SMALL STATES AND THE TERTIARY EDUCATION CHALLENGE: A NEW VIEW

If learning is the key to development, then higher education plays an important role in the fate of nations, particularly in small states. The ever-expanding demand for higher education poses a special challenge for small states. While in the past, many of their citizens studied at traditional universities overseas, increasing foreign exchange costs precludes this as a core strategy for achieving mass higher education.

Small states now want to offer more post-secondary education on their territories. In addition to saving money, this will stem the “brain drain” and provide the cultural, economic and social benefits associated with local higher education. The rub is that countries with populations of less than a quarter of a million people – what we call “small states” – do not have the critical mass to create national institutions in the image of traditional universities.

COL is helping small states invent new types of post-secondary institutions that are able to provide local education at reasonable cost. To offer a viable range of university programmes, small states must bring together all the elements of the modern higher education enterprise into one structure. This includes:

• All levels and modes of study; the institution cannot be a small college catering only to full-time students doing degree courses. 
• Degree courses should be just one element in a curriculum that includes technical and vocational programmes, pre-university certificates, diploma courses and professional development courses of varied length in various subjects.
• Individual courses should fit into as many programmes as possible, so as to achieve economies of scale.
• The institution should be open to various modes of study: full time, part time, in classrooms and at a distance – either at home or in study centres where programmes can be accessed online.
• The institution must have partnerships with various overseas institutions, both private and public, that contribute to its curriculum.

Holding together such a disparate enterprise – and doing so cost-effectively – is a challenge to all universities, in big states or small. Information and communication technology (ICT) can play an enabling role. It can cut costs by allowing students to conduct many administrative functions themselves. Having courses available in flexible learning formats makes it possible to cope with various modes of study and can also help to integrate local and offshore offerings.

The most radical and helpful contribution of ICT lies in open educational resources (OERs). By using freely available course materials in digital formats, small states can break the culture of dependency and import/export that has dogged their previous attempts to expand higher education. The Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth (VUSSC) is demonstrating the power of OERs to help states expand higher education without any threat to their autonomy.

The rapid deepening of a global pool of OERs of high quality enables institutions to offer authentically local curricula developed to world standards of quality. This offers exciting potential for small states seeking to expand local tertiary education.

Read Sir John Daniel’s speech, “Education within borders from beyond borders”, to the OECS Higher Education conference in St. Lucia in March 2010: www.col.org/speeches
VUSSC: www.vussc.org