The Commonwealth of Learning

Twelve plenaries, ten workshops, fifty parallel sessions comprising more than 130 papers, four substantial volumes of conference papers and more than forty session report forms. A Rapporteur’s attempt to make sense of all this will necessarily be ‘partial’ in both senses of the word: an observation is therefore more realistic than a report.

The Forum Theme is Empowerment. I am working on the assumption that this theme identifies a goal towards which we, as distance and open educators strive on behalf of our students or ourselves, rather than some assumed quality which necessarily follows from any experience of education. Empowerment is problematic; but it can also be examined empirically. So, in paying respect to a challenging theme it may be worth thinking about what contributors to the Forum have offered, to this observer at least, regarding the Empowerment of four significant groups:

• Empowerment of Practitioners in Distance and Open Learning
• Empowerment of Students in Distance and Open Learning
• Empowerment of Community/Society in relation to Distance and Open Learning
• Empowerment of Delegates to the Pan Commonwealth Forum.

The Empowerment of Practitioners in distance and open learning

I heard a good deal of discussion about the empowerment which is necessary if practitioners are to work creatively, and the constraints which too often frustrate them. Firstly, there are the political contexts within which, and sometimes against which distance and open learning systems operate. At one extreme we heard a sobering assertion from a delegate that ‘politicians don’t want educational development’ whilst at the other end of the spectrum education was perceived as ‘ the basic agenda for the politics of consent’. In the nature of things most experiences were in the middle ground where the issues being contested are economic. One expression of the dilemma faced by practitioners when they see themselves starved of resources was this:’ Open schools are established specifically to accommodate strong unmet demand for educational access, but then they’re not funded to do this’. But there was also resolve, expressed by several practitioners from the developing Commonwealth as the urgent need to ‘get out from under resource poverty’. Doing this would require the will to develop and utilise local expertise to balance and perhaps to displace dependence on donors and a growing acceptance that practitioners would be waiting for ever if they continued to rely exclusively on the prospect of increased government funding. Then there was also a caution, which appeared to go unchallenged, that open and distance learning (ODL) academics are ‘not natural entrepreneurs’.

The need to enhance practitioner empowerment through staff development was a recurrent theme. For some this was a natural and positive element in their career long professional education, whilst others were influenced more by awareness of personal vulnerability in the face of rapid change and the challenges presented by new technologies. Many felt it critical to ‘keep a professional balance’ by ensuring that the necessary inclusion of innovative technologies did not disenfranchise the disadvantaged. But one who had long been guided professionally by Arthur C. Clarke’s view that we tend ‘to overestimate the short term impact of new technologies and to underestimate the long term impact’ wondered whether even that insight had now been overtaken by the rapidity of change.

The empowerment of students in distance and open learning

Interdependence of teaching and learning and the increasing reliance of both on resource materials and communications technologies mean that many of the comments allocated to different sections of this appraisal apply equally to others. Commentators reflecting Laurillard (1993) warned against assuming that students have some innate capacity for independent study or for technological adeptness, because this all too easily abdicates responsibility for fostering these skills. In several sessions there was discussion of the need to ensure the cultural relevance of resource materials. One significant case study focussed attention on the importance of ensuring that innovative materials design specifically recognises the needs of students who are learning English concurrently with their study of a curriculum. The rapid development of online courseware, overwhelmingly in the English language, reinforces that demand.

A contributor to debate on quality assurance drew attention to the significance of learner empowerment by arguing persuasively that the bottom line question in any assessment of institutional quality is this: ‘How do you know, and how can you show, that you are fulfilling your responsibilities to your students?’

Several delegates filed suggestion forms suggesting that students as a group would have been empowered had student delegates, at secondary and post secondary level, been sponsored to participate in the Forum. This should certainly be borne in mind for future Forum planning. However we know of course that a large proportion of distance and open learning students are working adults and it is fair to assume that a significant number of Forum delegates were in fact also students: Irene Paulsen, the winner of the COL student award, and Sir John Daniel in his guise as a UKOU student were only the most visible of them.

The empowerment of community/society in distance and open learning

For many developing countries distance and open education now offers the possibility of achieving student populations which would otherwise be quite unattainable. A large number of delegates at the Forum were the embodiment of that expanded vision and the collected papers bear graphic witness to the achievements and the frustrations which they are experiencing and sharing. Our Plenary speakers had much to offer on the empowerment opportunities for national and local communities implicit in this expansion. Given the enormity of the challenges being faced in addressing such ambitions as universal access to primary schooling it was encouraging, perhaps reassuring to be told that ‘what is not do-able today becomes inevitable tomorrow’. But, Maurice Strong stressed, if this inexorable process is to prove constructive rather than overwhelming then global visions must become grounded in local realities. We saw this demonstrated again and again in the group discussions. One speaker reminded us that all too often new technologies become obsolete before they can applied at the periphery. Others emphasised the need for recipient countries, not donors, to drive educational agendas and for sustainability in educational projects to be systematically planned for, not hoped for. Minister Mia Mottley graphically illustrated both the potential and demonstrated strength of principled Small State sovereign power in the face of global pressure.

Every conference needs a contribution which enables participants who share a common professional frame of reference to place it in a broader context. When done skillfully this enables them to recognise the significance of their professional work, but also to see its importance in the perspective of some larger historical process and therefore, maybe, not to take themselves over seriously. The Asa Briggs lecture delivered by Professor Wang Gungwu was a masterly example of such contextualisation. The historical record of adaptability demonstrated by Chinese peasants as ‘lifelong learning’in the face of structural change gave them a strategic advantage which contrasted sharply, and successfully with the inflexibility of the overspecialised Mandarins. In the context of the Forum this case study elegantly illustrated a truism of ODL: ‘knowing how to learn is the key to success’ and this in turn enables people and communities to ‘prepare for work that has yet to be defined’.

The empowerment of delegates to the Pan Commonwealth Forum

As distance educators we have professional concerns about the danger of information overload for our students and recognise the need to provide ‘filters’ to prevent it. Is there a way in which the close permeability between ODL and ‘information and communications technolgies’ can now provide similar assistance in dealing with the ubiquitous conference problem of too many papers for presentation and too little time to accommodate them?

‘Empowerment through knowledge and technology’

I have tried to relate these personal, and therefore partial, observations to the broad Forum theme of Empowerment. But the full theme contains another pair of significant words: ‘knowledge’ and ‘technology’. When words are linked in pairs like that there’s always a possibility that they become treated as virtual synonyms. Whilst there is little such danger at a Forum well tuned to the dangers of technological determinism a number of sessions through the week seemed ready to treat ‘equity and access’ in a similar way as if they were synonymous. In a paper which does not appear in the Forum Volumes a session presenter talked about change in South African teacher training practice in terms of ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ openness, (a concept adapted from a philosophical analysis of freedom.). ‘Thin’ openness involves the removal of standard constraints of time and place and entry barriers and therefore increases Access opportunity. But merely removing constraints to study has regularly been shown to favour the adept and those already well placed to take advantage of such opportunity and does not of itself enhance Equity. Increasing Equity requires proactivity to identify and recruit students from new sources: ‘thick’ openness in practice.

This takes us back to the pre-Forum workshop when Raj Dhanarajan defined the bottom line for distance and open education: ‘We have a moral obligation to capture the last person in the queue’. We are in the Equity business, and if increasing Access through removal of admission prerequisites or the installation of technology demonstrably assists us to go further in an effort to reach that last person, then well and good. We just can’t assume that it will do so. The test is an old one but one which may nonetheless prove surprisingly resilient in the new electronic age:

Reference
Laurillard D, 1993. Rethinking University Teaching. Routledge

The overall tone of Reports from the parallel sessions was constructive and indicated that both the theme and the structure of the Forum were apposite and engaging. Comments generally expressed appreciation for the care which had gone into planning and delivering such a worthwhile event and for sponsorship which had made it possible for many to attend.

The comments which follow are not attributed on their source forms and are therefore not attributed here. They are drawn from more than 40 parallel session Report Forms for which the Forum organisers are most grateful. It is hoped that posting these comments on a website will enable Forum participants to reflect on matters discussed in sessions which they were unable to attend in person.

Comment on the Programme Structure as a whole.

1. A general concern that the Programme was so full that:
   • plenary sessions occasionally extended over into parallel session time
   • there were sometimes too many papers in a parallel session to permit each presenter to have equal presentation time or for there to be time for reflective comment from the floor

   (Note: this is a familiar problem at conferences which carry an open invitation for paper submissions and it is seems to be intractable. Authors require presentation time if they are to get travel funding but they can then become frustrated if the number of papers exceeds the time available. However the problem of overload does also show that the Theme attracted a large response.)

2. A specific concern expressed was that the Forum could have used the unique resource-base of expertise gathered in Brunei more directly and intensively. This would have required quite a different programme structure in which information was accessed in advance from a website or set of printed papers and all of the parallel session time committed to discussion with defined outcomes.
3. In thinking towards the next Forum several commentators called for more participation by sponsored open and distance (ODL) learning students.

Selection of Comments drawn from Session Reports

"Context" here relates to the session from which a comment was drawn but does not mean that its relevance is limited to that context.

Context: Open and Distance learning generally

• We often operate on ‘assumed givens’; about students’ capacity for independence; about the value of flexibility; about commitment of staff. These are typically more problematic than we assume in our practice
• That the quality of the process is as important for the learner as the quality of the outcome and of the output
• Business education does not necessarily increase the numbers of entrepreneurs
• Strategic alliances should be developed involving private sector, research institutes and educational institutions in Partnerships for Lifelong Learning
• A precondition for effective ODL, often overlooked, is an assessment of learner characteristics and the language of delivery
• The socio-cultural context of the learners is a major intervening factor in the learning process, especially when we use technologies and pedagogies evolved in Western culture

Context: Non-formal and Community Education:

• Learning should empower the learners
• Micro level educational projects need recognition and support just as much as macro projects

Context: Schools:

• Recipient countries, not donors, should drive educational agendas

Context: Universities:

• ODL is an important tool to empower marginalised groups
• Indigenous people must generate ODL and not remain dependent on donors
• If distance learning is to succeed in Dual Mode institutions it must be endorsed and resourced by senior management as a main stream activity, not an optional extra
• Descending into testing of ‘competencies’ is not a good thing.

Context: Technologies:

• Education ministries and universities do not always communicate easily with ministries responsible for telecommunications/broadcasting
• Opportunities exist for collaboration between educational institutions and multinational commercial enterprises; but at what educational ‘cost’?
• Models of good practice in the development of online materials should be widely disseminated
• Provision of a ‘template’ for online authoring and teaching reduces, but must not eliminate, the need for staff and student development training
• That application of information and communication technologies is not economically, socially or culturally neutral.

• No educational institution can afford to ignore the Internet
• Research on applications of new technologies should address the school sector as well as the tertiary sector

Context: Student services and support:

• Lack of attention, amounting to neglect in some countries, for the use of ODL to serve the needs of the physically handicapped
• Are students working in a second language more forthcoming on the Internet than in face to face sessions?

Context: Staff Development:

• Staff development for ODL needs to have more confidence in using its own resource based learning techniques rather than continuing to favour ‘face to face’ and ‘out of country’ provisions.
• More investment in staff development is needed in all sectors

Context: Quality Assurance:

• The key question for QA: "How do you know that you are discharging your responsibilities to your students?"
• Need for a Quality Assurance template for Commonwealth institutions

Context: Sharing of Course Materials:

• Current market economics make it unfavourable for South to buy from North. Important to facilitate more South/South awareness and co-operation in courseware sharing
• Need for a protocol to facilitate sharing of courseware resources at appropriate costs to users. COL could play an important leading role here.

"Discussions have emphasised the importance of promoting an international culture of access to and sharing of quality distance and open learning materials. To facilitate this it is vital that some form of protocol of accepted good practice for the buying/selling exchange of such materials is put in place as soon as possible."