| INTRODUCTION This draft policy document from South Africa focuses on the delivery of
quality education through distance education methods. It is an extension of existing
policy research documents in that country. Most directly, it falls within the framework of
the First White Paper on Education and Training, and the National Educational Policy Act
which ensued from it. The policy statement has been developed in response to a national
and international quest for improving the quality of delivery of education, particularly
distance education.
This statement is the culmination of an extensive period of research
and consultation begun at a workshop held on 8 July 1996. At this meeting a research group
was formed to conduct an investigation into the quality of distance education in South
Africa. By December 1996 the research group had compiled a discussion document - A
Distance Education Quality Standards Framework for South Africa. This document was
circulated for discussion and comments, and was presented at a national workshop for
stakeholders in April 1997.
LOCATING THIS POLICY STATEMENT IN THE
EDUCATION AND TRAINING SYSTEM
The education and training system can be divided into three sub-systems: physical
systems, management and administrative systems, and learning systems. Change depends on
development occurring in all three of these sub-systems and on the co-ordination and
management of the system as a whole.
The Physical System
This is made up of the
physical environment and physical access:
- The physical environment is crucial to transformation. Without a sound basic physical
environment, learning will always be fighting a losing battle against various levels of
discomfort and insecurity. The requirements for a physical environment conducive to
learning include clean running water, sewerage facilities, electricity, effective shelter,
primary health care, appropriate and adequate workspace, security, and, where appropriate,
school feeding.
- Learners and educators need to gain access to the learning environment in order to
participate in it, and also need to be able to access the learning resources within that
environment. Physical access is dependent on factors such as roads, transport, suitable
buildings, and telecommunications links and facilities. In facilitating learners’
access to sites of learning, some difficult choices may have to be made, such as choices
between building more schools or providing transport to get to existing schools. In
addition, managing the times at which learners can access facilities is also a key factor
for cost-effectiveness, as well as motivation.
Management and Administration
This consists
of two important aspects in the new education and training system: qualifications
frameworks and the units of governance. Learning achievements in the form of unit
standards and qualifications are being generated and set so as to be registered on the
National Qualifications Framework (NQF). The NQF has two crucial functions, namely setting
standards and quality assurance. It will take time to become fully operational.
Units of governance are perhaps the most difficult aspect of all within
the overall educational and training system. What is required is that integrative units of
governance are put in place effectively at different levels. At each level, key
considerations will be costing, planning, co-ordination, and reporting and evaluation.
Various Acts at National and Provincial level are laying the basis for establishing
governance structures within the Departments of Education. There is also a range of
people-development initiatives taking place in different places within government (at
national and provincial levels), which need to be drawn together for co-ordinated impact.
Learning systems
One role of the state is to provide, in broad terms, access to learning
resources as well as access to the mediation of learning resources in the public domain.
Learning resources might include print media; apparatus (from that used in early childhood
development through to high-tech machinery used in science and technology as well as
vocational training); audio-visual media; multimedia and, now, hypermedia.
It is by now well documented that South Africa’s education and
training system has been ravaged by many years of apartheid educational policy and
international isolation. For the purposes of this policy statement, it is, however, worth
re-emphasising some relevant features of the current system. They are as follows:
- inadequate and/or badly maintained physical infrastructure;
- enormous distances in some provinces, compounded by the lack of any transport
infrastructure in many areas;
- lack of communication facilities, leading to a lack of information on, and support for,
new developments in education approaches, new curricula and resource use (such as
technologies);
- lack of access to libraries and other resources;
- lack of access to peer group support - among learners, educators and educational
providers;
- lack of a supportive environment for pedagogical and professional development; and
- the absence of a flexible opportunity and reward structure to encourage educational
providers to invest time and effort in transforming education and training through
strategies designed to enhance teaching and learning processes, including the use of
technology.
THE FOCUS OF THIS DOCUMENT
This
policy statement focuses on delivering quality education and training in all aspects of
distance education and is not limited to any sector or sub-system of education. It is
important that all sub-systems are managed in an integrated fashion so that the
transformational goals of access, equity, redress, relevance, and quality will become
possible. Such a set of Criteria for Quality Distance Education in South Africa could play
an important role in the continuous task of building and assuring quality in education and
training.
WHY CRITERIA FOR QUALITY DISTANCE EDUCATION?
The
White Paper on Higher Education (A Programme for the Transformation of Higher Education -
Education White Paper 3) states the importance of increased provision of distance
education and resource-based learning. This must be based on the principles of open
learning in order to meet ‘the challenge of greater access and enhanced quality in a
context of resource constraints and a diverse student body.’ This is an extension of
the statement in the 1995 White Paper on Education and Training that ‘the Ministry of
Education is anxious to encourage the development of an open learning approach, since it
resonates with the values and principles the national education and training policy and
has applicability in virtually all learning contexts.’ Already there is a marked
increase in the numbers of new distance education and resource-based learning programmes,
not only in the higher education sector, but also across all sectors of educational
provision. A further factor is the rapidly growing interest from overseas educational
institutions in South Africa as a market.
However, most recent research work done into distance education in
South Africa indicates quite clearly that the quality of distance education practices in
South Africa are not all of equal level. The general assessment made by an international
commission in 1994 on distance education in South Africa5 was that
distance education provision does not always contribute positively to the priorities for
education and training as set out in the Policy Framework.
More recent research into the quality of teacher education
offered at a distance in South Africa confirmed this finding, while the White Paper on
Higher Education has also reflected such concerns: ‘the Ministry is concerned about
the efficiency, appropriateness and effectiveness of much current distance education
provision’.
Criteria for Quality Distance Education are needed both to assist in
the improvement of the quality of existing distance education provision, and to inform new
initiatives, both local and overseas, in distance education and resource-based learning in
South Africa.
TO WHOM SHOULD THE CRITERIA FOR QUALITY DISTANCE
EDUCATION APPLY?
In
South Africa, as in the rest of the world, distance education provision extends across all
educational sectors, and is not restricted merely to the higher and further education
sector. Quality assurance mechanisms that are developed for distance education in South
Africa, therefore, need to be appropriate to all educational sectors.
Distance education students are enrolled in large numbers in both
public and private institutions in South Africa. Quality assurance needs therefore to
cover private as well as state provision.
Finally, distance education provision is not only undertaken by
institutions or organizations. It can be undertaken by a programme within an organization,
or it can be a collaborative project involving a number of partners (public and private
organizations, stakeholders and community structures) or it can be an initiative to bring
about systemic change and development. In the Criteria for Quality Distance Education that
follow, all these types of providers are implied by the phrase ‘educational
provider’.
SHOULD THE CRITERIA FOR QUALITY DISTANCE
EDUCATION APPLY TO DISTANCE EDUCATION PROVISION ONLY?
There are numerous distance education initiatives in formerly
traditional ‘residential’ universities and technikons. The White Paper on Higher
Education also encourages contact and distance education institutions to provide effective
learning environments on a continuum of educational provision in which contact, distance,
mixed-mode and dual mode educational opportunities are in principle available to all
learners.
This gives some indication that South Africa is part of the world-wide
trend towards the convergence of distance education and conventional education. In the
light of this, assuring the quality of distance education should be seen as a mainstream
educational activity - it is assuring the quality of education, not just part of
education. The strategic initiatives suggested in this policy document point the way to
how this can be achieved.
Most of the criteria outlined in this statement are applicable to all
educational provision. It is only in the area of human resource strategy that criteria
appear which apply specifically to distance education organizations. These are elements 1,
2 and 3. These elements point to the distinctive feature of distance education providers,
which is not the production of course materials, but the necessity for increased
specialization of staff.
WHAT
IS THE APPROACH TO QUALITY ASSURANCE TAKEN IN THIS STATEMENT?
Criteria
for Quality Distance Education are necessary to provide an agreed description of quality
education. But it is equally clear that Criteria for Quality Distance Education, on their
own, cannot assure the quality of educational provision. They need to be used in a
broader national quality assurance strategy that includes a measure of external quality
control as well as the development of internal quality processes.
The Criteria for Quality Distance Education have been written as
descriptive not as regulatory. They focus on providing specific guidance for good
practice, and not on outlining a set of minimum requirements. This approach has been taken
because distance education methods are increasingly being employed in a multitude of
educational contexts in South Africa, where the needs and requirements are often very
different. It soon becomes clear that, in such an environment, attempting to set
universally applicable measurements for these Criteria for Quality Distance Education is a
futile exercise. Educational providers should use the criteria as guidelines for the
development of performance indicators specific to their context and type of provision. |
