to keep them abreast of technological changes. Traditional systems are becoming ever more expensive and cannot be used solely to deal with the increase in demand. This is partly because of the high costs involved and also because of the sheer logistics of educating such large numbers. Tertiary education in the three countries studied is a case in point: the proportion of students in relation to the population is much lower than, for example, in most European countries, yet each year there is a huge over-subscription for places in higher education with thousands of very well qualified Czechs, Sri Lankans and Zimbabweans being refused places. If this demand is to be met cost-effectively other methods of delivery will have to be considered.
There is no shortage of modes of delivery offering alternatives to the traditional full-time methods of education: distance, flexible, open learning, dual mode, day release etc.. The mode adopted depends very much on its cost, accessibility, applicability and appropriateness in each case. It is widely accepted that distance learning will have an increasingly important role to play in education and training thus new technologies - such as the use of satellites and fibre optic cables - will no doubt have a profound influence on education in the future. (2)
Education which can be produced, delivered and gained by electronic means may be a potential solution to the problems of costs and logistics. As Knight (1994) argues:
'While the relative price of conventional education is rising, the digital revolution has been decreasing the cost of storing, manipulating and transmitting information by 50% every 18 months, with no end in sight' (3)
In theory it should be possible to offer education and training to everyone on earth using electronic media. However, as Knight points out:
'The "hardware", and perhaps more importantly, the "software" of social, political, economic and organizational arrangements to permit this are lagging well behind the technological potential.' (3)
However, although the delivery cost may be increasingly cheap, the development costs of electronic delivery, the costs in terms of time and effort, are high. To produce one hour of multimedia training can take up to 100 hours. However, the investment can and should be cost-effective in the long term as long as the development has been made following a thorough feasibility study and market survey.
The use of electronic media in education is growing rapidly: increasingly tutors and students are interacting by E-mail and computer conferencing is being explored. Satellite education is an expanding field. It is used in many countries: in the United States by organisations as the Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (IEEE) and the National Technological University (NTU), in Europe through organisations such as EUROPACE and EUROSTEP and in China:
'The whole Chinese distance education system centred on CRTVU (China's Central Radio and Television University) now makes use of a Chinese satellite capable of reaching all of China plus neighbouring countries in Eastern, Central and Southeast Asia. With 146,000 entering students, 300,400 students matriculated, and 120,000 graduates in 1992, the CRTVU is probably the world's largest University' (3)
These statistics indicate the vast numbers of students who can be reached by means of broadcast, provided they have access to the hardware.
However the opportunity for mass education offered by broadcast television is not universal as Laaser (1995) points out:
"...in many non-socialist countries TV is private (and even if in public hands it may have a similar attitude) air time is almost unaffordable for public educational institutions. Therefore the use of TV for mass distance education seems to be not easily transferable to other developing countries." (4)
Radio may be a cheaper option. Interactive radio programmes which prompt a student response every few seconds through home-study activity and printed worksheets have been used in various Latin American countries and some in Africa and Asia. They are seen to be highly effective, especially in rural areas where they demonstrate lower drop-out rates than conventional education. The limitations of the fixed broadcast hour can be overcome by audio cassettes, whilst the need for visual and written support material can be very effectively solved through the use of specially prepared audio-vision packages. Audio-vision is one of the most effective but most neglected and underused technique available to the distance educator. Furthermore it has been demonstrated to be particularly successful for technical subjects where students can be 'talked through' complex scientific or technological concepts. The major feature of audio-vision is that it is highly interactive in the way it involves the student.
For electronic education to be really effective, it too has to be interactive. This is possible with new electronic technologies such as CD-ROM interactive disks and multi-media hypertext available through such systems as Mosaic and the World Wide Web. Video conferencing is another form of Internet technology which can be used in distance learning. The system allows people physically separated by thousands of miles to participate, and as Galitsky et al. (1994), have indicated:
'(The) costs of organising Internet conferences can be much less than transmission of broadcast TV learning programs.' (5)
The proposal that student access to electronic resources can be expanded is also confirmed by Shapiro and Hughes (1992) (6)
The use of multi-media is often perceived as an integral part of distance learning. However, the majority of courses produced in the UK are currently text-based, with surprisingly few institutions offering more than one or two audio and/or video cassette tapes as back-up materials. Computer-Based Training (CBT) is slowly being introduced in a few instances. It is important that the materials match the technological capabilities of the country where the programme might be introduced. There is no point in offering CBL or CBT if the population is generally not computer-literate; a video is a waste of time for the student who does not have access to a video machine. The way a course is presented should be appropriate to the country's technological infrastructure.
However, it seems fairly certain that electronic distance education will be the major delivery method in the future, but it is difficult to predict the pace at which this will happen and when it might become available for developing countries. Evidently this form of education is more likely to be introduced initially in countries which are more advanced technologically and have the necessary infrastructure and economy to put it into practice. Organisations like the World Bank have already taken an interest by supporting China's CRTVU through a loan and by supporting the Russian Electronic Distance Education initiative (Knight, 1994). Other organisations may follow suit and the World Bank may extend its own support in the field, but it may be many years before such educational opportunities become financially and practically feasible in countries which lack the know-how and infrastructure.
