"Open and Flexible Learning: Commonwealth Experience and India’s Challenge"

6. As I remarked earlier, the Sub-Theme of this session is very much at the heart of the mission and mandate of the Commonwealth of Learning. As long ago as the mid-80s, Heads of Governments of the Commonwealth were compelled to confront the huge demand for higher education in the Commonwealth. One of the solutions that they found attractive was the establishment of open learning facilities in member states to cater for a diversity of learners in changing circumstances and having different learning goals. They recognised that just as our ideas on the purpose, functions and values of universities have been changing so too the nature of learners. Globally, some 82 million young people, mainly between the ages of 18 and 25, populate our campuses today. Except for a small proportion, most are full-time students. Their lifestyles allow them to adjust to the demands of the institutions they study at and the call of faculty as to when and where learning should take place. The lucky ones amongst them are able to express a limited choice in the courses that they can enrol during the three- or four-year period they spend on campuses. The not so lucky, mostly found in the developing world, might not even have that choice; their studies and the time frame are strictly prescribed for them. They are expected to subject themselves to a set of assessment sessions whether or not they are ready for them, and if they do not meet some unstated requirements, they are considered failures. This tradition is long-standing; say about a few centuries old. The 82 million or so young people who subject themselves to this process is a small proportion of the age cohort, which globally may number as many as 560 million. In the case of India the 3000 colleges and 200 universities cater for about 7% out of a total pool of 20 million matriculates annually.

7. In the new knowledge society that we all speak of and which nations aspire to achieve speedily, at least in economically well-developed nations, learning can no longer be the monopoly of the 18 to 25 age group nor can it be limited to full-time study. An increasing number of students can be expected to be part-time, employed, above 25 and making a late entry into higher education. In addition to these, many who are today's non-participants in education will need to be brought into the fold if we are at all serious about offering all people equal opportunity. Such a diversity of learners will require courses to be organised so that they are flexible, can be studied off-campus and credits received are portable. These students arrive at study with skills (to learn by themselves), knowledge (of themselves and what they want) and experience (to enrich curriculum and the learning environment). In other words, they are as much contributors to the learning as they are receivers of the knowledge. In this (knowledge) society, everyone will participate in education or training (formal or non-formal) throughout life. It would be a society characterised by high standards but with low failures. Such a society will offer a seamless canvass for individuals to start their learning anywhere on the canvass and exit at any point. To switch metaphors, they will be on a ladder of continuing attainment.

8. Recognising that there is a global consensus to make education a lifelong need for all citizens, universities must see a central role for themselves in the environment. Indian universities cannot be outside of this changing culture. If you accept my premise, then there are some things that need your attention. Let me list a few that are crucial:

(i) Changing the current culture of instructional practices: The first challenge is the re-orientation of our teachers and the pedagogy they apply to their vocation. The profession will have to come to terms with a new type of learner and a learning environment that encourages the learner to be independent. Whether it is a classroom, radio or television programme, print or web-based instruction, instructors need to recognise that individuals are capable of self-learning, if provided with cleverly and sensitively designed instruction, even though they may be poorly equipped to utilise the technology imaginatively and skilfully. Moving the paradigm from a faculty-centred to a learner-centred environment is not only respectful of the learner but also of the teacher. Tagore, our great poet, expressed this sentiment in much more forceful terms when he said, "The main object to teaching is not to give explanations, but to knock at the doors of the mind. If any boy is asked to give an account of what is awakened in him by such knocking, he will probably say something silly. For what happens within is much bigger than what comes out in words. Those who pin their faith on university examinations as the test of education take no account of this" (Tagore, date unknown but quoted in his autobiography by Dutta and Robinson).

(ii) Freeing classrooms from time-bound regimes: Flexible learning will require us to seriously reconsider the "time-driven" element from today's schools, colleges and universities. Our institutions are ruled by time, prescribing when, in his/her life, a student can or is ready to learn and the length of time required for learning. Not too long ago, an international study recorded that "The instructional paradigm, holds learning a prisoner to time constraints applied by an arbitrary force or by the preferred work schedule of a faculty member. In the desired [new] learning paradigm, learning becomes the primary driving force and, since learning can occur at any time and at any place 24 hours every day, the constraints of time are removed". We have the technology and the knowledge today to deliver learning at any time, 24 hours a day.

(iii) Re-examining the campus-based delivery system: Already, outside of India, many universities and colleges are changing the nature and structure of their organisations. The traditions of teaching and the views on learning have resulted in organisational structures that are almost or completely centred on faculty: from the design of the curriculum to its transformation into learning experience; from decisions relating to assessment of prior learning to elements of exit standards; from administrative arrangements to academic governance; and from delivery systems to learning schedules. This will not be compatible with practices of flexible learning where learning is expected to take place at the convenience of the learner.

(iv) Re-examining the role of academics: Ways must be found to overcome the perceptions and the fear of faculty to the changing nature of their roles and values as well as the rewards of the new learning environment. There is a real, though unfounded, fear on the part of faculty in losing total control of the teaching and learning environment. This fear manifests itself in many forms. Some teachers express anger at the perceived loss of academic freedom and others express disdain at the 'commoditisation' of knowledge; some express dismay at the possible loss of employment and others worry about the potential loss of quality. Learner centrality in the educational environment does pose enormous challenges to the teacher. It requires pedagogical skills, especially in a technology-mediated environment which many of today's teachers are either inadequate in or totally lacking. Serious steps have to be taken to reduce the anxiety of teachers and prevent alienating them from a development that is so crucial to academe and its survival.

(v) Becoming familiar with and practicing a greater use of technology to deliver learning: Universities must become greater users of technology to deliver mass education. The country's mass media and its penetration to the remotest corners of this land permit learning to be distributed beyond the bounds of campuses. In order to benefit from these assets, investments have to be made in staff training and development, and a different kind of administrative order must be explored.

(vi) Partnerships: India is a big country, but it also has colleges and universities that are well spread across the urban landscape of the nation. An opportunity exists to build upon existing collaborations and co-operative ventures and entering into new ones in designing, developing and delivering knowledge products at a much lower cost to individual institutions rather than getting engaged in a competitive culture.

9. In spite of poor policy support, abysmal resources and inadequate supply of instructional talent, distance education has grown in the last 30 years at phenomenal rates in almost all developing countries as well as developed ones. Those who championed the cause of open and distance education around the mid-60s would cite many good reasons for its inclusion in national educational provisions. Foremost among these were the political desire to increase provision for learning, the economic desire to cut the cost of education while increasing participation levels, the social desire towards egalitarianism to ensure equity and equality of opportunity and, at least in some locations, an educational desire to improve the relevance and quality of the curriculum. There were also those who wanted to reach the isolated, the marginalised, the challenged, and minority groups. The case presented for the inclusion of distance education in national educational provisions, especially by developing country enthusiasts, was especially high and as the evidence of the past 30 years shows, convincing as well. There are more distance education facilities in the developing parts of the world than the developed ones. Of the 10 mega-universities, I know of seven that are in the developing world and more are being created. The open universities of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Tanzania all have the potential to reach that mega-university status. Many new ones are being planned in the Middle East, West Africa and Latin America.

10. The adoption of distance and open education has enabled many nations to respond to increased demands especially for post-secondary education, to those previously denied such opportunities. Some institutions, like the Allama Iqbal Open University of Pakistan, took it upon themselves to be active in the pre-tertiary and non-formal sectors as well. The open universities of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh enrol between 100,000 and 150,000 students annually. Korea's National Open University and China's RTVU, as well as Thailand's STOU and Indonesia's UT, have student populations in excess of 200,000 to 500,000 each. The University of South Africa (UNISA), which claims seniority over the UKOU, reaches out to most parts of Africa with its student enrolment of about 130,000. In Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, there is much to be proud of in terms of the achievements of their universities. Apart from these dedicated systems, there are the external studies and off-campus departments of dual-mode universities that also use distance education to reach out to new clients.

11. In India, for example, the total enrolments of external students in dual-mode institutions far outnumber those at the Indira Gandhi National Open University. Collectively, these institutions have indeed increased access to learning, gone some distance in introducing flexibility, they also seemed to have brought down costs and unintentionally may have also taken the first steps in placing the learner at the centre of the educational transaction. Some of them have used broadcast technologies as main drivers of educational distribution and others have developed capacities to enrich curriculum by the application of multi-media. The exploration of the technologies by distance educators has also had a positive impact on improving teaching in non-distance education institutions. Above all, distance education ventures seem to have proved that many individuals in our societies, regardless of the extent of prior learning, are perfectly capable of self-directed learning at tertiary levels if only instruction were designed sensitively and sensibly, respecting the learner and supporting him or her in the learning. That is the good side of the story. But in India, there is also a bad side.

12. In spite of the successes, the levels of disappointments have been high. These disappointments range from a failure by many institutions, on the one hand, to penetrate large parts of communities that have traditionally been marginalised by the higher education sector and, on the other, a reluctance to apply rigorous quality control in many of the ventures. In 1992, UNESCO published a report on A Survey of Distance Education in Asia and the Pacific. Reading through the report, one quickly discovers that, by and large, the open universities of the developing countries of Asia serve more or less the same sector of the population that their metropolitan campus-based counterparts have been serving. Students are mostly urban, middle class, have substantial prior learning, mostly male and white-collar workers. Provisions for and ease of access to those who do not fall within this newly privileged group are minimal and where they exist, learning support is almost non-existent. Gandhe went as far as to say that in India, despite having some 50 to 60 providers of open and distance learning, none have made any significant impact among the rural poor, the marginalised communities and women. Most of them have basically become sub-servers to conventional providers, due in part to a mindset that considered higher education a part of urban culture or worst still, as a cash cow to buttress cash-strapped universities, affordable by only those living in cities.

13. Notwithstanding these criticisms, by and large the desire to meet a social good and serve a very diverse clientele was very much the driving force behind the growth of distance and open education throughout the last three decades. Moving knowledge to suit the needs of the learner rather than moving bodies to suit the convenience of institutions seemed to respond to all of the requirements for learning and training in a knowledge-based society. With the advent of technology, distance education is being rediscovered again by a vast majority of tertiary institutions in developed economies.

14. Many of you, like me, know and recognise that learning has never been as freely available to the poor as to the rich. It is easier for those in urban areas than for those in rural communities; people, whether marginalised by geography, race, religion, ability, have always found it difficult to access learning than non-marginalised populations; women have found it more challenging to go to school than men; and, most importantly, in the context of this Sub-Theme of your conference, those who have more prior learning have always found it easier to access more new learning than those without. You have the power to change things.

15. There is a time to hold back and let things take their normal course and there is a time to take leadership and bring about change. In the delivery of learning, the time to bring about change is NOW. Otherwise, the people of this country will continue to be deprived of a fair opportunity to make a better life for themselves and learn a greater respect for their country. While Vice Chancellors of India's universities may feel that it is beyond them to bring about a nation-wide revolution, I say to you that they can at least bring about changes within the smaller communities they work in. In urging you to do this, I am reminded yet again of Rabindranath Tagore, who in 1939 confessed "I cannot take responsibility for the whole of India . . . If I can free only one or two villages from the bonds of ignorance and weakness, there will be built, on a tiny scale, an ideal for the whole of India, . . . Fulfill this ideal in a few villages only and I will say that these few villages are my India".

16. This must be true for all of us in 2001, as it was for Tagore in 1939.