Mass tertiary education in the developing world
I am currently preparing to give a lecture on open education and global ICT trends next week, and I am doing some readings. The following article is quite interesting, although a bit controversial, and I thought I’d just post my notes here.
Daniel, J., Kanwar, A., Uvali-Trumbi, S. (2007). Mass Tertiary Education in the Developing World: Distant Prospect or Distinct Possibility? Commonwealth of Learning.
- current participation in LDCs less than 10% will rise to 30%. Will use methods less common in IDs: distance ed, private institutions, cross-border operations. Will become more diverse – benefits of higher access outweigh risk of academia loosing its soul.
- International education nothing new – Europe, silk road, religion.
- China and India will dominate higher ed. Growth of 8% per year. Not possible to grow conventional campuses at that rate. Technology can connect, OERs can slash rates. Three trends mentioned above. India, because of English, could become dominant provider of tertiary education within two decades.
- Currently only reach privileged. Can new tech and OER radically widen access? Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.
- Worldwide growth in enrollment more rapid than anyone expected. India needs 2400 new universities over the next 25 years?
- Educational planners aim to copy yesterday’s successes. Creating IITs in Africa.
- 5-A: accessible, affordable, appropriate, accredited, accepted.
- Affordability. Can for-profit tertiary education work for the public good? Public/private goods. Externalities.
- Should state be sole provider? Practice, principle and pragmatism says no. History: very private (churches etc). Regulate, don’t control. Better to focus researches on free elementary primary education.
- Private tertiary education has become fastest growing segment worldwide, L-Am, Asia also Africa. East Asia, 80% enrolled in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Philippines. Include for-profit and non-for profit that are private. Distinctions become blurred as unis become cross-border.
- Fees – countries that made tertiary education free in the days when only a small elite were supposed to attend. Socio-economic profile of students in countries that charge fees and provide scholarships are wider than in those that don’t charge fees. By introducing fees in public sector, private sector find more level playing field.
- Distance: India already 24% of enrolment! Target, 40% by 2010. So far using India’s edu satellite, but mostly traditional methods. Are private or government most poised to exploit technology to drive down price and increase accessibility?
- New methods of education has always attracted private providers.
- Wave of multi-media distance learning showed that distance-learning could sometimes provide better quality than normal, because the courses had to be developed in a much more systematic fashion.
- Now: Cost structure with high up-front costs, and low marginal costs. Private access to capital markets makes that easier for them. Plus they have access to OERs. Potential for low per-student costs without huge volumes.
- Cross-border education always implies for-profit (almost), even by public institutions. GATS treaty: consumption abroad, presence of natural persons, cross-border supply (distance ed), commercial presence (for-profit branch presence). Lack of appropriateness (just computer/business, no cultural adaptation). Needs strong partnerships with overseas provider and local institutions.
- Students like “customer focus”, convenience and flexibility, overseas qualification. But want not just accreditation but inst with good reputation.
- Students in India have to choose between low-quality cash-cow courses by established universities (Delhi University), or much higher quality courses by Open Universities that don’t have the same name recognition.
- Quality ensurance: Cross-border operations vulnerable to scams etc. Governments role will increasingly be to regulate and monitor, not to provide. Provide parents and students with good information about quality. UNESCO helping. (South Africa pioneer)
- Examples: Best Associates develop M.Ed. programs that fit particular school systems (in the US) needs, and do so at 1/5 of the cost. Globally, Best’s Whitney International University System is expanding rapidly. South America, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia. Distance learning that blends remote classroom with asynchronous delivery.
- Virtual University of Small States
I found the following statement very interesting:
Fees are a special problem for those countries that made tertiary education free – i.e., totally subsidized by the state – in the days when only a tiny proportion of the population was expected to go to university. At that time entry to tertiary education was highly competitive but many citizens believed – and still believe – that the combination of competitive entry and free tuition would produce equitable participation in tertiary education from all socio-economic groups. Research now shows that this is simply not true (e.g. Levin, 1990). The socio-economic profile of students in countries that charge fees while providing scholarships and loans for poorer students is more broadly based than in those that do not charge fees. This is a very important finding, and one that governments are gradually finding the courage to act on.
(His reference, which I should try to hunt down, is Levin, B (1990) Tuition Fees and University Accessibility, Canadian Public Policy, Vol. XVI:1 , pp. 51-59 – JSTOR link). Coming from a country with universal free higher education (Norway), I question this statement, although I’d certainly like to know more about it.
Three things that I came across during this reading:
- Best Associates, a US merchant bank, is creating educational enterprises that are aimed squarely at combining greater learning effectiveness with dramatically lower costs. At the national level it is slashing the cost and improving the relevance of professional development for teachers through the American College of Education. This for-profit institution, already one of the ten largest teacher education operations in the USA, teams up with school systems to offer M.Ed. degrees that meet the schools’ need for teacher development better than existing programmes and do so at one-fifth of their cost.At the global level Best’s Whitney International University System is expanding rapidly, both by acquiring universities in other countries and creating joint ventures with existing universities. Having begun its expansion in South America it is now launching ventures in Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, India and Indonesia. The mode of delivery is distance learning that blends the remote-classroom and asynchronous approaches. Lectures from senior professors are carried to remote classrooms by satellite or computer and these are underpinned by supporting professors who interact individually with relatively small groups of students online. Unlike conventional remote-classroom teaching this model is scalable because of the network of supporting professors; an essential feature for achieving a low price point. Another cost-saving principle is to use existing facilities, study centres and tele-centres.
- A Chinese academic journal on open education research,开放教育研究 (Kaifang jiaoyu yanjiu). I’d love to check this out, unfortunately it’s (ironically!) behind a paywall.
- The Indira Gandhi Open University which has 1,5 million students. Some of their assignments are available online, in English and Hindi (हिन्दी). Here is a marketing assignment in English and हिन्दी.
Stian
