Visiting President of the Commonwealth of Learning/Canadian Sir John Daniel says private for-profit institutions are moving in and offering online learning much faster than public universities.He made this comment while delivering a lecture on The Future of Universities: New Dynamics For Development at Daaga Auditorium, St Augustine Campus on Tuesday night. He sought to address the issue of whether universities were becoming more open or closed. Among those present were Campus Principal Prof Clement Sankat, Dr Anna May Edwards-Henry, director, Instructional Development Unit and UWI historian Prof Bridget Brereton.He said: "Therefore extrapolate those traits-the private for public sector may find itself doing a lot of that teaching unless the public universities get into online learning in an effective way. The focus on research and the teaching seems to be better online.Quizzed on whether he supported the move, Daniel said: "It is both good and bad."
He noted: "It has the advantage of convenience for the more mature students who don't want a busy social life on campus. They can get their work done and study off campus."He also suggested UWI might want to examine and test the waters in open, distance and blended learning.Reverting to his lecture, Daniel said the online move raised the possibility that higher education might split into a public sector focused on research and a for profit sector doing most of the teaching.
Daniel said: "Some governments would like to see higher education divide itself into research universities and teaching institutions. Extrapolating the trends (the potential of digital technology) suggests their wish may come true. But there is the added difference most research will take place in publicly supported institutions where most teaching will be done by for-profit enterprises."Citing the iron triangle, Daniel said technology would be viewed as a vehicle to provide wider access, higher quality and lower costs.He said: "Many universities have done this, especially the open universities, so this is not news. The challenge is we have achieved this revolution with the traditional distance learning technologies of the industrial era.
"The crucial question is: can we combine production and digital technologies in distance learning with ways that are scalable?"The disappointing picture found by Tony Bates suggests few people have done so. The economies of scale associated with production learning have gone out of the window as more people have leapt upon the bandwagon of e-learning."Daniel noted the World Conference of Higher Education (WCHE) had identified its role in constructing the knowledge society which would ensure global citizens had passports to a good future. Unesco convened it at Paris, France in 2009.He shared tertiary education statistics.
"Globally, age participation rates in higher education have grown from 19 per cent in 2000 to 26 in 2007. There were almost 153 million students enrolled in tertiary education world wide in 2008. It represents a 53 per cent increase over 2000 and a fivefold increase in less than 40 years. In low-income countries these percentages were much lower and rose from five per cent in 2000 to a modest 7 per cent in 2007. This means we can expect rapid growth."Daniel also noted private higher education was growing with some 30 per cent of students enrolled in tertiary institutions globally.Some countries like Japan and Korea enroll 80 per cent of their students in private higher institutions and in parts of Latin America these percentages reach 50 per cent."