Imfundo Knowlegde Bank

Distance Education in Developing Countries

 Summary 

Growth of distance education methods of delivery has been a key feature of education in the 20^th century. These developments raise questions about what distance education actually is, how it can contribute to solving educational problems in developing countries, and what lessons we can learn from deployment of distance education practices over the last hundred years. This paper seeks to provide some answers to these questions, beginning by exploring motivations for using distance education methods. 

Motivations for shifting to resource-based learning and those for turning to distance education often tend to get conflated during education planning processes. Below are some first-level definitions that help to differentiate between the two concepts. Whether consciously or unconsciously, attempts to use distance education methods over the past few years have been driven by a desire to build on some or all of the following lessons emerging from the history of distance education practices:

1.         Providing access to students who would - either because of work commitments, geographical distance, or poor quality or inadequate prior learning experiences - be denied access to traditional, full-time contact education opportunities.

2.         Seeking to expand access to educational provision to significantly larger numbers of learners.

3.         Shifting patterns of expenditure to achieve economies of scale by amortizing identified costs (particularly investments in course design and development and in effective administrative systems) over time and large student numbers.  

Efforts to integrate use of instructionally designed resources into courses and programmes have been influenced by motives different from those outlined above:

1.        Breaking down the traditional notion that a talking teacher is the most effective strategy for communicating curriculum.

2.        Directing a significantly larger proportion of total expenditure to the design and development of high quality resources, as a strategy for building and assuring the quality of educational provision.

3.        Implementing strategies to shift the role of the educator.

4.        Investigating the potential that the integration of new educational technologies into teaching and learning environments has for supporting, improving, or enhancing those environments.  

The concept of ‘modes of delivery’ is based on an historical distinction in education systems between ‘distance’ and contact’ education. This distinction has been very useful for many years, particularly as it allowed for the establishment of innovative responses to education problems – such as Open Universities and Open Schools – that could be set up and run without waiting for changes in mainstream education systems. Neat categorizations such as these are increasingly containing too divergent a range of educational practices to remain relevant. This has become particularly problematic in the area of distance education.  

An appropriate solution to this problem is the conceptual introduction of a planning continuum of education provision. This continuum has, as two imaginary poles, provision only at a distance and provision that is solely face-to-face. The reality is that all education provision exists somewhere on this continuum, but cannot be placed strictly at either pole. Educators often end up equating particular methods of education with good quality education, even when these methods are being poorly implemented. The notion of this continuum is free of such premature and unnecessary judgements about quality. Removing artificial distinctions between distance and contact education practice can help to simplify educational policy frameworks, while leading to the type of flexibility that supports ongoing adaptation and improvement of education practices at all education providers.  

With the above framework in place, this paper goes on to explore key lessons emerging from distance education practices in developing countries. This set of lessons is divided into:

•             Lessons from distance education practices;

•             Lessons from use of educational technologies;

•             Some common financial mistakes.

Increasing proportions of educators’ work will involve them as members of teams to which they will contribute only some of the required expertise, and of which they will not necessarily be the leaders, managers, or coordinators.

 Introduction: The growth of Distance Education 

The growth of distance education methods of delivery has been a key feature of education in the 20^th century. Three primary reasons for this trend can be identified. First, the need has grown to provide access to students who would – either because of work commitments, geographical distance, or poor quality or inadequate prior learning experiences - be denied access to traditional, full-time contact education. Second, it has been necessary to expand access to education to significantly larger numbers of learners. Third, there has been a need to shift patterns of expenditure to achieve economies of scale by amortizing identified costs over time and large student numbers. In developing country contexts, these drivers are often underpinned by the need to transform education systems that have been ravaged by colonial histories and political instability. 

More detailed reasons for embarking on distance education provision are varied, depending on the educational sector in which this is occurring. For example, at many higher education institutions, distance education programmes are sometimes introduced in an attempt to broaden a declining client base and to generate additional income. Such programmes are also introduced as a way of meeting national priorities or to reach specific groups, such as rural community workers. Many programmes are offered to professionals who are working full-time, and these programmes of necessity use distance education strategies. Some providers and programme coordinators adopt distance education strategies to support their teaching approach, while others are simply fascinated by the new opportunities for innovative teaching information and communication technologies (ICTs) create. 

In another education sector, many countries around the world, when faced with problems of learner access to the conventional schooling systems, have implemented some or other form of Open School as a response to these problems. An Open School is an educational institution operating in the spheres of primary and/or secondary education, providing courses and programmes predominantly through use of distance education methods. Most schools of this nature have been established for some time. The Correspondence School in New Zealand, for example, was established in 1922, while the Open School in India is over 20 years old. Reasons for establishing such schools have tended to revolve around accessibility to traditional schooling. In the two examples mentioned above, part of the motivation to establish the School was to provide access to students in remote farming communities (New Zealand) and access to large numbers of students whom the mainstream schooling system could not absorb (India).  

Very often, establishment of Open Schools has also been motivated by intrinsic weaknesses in the mainstream, ‘contact’ schooling system, which policy makers have seen requiring years of structural change before large-scale improvements will become noticeable. Thus, Open Schools provide a handy, reasonably quick institutional solution to problems of educational delivery, which can operate largely outside of the mainstream schooling system and hence not be slowed down by the pace of these structural changes.  

These kinds of developments raise questions about what distance education actually is, how it can contribute to solving educational problems in developing countries, and what lessons we can learn from deployment of distance education practices over the last hundred years. This paper seeks to provide some answers to these questions, beginning by exploring motivations for using distance education methods.

 Why the interest in Distance Education? 

As has been pointed out, there has been extensive growth of distance education recently, and this looks set to continue for the foreseeable future. However, motivations for shifting to resource-based learning and those for turning to distance education often tend to get conflated during education planning processes. The result is that an unfortunate qualitative value has come to be attached to the term distance education –namely that, de facto, it achieves the goals of resource-based learning – that is neither deserved nor useful. Below are some first-level definitions that help to differentiate between the two concepts. 

Distance Education

Distance Education describes a set of teaching and learning strategies (or education methods) that can be used to overcome spatial and temporal separation between educators and learners. These strategies or methods can be integrated into any education programme and – potentially – used in any combination with any other teaching and learning strategies in the provision of education (including those strategies which demand that learners and educators be together at the same time and/or place).

Resource-Based Learning

Resource-based learning involves communication of curriculum between learners and educators through the use of resources (instructionally designed and otherwise) that harness different media as necessary. Resource-based learning strategies can be integrated into any education programme, using any mix of contact and distance education strategies. Resource-based learning need not imply any temporal and/or spatial separation between educators and learners, although many resource-based learning strategies can be used to overcome such separation. 

Although this distinction is somewhat arbitrary, it is helpful for purposes of analysis, as it allows us to establish some underlying problems that have arisen during ‘distance education’ planning. The intention behind this is not to set up new artificial dichotomies. Rather, it is to illustrate more vividly that moves to resource-based learning do not, de facto, achieve the goals of distance education and vice versa. Thus, while most distance education programmes seek to overcome temporal and spatial separation through use of resources, some seek only to overcome distance using direct communication via telecommunications technologies (such as video-conferencing). Conversely, many efforts to develop educational resources have not systematically focused on achieving the economies of scale that have historically provided such a central motivation to most distance education programmes. 

It would, of course, be näive to believe that the motivations of all educators and educational providers using resource-based learning and distance education methods are educationally driven. Many organizations and individuals use certain distance education methods and cheap versions of resource-based learning to increase student numbers and/or income with little or no concern for impact on the quality of that provision. This analysis will, however, not dwell on such motives. 

Likewise, the strategic direction of educational institutions and programmes is not necessarily always driven by systematically understood and articulated reasons. Much of the best educational work evolves organically, driven by the enthusiasm and interests of individual educators. Nevertheless, it is important, in reflecting on the effect of such activity, to pull together broader trends that might have influenced or emerged from people’s work. The analysis provided below seeks to achieve this goal.

 Why the use of Distance Education methods? 

Whether consciously or unconsciously, attempts to use distance education methods over the past few years have been driven by a desire to build on some or all of the following lessons emerging from the history of distance education practices: 

1.       Providing access to students who would - either because of work commitments, geographical distance, or poor quality or inadequate prior learning experiences - be denied access to traditional, full-time contact education opportunities. This motivation has possibly been the key motivating factor behind use of distance education methods. The drive has been motivated partly by growing awareness of the importance of lifelong learning and corresponding attempts to respond to market needs. It has also been motivated by dwindling student numbers in some of the more traditional areas of educational provision and a corresponding need to find new educational markets. 

2.       Seeking to expand access to educational provision to significantly larger numbers of learners. This motivation is linked to, but not the same as, the previous one. Its difference lies chiefly in the scale of programmes. Many programmes motivated by a desire to provide access to students who would be denied access to traditional full-time contact education do not really have goals of reaching significantly larger numbers of learners. Indeed, it is notable that large-scale distance education programmes in developing countries are, in general, confined to very few educational sectors, most notably nursing and teacher education. Most other programmes with tend to be small-scale interventions, although it is fair to suggest there may be a change in this regard as alignment between industry/commerce and programme providers gathers momentum. 

3.       Shifting patterns of expenditure to achieve economies of scale by amortizing identified costs (particularly investments in course design and development and in effective administrative systems) over time and large student numbers. This motivation draws together the above two motivations, and has been an underlying economic rationale for many distance education institutions around the world. Its success depends on limiting numbers of courses, while maximizing enrolments on these courses. Many distance education programmes simply have no intention or capacity to exploit these economic benefits. Reasons for this are varied, but are most commonly because market demand is simply not big enough to create programmes enrolling thousands of learners or because institutions or programmes have neither the financial nor human capacity to make large-scale venture capital investments in course design and development or administrative systems to support large-scale distance education implementation.  

In the above discussion, we have outlined various reasons for adopting different teaching and learning strategies that we believe are largely linked to opening access to more and new kinds of students. In addition, however, various reasons for adopting such teaching and learning strategies pertain more directly to use of resources. 

 Why the move to resource-based learning? 

Efforts to integrate use of instructionally designed resources into courses and programmes have been influenced by motives different from those outlined above. It is worth noting that these objectives have often incorporated efforts to overcome temporal and spatial separation, but not always.  

1.      Breaking down the traditional notion that a talking teacher is the most effective strategy for communicating curriculum. While this motive has not been exclusive to distance education programmes, it has been most systematically applied in such programmes. Nevertheless, many contact courses and programmes incorporate use of instructionally designed resources as educators have learned the limitations of lecture-based strategies for communicating information to students. It is important to stress that this motive does not imply any intrinsic improvements in quality of learning experience. The extent to which shifting communication of curriculum to instructionally designed resources leads to improvement in the quality of education is entirely dependent on the quality of resources developed. Experience has demonstrated that spending more money on educational resource development does not, by itself, lead to improvements in quality. Conversely, however, under-investment in design of such resources is very likely to diminish the quality of the final learning experience. Many education programmes operate under severe financial constraints, and are not able to make investments of sufficient scale in the resources that they develop. Thus, while the motive may be to use resources to communicate curriculum more effectively, investments made in designing those resources often do not allow for achievement of the intended goal. 

2.      Directing a significantly larger proportion of total expenditure to the design and development of high quality resources, as a strategy for building and assuring the quality of educational provision. This motive is linked to the previous one, but contains notable differences. Importantly, many people motivated by the desire to use resources to communicate curriculum are not similarly motivated by a desire to shift patterns of expenditure in this way (or are unable to do so because institutional financial policies make it impossible). This can lead to the problems outlined above, where communication of curriculum via resources rather than a talking teacher does not lead to improvements in the quality of pedagogy. There is, however, another tension that this motive creates when people do seek to shift patterns of expenditure in this way. This can occur when additional money is actually invested in design of resources, but this investment is then still spread over very small student numbers. The consequence of this can be to drive up the per-student cost of the educational experience significantly, leading to unsustainable educational practices. This practice is prevalent in many traditionally contact education institutions.  

         Implementing strategies to shift the role of the educator. [1] This motive has been important in many education programmes, where educators have sought to maximize the educational impact of contact time with students. As this time is generally the most significant component of variable educational costs, many educators have sought to use it to stimulate engagement and interaction rather than simply talking to mostly passive students. Obviously, this shift is not a feature of all programmes. Many educators continue to use contact time to perform very traditional functions, leaving no space for meaningful engagement between educators and learners. As importantly, many educators do not embed the logic of engagement into resources themselves, often simply creating resource-based versions of traditional lectures. This trend is particularly pervasive in web-based learning, where many courses simply involve electronic mark-up of lecture notes into web-compatible formats. 

3.      Investigating the potential that the integration of new educational technologies into teaching and learning environments has for supporting, improving, or enhancing those environments. Significant money is being invested in testing this potential by developing resources of different kinds. This exploration is very important, and is yielding interesting results with potentially important consequences for opening education to more people. It is, however, worth noting that there is nothing intrinsically good about applications of new technologies in education, and there have been many very expensive failures. Reasons for such failures will discussed later in this paper. 

The above analysis illustrates both some of the potential of using distance education methods and some of the conditions necessary to justify their use. Often, however, such attempts are hamstrung by inappropriate education planning frameworks, which introduce unnecessarily rigidity to education planning. Consequently, it is necessary to explore these conceptual frameworks in more detail.

Developing Appropriate Education Planning Frameworks

Planning of education has, for many years, revolved around the concept of different ‘modes of delivery’. Most systems design decisions – at national and institutional levels – have been influenced by which mode the system is believed to be supporting. Thus, understanding appropriate conceptual frameworks begins with this concept.

 What does 'Modes of Delivery' cover? 

In historical terms, the concept of ‘modes of delivery’ has been relatively simple to understand, as people have generally tended to differentiate between ‘contact education’ and ‘distance education’ as two readily identifiable modes of delivery. Internationally, this broad distinction began to merge as different institutions moved to establish themselves as ‘dual-mode’ or ‘mixed-mode’ institutions, particularly in the area of higher education. This generally began to happen as traditionally contact institutions introduced distance education programmes for students who were not able to attend their central campus on a full-time basis. In simple terms, then, the concept of modes of delivery covers these three broad institutional types:

1.   Contact education institutions (where students attend face-to-face sessions of different kinds, and these sessions are the primary mechanism for communicating course curriculum);

2.   Distance education institutions (where students and educators are separated by time and/or space, and communication of curriculum takes place primarily through use of educational resources, drawing on different media as necessary); and

3.   Mixed- or dual-mode institutions (where the institution establishes parallel administrative systems to enable it offer both distance and contact education programmes). 

In most education systems, there are several examples of educational institutions that fall into these categories. Contact education institutions still tend to be most prolific, as most primary and secondary schools fall into this category, as do many colleges and universities. Similarly, there are several examples around the world of dedicated distance education institutions, some of which are very large (such as the Indira Ghandi Open University in India, which has hundreds of thousands of students) some medium-size (the National Correspondence College in Zambia, for example, enrolled an estimated 21,000 students in 1999), and some much smaller (the Botswana College of Open and Distance Learning had 600 registered students completing their schooling in 1999). Dual-mode institutions are also on the increase in the developing world, particularly in the higher education sector, as the examples of the Universities of Pretoria and Stellenbosch in South Africa illustrate.

 

 Modes of delivery: An outdated form of categorization

The concept of ‘modes of delivery’ is based on an historical distinction in education systems between ‘distance’ and contact’ education. This distinction has been very useful for many years, particularly as it allowed for the establishment of innovative responses to education problems – such as Open Universities and Open Schools – that could be set up and run without waiting for changes in mainstream education systems.  

This flexibility was important to the success of many distance education institutions around the world, but has also had the unfortunate consequence of establishing two distinct education systems, which have historically operated in parallel and created long-term policy problems. This problem has been compounded recently, as there has been an explosion of education delivery options, around which it has become increasingly difficult to establish meaningful policy and regulatory frameworks. 

Neat categorizations, such as those provided above, are increasingly containing too divergent a range of educational practices to remain relevant. This has become particularly problematic in the area of distance education. For example, distributed lecturing systems using video-conferencing equipment and systems using instructionally designed study guides and decentralized tutorial support find themselves located within the same category, although they bear almost no resemblance in terms of pedagogical approach, technologies used, and their financial implications. This is not to suggest that one is intrinsically better than the other. It simply points to the inadequacy of planning approaches that assume the planning requirements of both will be adequately met by a single framework called ‘distance education’.  

Awareness is now growing that elements of distance education have almost always existed in face-to-face programmes, while educators involved in good quality distance education increasingly recognize the importance of different types of face-to-face education as structured elements of their programmes. This trend has rendered rigid distinctions between the two modes of delivery meaningless.  

One consequence of this is that many education providers are now struggling with the constraints created by maintaining separate ‘modes of delivery’. The Gauteng Youth College in South Africa’s Gauteng province, for example, was set up to exploit the benefits of distance education methods of delivery in providing ‘second-chance’ opportunities to failed matriculants. Amongst the many interesting lessons that this project yielded was a clear understanding that provincial policy and administrative frameworks currently make it very difficult to explore innovative new teaching and learning methods of delivery. Key to these policy frameworks is that so many education systems are based on the notion that students will be studying full-time at contact campuses.  

An appropriate solution to this problem is the conceptual introduction of a planning continuum of education provision. This continuum has, as two imaginary poles, provision only at a distance and provision that is solely face-to-face. The reality is that all education provision exists somewhere on this continuum, but cannot be placed strictly at either pole. Educators often end up equating particular methods of education with good quality education, even when these methods are being poorly implemented. The notion of this continuum is free of such premature and unnecessary judgements about quality.  

This conceptual shift is vital in changing the structure of education systems around the world. In particular, it allows for greater flexibility and opens possibilities of collaboration, both of which are vital to improvements in educational quality and cost-effectiveness of education provision, issues of particular relevance to policy-makers. It allows education providers to plan, implement, and review each education intervention on its own merits, rather than being forced into simplistic, dichotomous categories (such as ‘distance education’ or ‘contact education’), which set arbitrary and unhelpful constraints.  

This flexibility should form the cornerstone of all education planning processes. Education systems always serve a diversity of people with a wide range of educational needs. There is no single teaching and learning model that will equally meet these diverse needs equally well. This point seems obvious, but cannot be stressed strongly enough, particularly given the almost innate human desire to find simple, packaged solutions to complex problems.

 Distance education and technology-enhanced learning 

Linked to the above is an unfortunate trend that has crept into the field of educational technology. This new trend, particularly pervasive in American educational debates but now finding its way into several educational discourses, has been to use ‘distance education’ and ‘educational technology’ interchangeably or even as a single, composite term. The most obvious problem with this is that is simply an illogical inference. Educational technologies are used regularly in contact educational environments, whether they be ‘old’ technologies like print or whiteboards or ‘new’ technologies like data projectors or personal computers. 

More importantly, though, use of distance education and educational technology as interchangeable or composite phrases introduces a blurring conflation of the terms, which – at least in many developing world educational interventions – has led to poor quality strategic planning. In many ways, it is similar to the conceptual integration of open learning and distance education in the United Kingdom and Australia – open and distance learning – which created a real misperception that distance education was intrinsically ‘open’. In the same way, many people harnessing educational technologies think they are harnessing the benefits of good quality distance education, when, in most cases, they are simply finding technologically clever (and often not so clever) ways of replicating traditional, face-to-face educational models. Many of these projects have blazed a sad trail of failed educational technology projects (most notably in applications of broadcasting technologies to transmit lecture-style programming), wasting huge amounts of time and money. On the positive side, these experiences have valuable lessons for education planners in developing countries, so there is no reason to continue repeating many of these costly mistakes.  

The key point here again is that each education intervention should be planned, implemented, and reviewed on its own merits, rather than forced into simplistic, dichotomous categories (such as ‘distance education’ or ‘face-to-face education’), which set arbitrary and unhelpful constraints. Leading on from this, attempts by educators to harness the potential of different technologies to support their educational interventions should not automatically be regarded as distance education interventions. Technologies can be applied in a range of ways, to support an almost limitless combination of teaching and learning strategies, and it is essential to keep options as open as possible. 

 Systemic demands of increased flexibility 

As has been pointed out above, more and more education providers are seeking to explore and implement new ways of providing education opportunities to learners. Growing integration of distance education and resource-based learning methods and practices into education systems of developing countries is putting tremendous strain on the capacity of those systems to administer themselves efficiently.  

These kinds of changes threaten to undermine many attempts to open access to education, because educators are finding themselves spending large quantities of time working against administrative systems that are designed almost exclusively for full-time, contact education provision aimed at children and young adults. The point here is not that this full-time, contact education provision is problematic per se, but that it represents only one configuration amongst many educational alternatives. Changes in institutional, provincial, and national administrative systems have lagged quite considerably behind processes of building new educational configurations.  

Removing artificial distinctions between distance and contact education practice can help to simplify educational policy frameworks, while leading to the type of flexibility that supports ongoing adaptation and improvement of education practices at all education providers. As a second step, it is important to examine a range of national and/or institutional policy implementation frameworks to establish the extent to which they support or impede the kinds of systemic changes at institutional level that were described in the previous section.  

For example, education providers’ management information systems are a critical part of administration. Part of the change implied above includes investigation of every level of data structure, to ensure that these systems do not embed anachronistic assumptions about contact or distance education into the organization’s operations. Possibly the most obvious assumption – although it is only one of many – would be that students study full-time, enrolling in February or March and writing examinations in May and June and/or October and November. Once assumptions such as these are embedded, they become very difficult to extract from management information systems. Consequently, it will be crucial for institutions to investigate the relationships between data sets in management information systems to ensure that these rigidities are removed where they are unhelpful. 

However, almost all management information systems at individual education providers have, unsurprisingly, been set up to supply data required at national and/or provincial level. Given the legacy of artificial categorizations like ‘distance’ and ‘contact’ and the historical focus of education systems on full-time, contact education offered in year-based programmes, these statistical requirements perpetuate the existence of inflexible institutional management information systems, thus constraining change. Therefore, it is essential to work systematically through and adapt these statistical requirements to ensure that they do not unnecessarily constrain educational innovation and growth in new areas, thus preventing the type of work described in the previous paragraph. 

 Distance Education: Common problems and challenges 

With the above framework in place, it is useful now to explore further what useful lessons historical application of distance education methods yields. It focuses on problems and challenges, rather than general lessons. The intention is not to present a catalogue of failure, but rather a brief guide to some of the most pressing challenges that education planners will face. This analysis is based primarily on exploration of distance education practices in sub-Saharan Africa, but comparison with experiences in other parts of the world suggests strongly that these are commonly shared challenges.

 Funding Constraints 

The most commonly mentioned problem by distance educators is lack of resources. While this is likely to be the most common complaint amongst any significantly-sized group of educators around the world, it does take on a particular significance in developing contexts, because there are so many obvious gaps in resources. Resource problems, unsurprisingly begin with funding. Thus, for example, the Southern African Extension Unit’s distance education programme working with refugees in West Tanzania relies exclusively on donor funding for its existence, while the Institute of Adult Education in that country was recently forced to halt face-to-face tutorial support for learners because there is simply insufficient funding to keep it functioning. Distance educators have learned some of the important lessons of ensuring quality in distance education (reference is regularly made to the importance of well-functioning student support systems), but now find it very difficult to implement these lessons given existing budgets. Likewise, crucial ongoing investments, particularly in administrative systems and in course design and development, are often impossible to make, because the income programmes generate seldom covers even their recurrent expenses. These problems are exacerbated by the inability of most potential students to cover the expenses of their education, or even a substantial proportion of them, through student fees. 

It should, however, be stressed that the issue of funding constraints is not simply a reflection of the absence of resources. There are readily identifiable patterns of expenditure already in place in all education systems, all of which support well-entrenched underlying organizational structures and systems. These patterns of expenditure are usually fiercely defended by those with the greatest vested interest in maintaining those structures, and this occurs usually because of the positions of power those structures confer, not because of the quality of their educational delivery. An argument often put forward by people resisting shifts in patterns of expenditure is that, useful as investments in educational technologies or in creating new types of learning opportunities may be, these will have to be funded with additional money, because existing budgets are already hopelessly over-stretched. While this may be true, it is also myopic to the extent that it overlooks the reality that a key reason why existing budgets are over-stretched is that they invest in many very inefficient educational practices.  

The simple reality is that, if additional investments in using distance education methods or educational technologies are to make a meaningful and sustainable impact, they will have to be made as part of a broader process of shifting patterns of expenditure on education, with a view to ensuring that these changes contribute more broadly to changing patterns of behaviour within educational systems as a whole. This is not a naïve ideal towards which to strive; it is critical to survival and growth of effective education. Too many educational providers internationally have ignored early warning signals of inefficient use of resources, and, in so doing, have left themselves open to the undistinguishing – and ultimately unhealthy – vagaries of cost-cutting measures, which are employed when inefficient use of resources leads to financial crisis. It is essential to stress that this financial crisis has as much to do with poor management of resources as it does to do with dwindling budgets. Simply adding more resources to a poorly managed environment is no way to solve any problem. 

 Infrastructural limitations 

Resource constraints are exacerbated by infrastructural limitations in developing countries. For example, distance educators in African countries share a common complaint about the difficulties of relying on their postal services to support communication with geographically dispersed students. This is a fundamental problem for almost any distance education programme in the region, particularly given the heavy reliance of almost all programmes on print as a communication strategy. An interesting adjunct to this is the additional costs that have to be borne by students returning materials to distance education providers, a cost which alone makes distance education unaffordable to many potential learners. Linked to these problems are severe limitations in roads and transport infrastructures in many areas, which makes many student support services more difficult to provide. 

Infrastructure for using telecommunications infrastructure and information technologies is also very limited. Even in the capital cities of many developing countries, Internet access is limited, expensive, and not yet very reliable. On a positive note, access to communications technologies does appear to be expanding, although still quite slowly and mostly in urban areas.

 Common Distance Education problems 

There are various common distance education problems that emerge from the above problems and that are highly prevalent. These include:

•       Face-to-face tutorial support is seen to be critical to learner success, but often too expensive to implement;

•       There are few reliable and sustainable strategies for making ongoing investments in course materials design and development;

•       Professional development for educational and administrative staff members is sporadic and limited, resulting in insufficient skills amongst personnel to sustain distance education systems;

•       Administrative systems either do not exist or are highly underdeveloped;

•       Even modest course fees are beyond the reach of many potential learners;

•       Innovation in distance education relies heavily on unsustainable sources of funding, particularly donor funding. 

Two important lessons exist here. First, this points clearly to the impossibility of maintaining colonially inherited welfare systems that are not underpinned by sustainable local economic activity (which does now appear to be growing in some countries, but not in others). Second, simplistic statements about the viability of distance education in developing countries because of its cheaper unit costs need to be carefully tempered by awareness of the true costs of implementing effective distance education, particularly given difficult material circumstances. While it is often true that unit costs may decline, this is often contingent on economies of scale that push up absolute costs, which can lead to massive losses in the quality of traditional distance education systems. Models of distance education from developed countries like the United Kingdom or Australia simply do not remain relevant in other educational environments, because the material circumstances are fundamentally different. 

 Educational technologies: Unrealistic expectations and old paradigms

The above problems relate specifically to distance education programmes. In addition, however, as has been outlined above, there is a small but steady growth of projects exploring the potential of using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), both in distance education programmes and in other contexts, to improve access to high quality education. Unfortunately, however, such projects inherit a widespread legacy of failed technological initiatives. General reasons for these failures are many and varied, but include the following:

•       Imposition of inflexible technological choices made without reference to educational need and context;

•       Lack of investment in integrated curriculum and course design and development processes;

•       Integrating technologies into programmes based on poor pedagogical practice, which usually leads to worse quality pedagogical practice;

•       Unexpectedly high operating costs, and a very high percentage of total expenditure on recurrent costs, which militates against achieving economies of scale;

•       Underestimation of the need for well-developed systems of student support, designed as an integral part of overall courses;

•       Lack of attention to designing and implementing effective management and administrative systems; and

•       Paucity of people with the necessary skills and expertise to staff programmes, and a corresponding absence of clear professional development strategies designed to overcome this problem. 

In addition to these problems, there are other specific features of ICT-related educational projects operating in developing contexts, many of which militate against their success. Some are mentioned briefly below, in an effort to capture some key lessons from which policy makers and strategic planners can learn and to identify some common mistakes to be avoided in future projects.

 Unrealistically ambitious objectives 

A feature of ICT-related projects in this area is that they tend to fall prone to setting unrealistically ambitious objectives. This is reflected in comparisons of lists of objectives provided in many project plans with actual achievements. The gaps that exist between objectives and achievements reflect both the scale of problems related to building ICT use in developing educational contexts and a dependence on simultaneously linking multiple, interrelated factors in solving these problems. It is, however, also symptomatic of a well-intentioned approach to developing county problems, as part of which people feel compelled to attempt to solve every problem via a single intervention. This generally well-intentioned desire is simply not sustainable, as it spreads limited resources impossibly thinly. One cannot help feeling that more collaboration between organizations with clearly focused objectives may result in more balanced partnerships, ultimately having a greater effect. It is critical to come to understand that, given the scale of problems different developing countries face, setting unrealistically tight deadlines for achieving objectives paradoxically extends the time it will take to solve those problems, as it wastes energy on unsustainable short-term ‘fixes’ rather than targeting the underlying systemic problems. It is, therefore, vital to begin to place short- to medium-term achievements within the context of much longer cycles of change (say, twenty-five years rather than five years). 

 Financial constraints 

As has been indicated above, comparison of the stated objectives of many ICT-related educational projects with actual accomplishments suggests that many have set unrealistically ambitious objectives. This is thrown into sharper focus when one examines budgets set to achieve stated objectives. Often, these budgets simply are not sufficient to ensure sustainability of initiatives. It is, therefore, not surprising that many people working in this area cite funding as the key factor hindering their work. In addition, amounts of money set aside for recurrent costs and for professional development of those people who are expected to benefit from the project initiatives are inevitably woefully inadequate. Many projects in this area would do well to learn from the many endeavours that have collapsed under the weight of undue expectation, often created by the people who conceptualize the projects themselves. Planning processes leading to the creation of objectives that are more modest and to deadlines that are more realistic are an urgent priority for initiatives working in this area (although, obviously some projects have already successfully undertaken such planning).  

The problem of financial constraints is, however, not exclusively related to budget. It also reflects an underlying tension in the work of such organizations in this area. Because significant proportions of work in this area is proactive by nature – that is, it seeks to initiate processes that would not emerge of their own volition in disadvantaged communities – it is inevitably faced with the difficult challenge of identifying or creating strategies that will enable these communities to take over and sustain these processes. Not only is this very difficult to achieve, particularly in areas where local economies are either defunct or very small, it can also have unintended negative consequences by setting up expensive, unsustainable initiatives. This can, in certain cases, not only absorb the limited resources of such communities without meaningful impact, it can also serve to disempower and dishearten local communities. These problems are not easily resolvable, and continue to create ongoing tensions for organizations and governments working in this field.

 Sources of funding 

Linked to the above problems is that the vast majority of organizations contributing to growing use of ICTs in developing educational systems rely on ‘soft’ money – money from funding agencies or earmarked finances – for their funding. Thus, models of financial sustainability do not emerge, rendering the medium- to long-term future of projects very fragile. This is not a criticism of the projects themselves. On the contrary, it is often remarkable to note what people manage to achieve in often very difficult circumstances. However, it does indicate that these initiatives remain very much at the margins of education social activity and limited in impact. Importantly, it also acknowledges that these financial models must change in the medium -to long-term if organizations seeking to support the use of ICTs in education are to make a meaningful impact. 

What is possibly more concerning than the current dependence on soft funding is that very few projects seem to be trying to find alternative forms of income, let alone building or exploiting them. This raises serious questions about sustainability. While the dominant source of income is ‘soft funding’, some different strategies of generating income do emerge from various case studies, though they are still marginal. These ‘alternative’ income streams are worth exploring because, although they may not currently be solutions, they may at least offer some lessons. For example the Siyabuswa Education and Improvement Development Trust (SEIDET) in South Africa seeks funding from the surrounding community and school parent body. SEIDET operates as a multi-purpose community centre, and charges users (students and member of the community) for its services and use of facilities. In this example, the school parent body is seen to be willing to contribute financially to the educational improvement of their children.

 Dependence on committed individuals 

Many educational technology initiatives rely strongly on the commitment and energy of individuals for their existence. Again, this observation is not a criticism of the initiatives themselves, or of the people who run them. In fact, often the commitment and enthusiasm of staff is a primary factor contributing to a project’s ability to work effectively. This can obviously hinder growth and development though, because, for example, when an individual leaves or becomes unmanageably overloaded, the organization does not retain the skills and energy contributed by that person. Obviously this problem is exacerbated by funding limitations. However, reliance on the energy of a few individuals also reflects the paucity of skills in developing countries in this field. What is of some concern, however, is that this trend shows little sign of changing. This is particularly worrying because ICTs cannot be successfully used in education and have a clear educational benefit until the communities intended to benefit from such interventions are initiated and driven by people from those communities. Visions for educational development created by international or national agencies simply cannot replicate the energy and understanding of people whose future is inextricably linked to the success of developmental projects. At the micro level, of course, there are projects where this has started to happen, but this does not yet represent a fundamental shift in the way such projects are generally conceptualized and managed. 

 International and national solutions to local problems 

Many ICT-related educational projects experience the paradox of trying to create international or national solutions for local problems. This may sound unusual on the face of it. However, it is one of the most important stumbling blocks in the implementation of projects. Many aspects of using ICTs to support education simply demand locally tailored interventions, which take account of the unique contexts in which they will be implemented. Unfortunately, though, because a large number of interventions is conceptualized and implemented at international or national level, it becomes very difficult to orchestrate such interventions. Thus, where practical impact is made, it is very often unsustainable. This problem is both caused and exacerbated by many other the other trends identified above.

 Planning and decision-making 

Sustainability of activities in this area requires systematic planning and sound decision-making approaches, yet many projects seem not to be underpinned by such planning. This is most obviously reflected in the wide discrepancies between stated objectives and achievements. In some instances, it becomes difficult to understand what benefit the work of some projects are bringing – or are even likely to bring – to education and how decisions to follow these paths were made. Again, this observation is not intended to be a criticism of the work of individuals, whose capacity to function successfully is severely impeded by the problems articulated above. More effective planning might, however, help to overcome or avoid some of these problems.

 Some common financial mistakes 

Some common problems face financial planners, many of which arise from basic mistakes in planning. These are worth noting briefly:

·      In considering sound educational investment, it is essential to distinguish effectiveness from efficiency. Cost-effectiveness is used as a term distinct from cost-efficiency. For the purposes of this paper, the latter is about ‘cheapness’ of educational provision – usually expressed in terms of per-student costs – while the former represents striking the optimal balance between cost, student numbers, and educational quality, a balance which will be entirely different for different educational contexts. In many ways, the concept of cost-effectiveness represents the balancing act that constitutes open learning. There is no magical formula that leads to cost-effective education; rather, cost-effectiveness needs to be measured on an ongoing basis in relation to changing contextual requirements. Much distance education planning suffers from fixation of cost-efficiency at the expense of cost-effectiveness.

·      Some educational planners continue to believe that, because education is theoretically an endeavour in the ‘public interest’, some amorphous entity (often vaguely referred to as ‘government’) should cover the bill regardless of what it may be. As a result financial analysis is frequently absent.

·      Where financial planning is done, it has tended to focus narrowly on the direct costs of a course or programme, rather than on understanding the full direct and indirect costs necessary both to sustain the educational intervention and the educational provider itself.

·      A key problem that many educational planners have faced is knowing whether or not the courses and programmes they are designing or implementing are generating more income than expenditure.

·      Likewise, it has been very difficult to establish when – if ever – new courses and programmes will break even financially, hence making it harder to make effective financial decisions on whether or not to make initial design and development investments.

·      When financial analysis is undertaken, it often focuses narrowly on unit costs (that is, the cost per individual student). Such analysis depends for its persuasiveness on demonstrating declining student costs as economies of scale are achieved. This often ignores macro economic analysis to assess whether or not the total sums of money that such educational activity will require exist in the educational economies for which new distance education programmes are being planned. This problem is most serious when it creeps into national policy planning.

·      In many cases, establishing distance education institutions and programmes perpetuates existing patterns of educational expenditure rather than challenging them. Very often, their establishment has been motivated by intrinsic weaknesses in the mainstream, ‘contact’ system, which policy makers have seen requiring years of structural change before large-scale improvements will become noticeable. Thus, distance education provides a handy, reasonably quick institutional solution to problems of educational delivery, which can operate largely outside of mainstream systems and hence not be slowed down by the pace of these structural changes. On the face of it, these appear then to be structures of particular interest and relevance to developing contexts. There is, however, a very real danger implicit in this, namely that such expediency further retards the pace of change in mainstream systems. Better financial planning – particularly at national level – can go some way towards avoiding these problems.

·      In considering approaches to distance education, planners often seek to understand institutions and systems considered to be successful in other contexts. This is a sensible approach to further develop the understanding or different models as well as necessary conditions for success for such models. It however runs the risk that once successful models have been identified elsewhere, it is assumed that they will succeed in the local context.

 Conclusion 

This paper has presented an overview of several broad themes relevant to distance education. Drawing on a conceptual distinction between distance education and resource-based learning, it has sought to explore what motivates education planners to use distance education methods. Building on this, it has suggested the planning frameworks are currently constraining rather than helpful because they maintain unnecessary distinctions between different modes of education delivery. It has then explored further some of the key lessons emerging from distance education and relate practices in developing countries. In this way, it has attempted to provide the reader a general overview of distance education practices, as well as general guidelines for effective integration of distance education methods into education programmes and systems.

 Footnotes 

[1] this changing role can be described as follows:

•       Educators will become facilitators and managers of learning in situations where they are no longer the source of all knowledge.

•       They will plan, negotiate for, and manage the integration of learning in formal institutions, in the workplace, and in communities.

•       Many educators may spend a considerable proportion of their workloads contributing to the preparation of courseware.

•       Many will interact with learners at a distance through any one, or any combinations, of a variety of media (of which real-time face to face interaction is only one of many possibilities).

•       Preparation, management, and logistics will vary greatly between the following modes of communication:

–           interaction with learners;

–           presentation of one way television broadcast;

–           video conference that hooks up a number of remote sites;

–           written response to a learner’s assignment; and

–           face to face facilitation.

•       It will be essential that educators design and administer complicated, increasingly computer-based record-keeping systems that keep track of learners’ progress through their individual learning pathways, pathways that reflect individual variations in learning content, learning sequence, learning strategies, the learning resources, media and technologies chosen to support them, and the pace of learning.

Increasing proportions of educators’ work will involve them as members of teams to which they will contribute only some of the required expertise, and of which they will not necessarily be the leaders, managers, or coordinators.