SAUVCA

HANDOUT AT SAUVCA CONFERENCE IN CAPE TOWN SAUVCA Paper Learning Delivery Models in Higher Education in South Africa Wally Morrow Evelyn Nonyongo July 2003 Contents Reference Group: Brief and Composition 1 Executive Summary 2 Abbreviations 4 Main Report 5 1. Purpose of this Report 5 2. SAUVCA Vision 6 3. International Developments 8 4. South African Policy Background 13 5. National Plan for Higher Education 17 6. The Current Higher Education Environment in South Africa 19 7. Funding Considerations 24 8. E-learning 27 9. Residential Universities 32 10. Recommendations 35 Bibliography 38 Appendices 41 A1 - Questionnaire on Current Institutional and Operational Types A2 - List of Institutional Responses to Questionnaire (Jan/Feb 2003) A3 - Summary of Institutional Responses to Questionnaire (Jan/Feb 2003) B - List and location of off-campus learning centres C - Two Examples of ODL Collaboration D - Article on UK e-university (web page) E - The New Funding Framework (extract from a SAUVCA/CTP document) Reference Group: Brief and Composition In fulfilling its mission and key roles, SAUVCA proactively recognizes and responds to national developments in higher education, particularly, their impact on its members. As such it also collectively represents their interest to the Ministry and other important role-players. Given this responsibility, the SAUVCA Executive Committee identified Distance Education and Open Learning as a key area for investigation and possible reconfiguration in terms of its implications for affected institutions. Bearing this in mind, SAUVCA put in place a project to investigate the issues, with a view to giving sectoral input to the policy development process in what is regarded as an extremely complex but important area of higher education provision. At its meeting of 30 July 2002, SAUVCA’s Executive Committee agreed to appoint a Reference Group to undertake a formal review of Distance Education and Open Learning in South Africa. The objectives of the investigation were to:  Undertake sector-wide research on the current set of policy and implementation issues relating to Distance Education and Open Learning, as the basis for input in the policy development process.  Produce a theoretically sound document, which addresses the broad spectrum of issues relating to distance education and open learning, particularly its implications for affected institutions.  Present the Minister of Education with a discussion document on the way forward for distance education and open learning within the context of the debate around higher education transformation. The Reference Group on Learning Delivery Models in Higher Education (in South Africa) was established in November 2002 after a sector wide nomination process. It was chaired by Dr Theuns Eloff (member of SAUVCA Executive Committee and Vice Chancellor of Potchefstroom University) and comprised the following members: Prof A Melck University of Pretoria Prof CF Swanepoel University of South Prof D Vorster Rand Afrikaans University Prof TJ de Coning Stellenbosch University Prof N Baijnath Technikon South Africa Prof M Fourie University of the Free State Prof M Hall University of Cape Town Dr HM van der Merwe Vista University Ms E Botha University of Fort Hare Dr MB Mokhaba Vista University Ms F Bulman University of Natal Prof L van Wyk University of Potchefstroom Dr MM Jadezweni University of Transkei Prof P Enslin University of Witswatersrand Prof J Jansen University of Pretoria Dr L Stoop Rand Afrikaans University Prof W Morrow (UPE) and Ms E Nonyongo (Unisa) were appointed as the main researchers for the project. It was agreed that the Reference Group would assist the researchers with the compilation of the Report through individual input and discussions at meetings. This arrangement provided the impetus for the task at hand, in which the participation and input from Reference Group members was particularly valuable, in guiding the researchers. In addition SAUVCA’s Executive Committee has discussed the draft frameworks and cognisance has been taken of their input. The final draft is the result of various versions, which were deliberated on at a number of Reference Group meetings and individual communication with the researchers. The Executive Committee of SAUVCA accepted the report in principle at its meeting on 28 May 2003. SAUVCA acknowledges and appreciates the collective effort of the Reference Group and the researchers in producing this Report. Executive Summary 1. The public higher education system in South Africa faces formidable challenges to enhance access to quality higher education at an affordable cost in a climate in which there is still a strong imperative for redress, profound changes in higher education globally – driven by exponential developments in the impact of information and communication technology (ICT), changing student needs and increasing competition from foreign and for-profit providers. 2. The traditional distinction between “contact” and “distance” modes of delivery and institutions has become a problem for institutions in the higher education sector and the Ministry of Education. Policy documents over the past decade acknowledge this problem, and SAUVCA’s Vision document of November 2002 highlights it. 3. The distinction between “contact” and “distance” modes of delivery is rapidly breaking down, both here and elsewhere in the world. There is now de facto a continuum of “modes of delivery” which depend on various proportions of face-to-face contact and other learner support – including print material, tutorials, ICTs and other communication technologies. There is an increasing “convergence” between “contact” and “distance” modes of delivery, to the benefit of both. 4. What emerges from these developments is a new concept of teaching which transcends the categories of “contact” and “distance”, and forces our attention to focus on the design of learning systems in terms of a variety of learning resources of which “face-to-face” contact is only one amongst others, and not necessarily the most important or effective. This new concept which is in part an effect of strategic considerations like the globalization of higher education, competition in provision, market driven demands, need for life long learning and growth of mass tertiary education, increasingly guides the practices of teaching in all higher education institutions (HEIs), and renders the distinction between institutions in terms of “modes of delivery” no longer viable. 5. The rapid increase in the use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) in higher education occurs within a context of broader economic and social developments affecting institutions both regionally and internationally. Key stakeholders view higher education institutions as powerful change agents but more importantly, ICT as a vehicle for delivering educational and other knowledge-related benefits. These benefits include creating more learning opportunities and a variety of learning resources, promoting better and more flexible learning and ultimately, enhancing the quality of higher education. 6. Open/distance learning (ODL) has become the common “mode of delivery” in HEIs across the world, and has had a major impact on higher education particularly in poorer and developing countries. Distance learning begins with a method - it is a way of teaching which does not require the presence of the teacher and the learners at the same place at the same time. Open learning begins with a purpose – to develop strategies of educational delivery which, at an affordable cost, can overcome barriers of access to education. The coherent integration of a variety of learning resources into a flexible pattern that enables effective learning is the hallmark of best practice ODL, and it undergirds the new concept of teaching. 7. The public higher education sector, as represented by SAUVCA/CTP, accepts and supports the decision that there should be a single dedicated “distance” HEI for South Africa, but it understands that this does not imply the restriction or curtailment of ODL practices of other HEIs in the system. Such a restriction or curtailment would be bad for the future of higher education in South Africa. Not only would it fail to acknowledge developments in modes of delivery in contemporary higher education, but it would also close down the spaces for innovations that can reduce costs, increase access and enhance the quality of higher education. 8. The report recommends that the sector and the Ministry should abandon the practice of classifying institutions according to “modes of delivery” and that the new funding framework should over a period of ten years move towards a funding formula for programmes which not only acknowledges, but promotes, the convergence of modes of delivery. This implies that “traditional” residential institutions should be allowed to continue with ODL, within the parameters of the recommendations of this report. 9. In addition, the report recommends that Quality Assurance benchmarks which focus sharply on best practice ODL should become the norm for the whole system, that geographically dispersed shared Higher Education Learning Centres should be established, that there needs to be substantial cooperation across the sector in respect to the creation of ODL learning materials for the major qualification pathways, that a national facility for the hosting of ODL learning materials be created, and that the e-learning potential of ODL models introduced be used to the fullest. Abbreviations ACU Association of Commonwealth Universities ODL Open/distance Learning CHE Council on Higher Education OU-UK Open University – United Kingdom COL Commonwealth of Learning SADC Southern African Development Community CTP Committee of Technikon Principals SAIDE South African Institution for Distance Education ESATI Eastern Seaboard Association of Tertiary Institutions SAUVCA South African University Vice-Chancellors’ Association FTE Full-Time Equivalent (students) SDDEP Single Dedicated Distance Education Provider HE Higher Education TELI Technology Enhanced Learning Investigation HEI Higher Education Institution TSA Technikon Southern Africa HEQC Higher Education Quality Committee TV Television HIV/AIDS Human Immune Virus / Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome UDW University of Durban Westville ICT Information and Communication Technology Unisa University of South Africa NADEOSA National Association of Distance Education Organisations in South Africa UPE University of Port Elizabeth NCHE National Commission on Higher Education US University of Stellenbosch NEPAD New Partnership for Africa’s Development VUDEC Vista University Distance Education Campus NPHE National Plan for Higher Education Main Report 1. Purpose of this Report In his Foreword to the National Plan for Higher Education (NPHE February 2001) the Minister comments that: The people of our country deserve nothing less than a quality higher education system, which responds to the equity and development challenges that are critical to improving the quality of life of all our people. (p 2) And There can be little doubt that the National Plan provides us with a unique opportunity, perhaps one that will not readily come our way again, to establish a higher education system that can meet the challenges and grasp the opportunities presented to us by the contemporary world. (p 2) The public higher education institutions (HEIs) strongly support these views and, as institutions funded substantially from the public purse, are committed to furthering these aims, addressing the challenges of our historical context, and grasping the opportunities presented to us by the contemporary world. These challenges include, especially, improving access to higher education while seeking to enhance its quality and redressing the unjustifiable exclusions of the past. It is accepted that public funding for higher education is unlikely to be able to increase significantly in the foreseeable future. And this constraint, together with the overall lack (given the urgent need to increase access to quality higher education) of well-qualified academic staff, prompts us collectively to think imaginatively, perhaps even radically, about how to meet the challenges facing higher education in South Africa at this time. One of the key developments in the contemporary world – relevant to both the content and the delivery of higher education – has been the unprecedented and on-going innovations in information and communication technology (ICT). The possible significance of these innovations for the future of higher education has been acknowledged in South Africa and many other countries over the past decades. The claim that ICT is “revolutionising” higher education is more than empty rhetoric although its meaning remains a source of controversy. We need to unpack this claim with a sensitive appreciation of our historical context, including the resources available to us, and with due consideration of the digital divide which threatens poorer countries more than others. The distinction between “contact” and “distance” education has played a key role in debates about higher education, in South Africa and other countries. But it is a controversial and increasingly blurred distinction in the contemporary world and the use of these categories has become a problem for the Ministry and for institutions. The Ministry has expressed concerns about some of the ways in which some traditionally “contact” HEIs have moved into the “distance” terrain. And, understandably, given the lack of clarity about how to draw the lines between “contact” and “distance” teaching, key policies and decisions send mixed signals to the sector. Within institutions this distinction has served to marginalize the ways in which rapid developments in modern distance education increasingly pose a challenge to “traditional” modes of delivery, especially in the light of the massification of higher education. In addition, the “distance” education operations of traditionally “contact” institutions tend to be treated as peripheral to what are seen as their mainstream activities. This document does not set out to retrace familiar debates about this distinction. Its main purpose is to develop a conceptual framework and a SAUVCA position, broadly agreed across the sector, which can provide the basis for an informed discussion between the public higher education sector and the Ministry. The deeper purpose will be to enable the sector and the Ministry jointly to pursue the key goals of higher education in South Africa, including expanding access and ensuring greater success, economic development, high-level contributions to the knowledge economy, and the advancement of critical enquiry that is essential to a healthy democracy. The Sections of this Report are as follows: • an outline of the SAUVCA vision as articulated in the Position Paper of November 2002; • a brief survey of the emergence of “distance” higher education internationally; • a sketch of relevant aspects of the general South African Policy background; • a consideration of parts of the National Plan for Higher Education that refer to “distance education”; • a report on a brief scan of the public higher education environment in South Africa, in respect to “off campus” delivery; • an outline of some funding considerations that flow from current developments in higher education; • a note on the impact on higher education of the growth of e-learning and the use of the Internet and the World Wide Web; • a consideration of the idea of a “residential” university; and • a drawing together of recommendations that flow out of the main analyses of the Report. 2. SAUVCA Vision SAUVCA’s Position Paper of November 2002 – A Vision for South African Higher Education - expresses a growing consensus within the sector around a number of key issues. One of these is the need to find a balance between redress and the competitive demands of a knowledge economy in the volatile landscape of higher education. Another is the acknowledgement that given that resources are limited, and that the field of higher education in South Africa is highly attractive to for-profit and foreign providers, we need to prioritise the search for a shared sense of common purpose, and ways of achieving practical and productive co-operation amongst public HEIs and between the sector and the Ministry. The rapidity of change in the modern world is compounded in South Africa by efforts to reverse the effects of generations of oppression and disadvantage. Thus more than ever before, SAUVCA believes that the higher education sector and the Ministry of Education should concentrate on identifying common ground. (p 2) And Within the sector, a unity of purpose and intent that has long been absent is being forged and nurtured, on the basis of recognition that narrow institutional interests must be set aside to enable transformation, and that sectoral efforts must be more strongly integrated with the objects of the NPHE. The sector is committed to building this sense of purpose beyond compliance, to rejuvenate an inclusive and dynamic system. (p 2) The document outlines a vision for South African higher education, the key elements of which are:  A balance in focus on redress and the future of higher education;  A critical partnership between the Ministry and the sector;  Integrative policy development;  Practical co-ordination of change initiatives; and  Co-operative establishment of output goals, targets and benchmarks. (Vision p 1 & 9) It emphasizes what is specific to our situation – for example: The output from schools is influenced by the legacy of apartheid. Universities continue to receive students who are ill-prepared for tertiary studies. In compensation, institutions must allocate resources in ways and on a scale generally unknown in those systems that have developed the benchmarks. (p 4) And it points to the very real tensions between the various functions public higher education is called on to fulfil in our context: The three major objectives of the NPHE are improving access (increasing student numbers), improving efficiency (making better use of resources), and enhancing the quality of outputs, particularly graduates’ knowledge and skills and the creation of new knowledge. These crucial objectives are in significant tension with each other and these tensions must be acknowledged by both the Ministry of Education and the sector if they are to be addressed and monitored effectively. (p 6) In short, the transformation of higher education in South Africa faces the system with formidable challenges, and we need systemic thinking to address them effectively. It is unlikely that the system will be able to meet the challenges without a radical re-consideration of embedded views of higher education, especially in respect to its function as a generator and disseminator of higher knowledge in our society. Rapid developments in the field of ICTs accompanied by a more informed understanding of how the form of knowledge characteristic of higher education is acquired requires the higher education system to operate “within a different mode of production” (p 11) The document elaborates on this “different mode of production” in the following way (p 11): … the knowledge economy is driven by intellectual capital and a more sophisticated understanding of knowledge production. The danger is that current policies may “produce” a student ill-prepared for the new economy. What is required is a system that:  enthusiastically exploits the potential offered via information and communication technology interventions;  continually benchmarks South Africa higher education with current developments in education internationally, taking care to understand the benchmarks in context;  is geared towards networking and creating stronger ties with business and other Ministries and departments in the constant drive to maximize research potential via patents and partnerships;  will re-evaluate old and cumbersome categories of institutions that are fast becoming redundant and imaginatively integrate the many elements of higher education in a holistic system;  will transcend the understanding of higher education as either ‘contact’ or ‘distance’;  will become a leader in the dissemination of information, the building of new knowledge through research, the implementation of prevention strategies and involvement in sustainable outreach programmes in the HIV/AIDS context;  will make profitable use of South Africa’s position as an economic centre for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). 3. International Developments Mass elementary education – based on a “cottage industry” model; face-to-face teaching in classrooms – was one of the outcomes of the Reformation and industrialization in Europe and its colonial empires from the mid 19th century. This form of mass education typically led via competitive examinations to selective secondary schools and élite universities. People across the world still see this form of institution-based learning as “real” education, and it has been the model which, with varying degrees of success, governments tried to develop and expand for much of the last century. (Anderson 2001:1) While access to secondary and tertiary education remained the privilege of the few, the model seemed to function satisfactorily. However, with the expanding demand for post elementary education the model came under increasing strain. During the latter half of the last century mass secondary education increasingly became the norm in more affluent countries, and less affluent countries strove to achieve that same norm. Towards the end of the century mass tertiary education became an ideal in affluent countries and increasing proportions of the age cohort partook in some form of tertiary education. But, as Anderson argues: … it is becoming clearer that even the wealthiest countries cannot continue with strategies of educational expansion based on the prevailing model. The poorer countries, confronted not only with the severe financial problems that expansion entails, also have to contend with the increasingly apparent failure of the traditional model, when expanded, to serve their educational needs, particularly beyond the basic primary level. (Anderson 2001:1) It is against this background that we need to understand the emergence of “distance learning”. It is sometimes suggested that Isaac Pitman in 19th century Britain pioneered the original form of “distance education”. He founded a system of “correspondence education” subsequently copied elsewhere in the world. In 1900 the University of Chicago, and in 1911 the University of Queensland established “correspondence education” departments. (Kapur 2002:1) In 1946 Unisa became the first full blown “correspondence” university in the world, and it provided access to tertiary education for generations of South African and other sub-Saharan African students who were unable to attend traditional universities. In its earlier forms – especially those which were almost exclusively “correspondence” – distance education came to be seen as a subsidiary form of education, inferior to the prevailing face-to-face institutional system, understood as the genuine article. Distance education came to be seen as second-rate – a mere simulacrum of the real thing, and this is a legacy that remains widely prevalent. This legacy is particularly virulent in South Africa where apartheid divided our population into the haves and the have-nots along racial lines, and for the vast majority of the have-nots the only kind of higher education accessible was distance education. But since the 1960s there have been significant developments in the field of “distance education”, reinforced by unimagined developments in electronic technologies, which have dramatically changed not only distance education but also the landscape of higher education more broadly. Perhaps the key event was the establishment of the (British) Open University in the early 1960s. It is well known that preliminary investigations for the establishment of the Open University involved, amongst other things, an investigation of the organization and teaching methods that had developed at Unisa. But the Open University broke new ground, and it has subsequently provided the model for the development of distance higher education in many other countries of the world. It is sometimes said that the Open University established a new “paradigm” for higher education – and this is worth thinking about in our context. The name itself is significant. As Anderson points out (Anderson 2001:1) there is an important distinction between “distance learning” and “open learning”. “Distance learning” begins with a method – it is a way of teaching that does not require the presence of the teacher and learners in the same place at the same time (what John Thompson calls the “situation of co-presence”.) But “open learning” began with a purpose – to develop new strategies at an affordable cost, to include all who seek the benefits of higher levels of education and training. It might be said that the idea of “open learning” is a product of what was becoming an increasing concern in the United Kingdom during the 1950s about the traditional élitism of higher education. In the early 1960s there was a dramatic increase in the number of universities in the UK. And we can note that the same developments took place elsewhere, even in South Africa, although here the expansion of universities had a vicious political edge. But it became increasingly clear that the expansion of access to higher education could no longer rest on the prevailing model of face-to-face institution-based teaching. And the ground was prepared for a conjunction of the methods of distance learning with the purpose of open learning, to yield the idea of Open/Distance Learning (ODL), which has subsequently become a common way of talking. Anderson comments as follows: At its best ODL is now characterized by: • well sequenced, clearly presented and attractive course designs; • course related examinations and well designed forms of assessment; • comprehensive user friendly learning material; • regular contact with tutors; • planned localized support, for example, tutorials, discussion groups and teaching, often using the facilities of traditional institutions; • ICT, video links, web sites, e-mail (telephone, including cellular phones) The success of leading edge open learning institutions in achieving these developments is well recognized. But it goes beyond establishing quality ODL and experimenting with ICT. It opens up questions about the design of learning systems in total … (Anderson 2001:2 – our emphasis) The idea of ODL was taken up with enthusiasm by other countries faced with the same problems of how to expand the provision of higher education in situations in which the founding of new institutions on the traditional model was increasingly unaffordable. In 1988 the Commonwealth of Learning was founded “ … born from the desire of Commonwealth countries to share the benefits of open and distance learning with each other, (and) to enable those without existing ODL structures to establish them … ” Significantly, its primary mission was not to promote distance education but “to enhance access”. (ACU Bulletin, No 138, April 1999, p 7) In 1999 the Commonwealth of Learning celebrated its anniversary with a Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open and Distance Learning in Brunei. At this forum John Daniel - the then Vice Chancellor of the (British) Open University - made a presentation that captures both the promise and the risks of ODL. He begins by listing three changes between the world of the late 1980s and the world of the late 1990s First, distance learning is now the height of fashion. After toiling for years in obscurity, as the pioneers of open learning did, it’s nice to see the field become à la mode. … (However) once something becomes fashionable its currency gets devalued. Today everyone is jumping in, claiming that they are doing distance education and inventing new terms to make their own activity distinctive. Second, the hot technologies have changed. When the Commonwealth of Learning was born the satellite star was in the ascendant. Today, if you are not living and breathing the Web you are a technological cave dweller. Three years ago, in the United States at least, distance education meant videoconferencing. Today, in the United States at least, distance learning means the Web. Since the vast majority of the population of the Commonwealth have never engaged personally with either videoconferencing or the Web, that is a problem. The third new element compounds the problem. We now live in a global world. … Imperial fantasies about the Virtual Corporate University of the Universe are rampant. (ACU Bulletin ibid – our emphasis) He then moves to a comment about “open learning at the university level”: I talk about “university level” rather than universities because much of what universities now do is not university level work. I do not blame universities for this. Our societies have urged us to inculcate simple skills and to transmit well-codified knowledge and we have eagerly complied. Such activities have, however, obscured the core role of universities and encouraged a host of new players, who may well be better than established universities at teaching straightforward skills and knowledge, to call themselves universities and move into the field. (ibid) There are strong resonances here with the situation in which South African HEIs find themselves. Daniel then explains what he means by “university level work”. He refers to the Dearing Committee Report’s (1997) definition of the role of universities. “The role of universities is to enable society to maintain an independent understanding of itself and the world.” and proceeds to unpack it word by word and phrase by phrase. One of the points he makes is highly relevant to the role of public HEIs in South Africa, and to the purpose of the current Report: The word “independent” is there to capture the unique role of universities as creators of understanding. In a knowledge society many claim the right to help us interpret and understand the world. However, most of those claimants – the media, industrial and government research centres, and the new breed of corporate universities – cannot be independent of commercial interests. The individualistic and disinterested nature of a true university remains unique. The “marketisation” of education has a tendency to distort the ideal of disinterested enquiry that is at the heart of the university level work, and public HEIs are a key to maintaining that ideal. The question, now, is, can ODL provide “university level” education? Daniel responds to this question by saying that the kind of learning implied here is “best captured in a conversational model of learning that involves students with academic teachers who are also engaged in critiquing and developing knowledge in their fields.” The ideal of conversation has been the basis of the model of distance education that we at the Open University call Supported Open Learning. It has four key ingredients: 1) excellent learning materials; 2) individual academic support for each student; 3) effective administration and logistics; and 4) teaching rooted in research. The world’s largest distance teaching universities, which I have written about elsewhere as Mega-universities, owe their considerable success to these principles of supported open learning which they have introduced with appropriate local variants. …By operating flexibly at large scale, with low costs and with good quality, the mega universities have created a revolution in higher education. He discusses the threats and opportunities of the “new technological forces of change”. The “threats” are relevant to how we need to think about the role of public HEIs in South Africa – and the “opportunities” indicate how we might move forward. He lists the following five threats: • The new technology makes it easier to access information. But we must remember that university teaching is much more than this. • Technology tends to drive the curriculum towards skills rather than knowledge and understanding. • Technology is best exploited by teams whereas universities emphasize the creativity of the individual academic. • The market approach to education creates alternative providers who threaten the financial base of universities by picking off the cherries of basic skills development and skimming off the cream of basic knowledge transfer. True university learning for understanding must be linked to research, which costs money. • Government pressure to widen participation in higher education at low cost appears to threaten the close student-teacher relationship that university education requires. Daniel then raises the question of what the best response is “to the opportunities presented by technology and the most effective answer to the threats posed by current trends?” His answer consists in distinguishing between hard technologies (“bits and bytes, electrons and pixels, satellites and search engines”) and soft technologies (“processes, approaches, sets of rules and modes of organization”) and concludes that: … if you want to use the hard technologies for university-level teaching and learning that is both intellectually powerful and competitively cost-effective, then you must concentrate on getting the soft technologies right. (p 8) And this requires a major change in the self-identity of academics, and the ways in which universities are organized. Although universities specialize and divide labour as between disciplines, the habit in teaching is for the same individual to do everything: develop the curriculum; organize the learning resources; teach the class; provide academic support; and assess student learning. This robust, cottage-industry model does not require much organization. However it does not allow us to reconfigure the eternally challenging triangle of cost-access-quality in the directions of lower costs, greater access, and higher quality. The mega-universities have been able to reconfigure that eternal triangle and we should look to them for inspiration. Their achievements are remarkable. (p 8) And they have done this by adopting the soft technologies of modern enterprise – division of labour, specialization and teamwork. Finally, division of labour, specialization and teamwork all require project management. The university itself has to take responsibility for seeing that it all hangs together. How do I sum this up? Very simply. Success in the coming era requires a radical change of focus. The tradition in universities is that the individual teacher teaches. The future is that the university teaches. This may be a radical change of focus but it does actually take us back to the roots of universities in medieval times. (p 9 – our emphasis) Finally, one of the most important changes in higher education in South Africa and abroad is the emergence of the so-called lifelong learning market. This is driven by the fact that in many disciplines the shelf life of knowledge is becoming shorter and shorter, with a consequent need for a more frequent upgrading of the knowledge base. The need for education is gradually changing from learners desiring an upfront three-year training at the beginning of a forty-year career, to continuous training during a forty-year career to continually meet the changing demands of the workplace. This requires a delivery model for education where regular contact with lecturers and tutors will not always be possible and will also have to be time (asynchronous) and place independent. It is possible that life-long learning will soon provide the biggest client base for higher education institutions. 4. South African Policy Background Throughout the post-1994 period of policy formation for higher education in South Africa, from the Technology Enhanced Learning Investigation of July 1996 to the National Plan for Higher Education of February 2001, there has been a consistent (if sometimes merely implicit) emphasis on the following argument: If we are going to transform higher education in South Africa, and simultaneously pursue the potentially divergent goals of access, quality and redress in an affordable way, (in other words to “reconfigure the eternally challenging triangle of cost-access-quality in the directions of lower costs, greater access, and higher quality”) then “distance education” needs to be expanded to meet the needs for higher education in our country. The Green Paper on Higher Education Transformation (December 1996) articulates the argument as follows: Distance education and resource-based learning have a crucial role to play in meeting the challenge of greater access and enhanced quality in a context of resource constraints and a diverse student body. (Chapter 3, Section 7.1) And the White Paper on Higher Education (August 1997) repeats it in the following form: 2.57 Distance education and resource-based learning, based on the principles of open learning, have a crucial role to play in meeting the challenge to expand access, diversity the body of learners, and enhance quality, in a context of resource restraint. They enable learning to take place in different contexts, at a multiplicity of sites, at the learner’s own pace, using many media and a variety of learning and teaching approaches. This argument, however, is far from transparent, and various possible policy directions might flow out of it. The principal complicating factor is what might be meant by “distance education”, and in the sequence of policy documents there have been repeated attempts to qualify or clarify what will be understood by “distance education”. One persistent strand, which runs through the policy documents, is an acknowledgement that a distinction between “contact” and “distance” education can no longer (if ever it could) reflect the reality of modes of provision in higher education – especially where the education of large numbers of students is involved. But we need a further distinction in the category of “distance education” - between “correspondence” and (“true”) “distance” education. The National Commission on Higher Education, in August 1996, in outlining the “Key elements of the new public funding framework”, expresses the financial significance of this issue crisply: Initially, a distinction would be made between the broad categories of contact and distance education, pending the outcome of an analysis which distinguishes between “true” distance education and correspondence education. (p 21) The question of whether it makes better sense – from both an educational and a funding point of view – to work with a two- or a three-fold distinction between modes of provision, remains an issue. And it will remain an issue unless we develop agreed and accountable criteria (conventional as they might be) for drawing the boundaries there. It is a signal of the kinds of conceptual difficulties that we are in that while we try to make this two- or three-fold distinction, the developing impact of ICTs on higher education worldwide moves the goalposts. And this is reflected in a persistent strand in the policy documents. This strand is that a clear-cut distinction between “distance” and “face-to-face” teaching has collapsed, or is in the process of collapsing. In the documents themselves this strand is elaborated in terms of an acknowledgement that there is increasing “convergence” between modes of provision, or that there is a “continuum” of modes of provision between two imaginary poles: provision at a distance and provision which is solely face-to-face. The Technology Enhanced Learning Investigation of July 1996 expresses a view that we can find in various formulations in the subsequent policy documents: The growth of “distance education” methods of delivery has been a key feature of education in the twentieth century. Initially, these methods were developed as distinctly different from face-to-face education, with the unfortunate consequence that they were regarded as inferior to face-to-face education methods. Distance education has come to be seen as provision for those people denied access to face-to-face education (either because they cannot afford the latter or because circumstances demand that they study on a part-time basis). The growth of new communications technologies, however, has begun to make the notion of “distance” difficult to interpret, while opening a great number of educationally and financially viable means of providing education. Simultaneously, awareness is growing that elements of distance education have almost always existed in face-to-face programmes, while educators involved in distance education are increasingly recognizing the importance of different types of face-to-face education as structured elements of their programmes. This renders rigid distinctions between the two forms of delivery meaningless. This leads to an important conceptual shift. In many circles, the notion of a continuum of educational provision has been developed. (p 13/3 - our emphasis) This conceptual shift involves acknowledging the ways in which both “contact” and “distance” provision have benefited from an increasing convergence between them, and recognizing that the result is a concept of teaching which transcends the categories of “contact” and “distance”. This is not merely a question of the ways in which technology (including the increasing variety of media available and decline in production, duplication, and reception costs of these media) has become a key ingredient in “both” modes of provision but also the way in which the convergence forces our attention to focus on “the design of learning systems” in which “face-to-face contact” is only one potential resource amongst others, and not necessarily the most important or the most effective, as generations of students at “residential” institutions can confirm. Embedded practices in traditional higher education, including teaching and institutional organisation, make it difficult to accomplish this conceptual shift, or even to raise the fundamental questions about teaching and learning in higher education, which result from developments in distance education coupled with the forces of technological change. The Technology Enhanced Learning Investigation (1996) included a scan of technologically enhanced learning initiatives in South and Southern Africa and this revealed that most initiatives do not reflect a conceptual shift, but focus “on enhancing or extending the traditional classroom learning environment”. (V)ery few broke new ground in teaching and learning methods. … Adding technology on to traditional classroom teaching and learning practices will not achieve redress in South Africa on any significant scale. (p 2/6) Emphasising this point, the document claims that “South Africa needs a whole new culture of education and training” (p 2/4) one in which face-to-face teaching is no longer privileged above all other learning resources. One common phrase used to refer to this “new culture” in the policy documents is “resource-based learning”. “Resource-based learning” implies that we need to think about teaching in a different way – from the point of view of what resources will be provided to the learners. Designing an instructional programme involves selecting an effective pattern of “learning resources”, which can be used by learners in a flexible way. These “resources” might include, face-to-face teaching and other forms of “contact” but “a significant but varying proportion of communication between learners and educators is not face-to-face, but takes place through the use of different media as necessary”. (TELI p 13/5) The Green Paper on Higher Education Transformation of December 1996 claims that “ … the reorganisation of learning and teaching in contact institutions involving the use of well-designed learning resources will result in improved quality and effectiveness.”(p 16) If we accept this conceptual shift then we can: … turn from meaningless debates about the relative virtues of particular methods of educational provision, to a consideration of the nature of learning and the educational value of a course’s structure and content. (TELI p 13/4) But this shift beyond the traditional distinction between “distance” and “face-to-face” modes of delivery, affects both traditionally “contact” institutions and traditionally “distance” institutions. The phrases “dual mode” or “mixed mode” institutions are sometimes used to express these developments, but in these terms both the “distance” and most of the “contact” HEIs in South Africa have become de facto “dual mode”, or “mixed mode” institutions. But this typology of institutions assumes that there is still a clear distinction between “contact” and “distance” modes of delivery. And these developments are in tension with, and potentially undermine, another persistent strand in the policy documents. This is that if “distance education” is going to fulfil its promise in enabling the higher education system to contribute as indicated to the pursuit of the goals of increased access to higher education at an affordable level then it needs be high quality distance education, and that this cannot be achieved except in an institution dedicated to this mode of delivery. The view that there should be a single public dedicated distance education provider in South Africa – especially in the light of concern about the quality of much so-called “distance” education - was put forward in the National Commission on Higher Education (Aug 1996), and has been repeated through the range of subsequent policy documents. The NCHE “recommends the vision of a single distance education institution offering modern distance education programmes to very large numbers of students.” But it adds that “this single institution would co-ordinate the production of high quality learning materials for widespread use across the system.” (p 13) The Green Paper on Higher Education Transformation (December 1996) echoes this view: The Ministry endorses the NCHE’s recommendation that if distance education is to fulfil its potential for integrating lifelong learning into the basic shape and structure of higher education, it requires the establishment of a single distance education institution offering quality distance education programmes and participating in the production of resource-based courses and course materials. (Chap 3, Section 7.6) The possible tension between the recommendation that a single distance education HEI be established, and an acknowledgement that there is no longer a clear distinction between “contact” and “distance” modes of delivery, is ameliorated once we notice that these documents do not recommend the restriction of “distance” activities at traditionally “contact” institutions. To say that there will be a “dedicated” distance education provider is not to say that that provider will have the exclusive right to provide teaching in a “distance mode”. And perhaps this is implicitly acknowledged in the White Paper on Higher Education (August 1997) in which the idea of a single dedicated distance education provider is not mentioned. 5. National Plan for Higher Education (NPHE) The National Plan for Higher Education (Feb 2001) broadly accepts all the major strands of the previous policies in respect to “distance education”. For instance, it accepts the view that “modes of delivery are converging” and form a “continuum”: The role and function of distance education in higher education is rapidly changing and the traditional distinction between contact and distance institutions and modes of delivery is becoming increasingly blurred. Higher education programmes, as the Council on Higher Education suggests, increasingly exist on a continuum spanning distance programmes on one end and face-to-face programmes on the other. (p 48) And that “distance education” should not be equated with “correspondence education”: Developments in distance education have also been accompanied by a change in approach, which recognises that the traditional correspondence model of distance education has become outmoded. It is being replaced with a model that incorporates the provision of learner support through a variety of mechanisms, including learning centres with audio-visual and computer-assisted support. (p 48) After mentioning four factors which have influenced the rapid expansion of distance education across the system: • changes in ICT which facilitate the development of new modes of delivery; • the need for greater cost efficiency; • increased competition from private higher education providers; and • the signalling in the White Paper that distance education and resource-based learning have a “crucial role to play in meeting the challenge to expand access, diversify the body of learners, and enhance quality, in a context of resource restraint” (White Paper: 2.57) the document notes that: The Ministry welcomes these developments in distance education as they indicate the growing responsiveness of institutions both to changes in learning and teaching technology but also to the needs of learners who are in employment who need to work in order to meet study costs. (p 48) We can add that there are, of course, other reasons, related to the needs of learners, why “distance education” might be welcomed – such as geographical remoteness of many students from major centres, personal responsibilities (such as child care), the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS, and other kinds of barriers to access to traditional on-campus higher education. The Ministry is, however, concerned about “the uncritical introduction and adoption of distance education as a panacea for the challenges that confront higher education in South Africa.” (p 48) And it mentions a number of reasons for this concern. One of these is that: … one of the greatest challenges that faces higher education in South Africa is to ensure that it educates and nurtures the next generation of intellectuals and leaders, especially black intellectuals, including professionals and researchers. It is unlikely that this role can be played either by higher education institutions that are narrowly driven by market imperatives or by “virtual” universities. They cannot replace the traditional contact higher education institutions where scholarship, research, teaching and service are valued in equal measure and where the focus is on the full range and breadth of disciplines. And more importantly, where knowledge generation and intellectual development are themselves the product of social interaction and engagement. Reinforcing this reason, the document notes that embracing the new technologies, partnerships and approaches should not be “at the expense of the social values and moral purpose that is the defining characteristic of human endeavour.” (p 48) Two other reasons are mentioned. One is that “no account has been taken of the potential impact of developments in distance education at contact institutions on the sustainability of the dedicated distance education institutions.” The other is that “these developments have not addressed the emphasis in the White Paper that the transformation of distance education provision requires focusing on improving the quality of programmes and learner support services … ” (p 48) The Ministry is concerned about the quality and relevance of distance education programmes offered by contact institutions. The Ministry agrees with the CHE that: … a single predominantly dedicated distance institution that provides innovative and quality programmes, especially at the undergraduate level, is required for the country. The opportunities that the present distance education institutions have created for students in African and other parts of the world must be maintained and expanded. (p 50) According to the Ministry the establishment of such an institution would have many advantages for the development of the higher education system. These would include: • Developing a clear focus and strategy for the role of distance education in contributing to national and regional goals • Developing a national network of centres of innovation, which would enable the development of courses and learning materials for use nationally, thus enhancing quality within the higher education system • Developing a national network of learning centres, which would facilitate access and co-ordinate learner support systems • Enhancing access and contributing to human resource development within the SADC region in particular and the continent as a whole • Enabling economies of scale and scope, in particular, ensuring that advantage is taken of the rapid changes in information and communication technology, which are expensive and where the additional investment is unlikely to be within the capacity of any one institution. (p 50) 6. The Current Higher Education Environment in South Africa For the purposes of this investigation a brief set of questions was compiled to scan the current situation in respect to “off-campus” education in the public higher education sector in South Africa. Responses were received from twelve universities and seven Technikons (see Appendix A). The responses indicated the following: • Submissions made by the 19 HEIs pointed to a broad recognition of the complex situation faced in the higher education sector regarding distance education provision. This was evidenced by the wide range of responses based on a number of factors including institutional history, context and environment (e.g. entrepreneurial strategies for additional income). • There is a broad range of terminology used across the sector to distinguish between “on-campus” and “off campus” modes of delivery: - Face-to-face and distance; - Contact teaching and distance teaching; - Contact and technologically-mediated programmes; - Contact, open learning network and distance programmes; - All offerings mixed mode, multimode or open learning; - Contact and mixed mode; - Mode 1 (contact, resource rich, ICT enhanced) and Mode 2 (paper-based, enriched with contact and ICT support); - Conventional, distance and flexible; - Contact and block release; - Resource-based learning, teletutoring and online (via COOL) - Contact, distance learning and extended campus. This variety of terminology across the institutions indicates that institutions are increasingly deploying a “continuum of learning delivery models”, with, in some cases, little distinction made between traditional “contact” and “distance” modes. • All but three of the institutions have regional learning centres. There are almost 200 such centres run by HEIs (see Appendix B). This indicates rich possibilities for reducing duplication and costs by collaboration on sharing resources and infrastructure. A single dedicated distance education provider (SDDEP) was accepted as a reality (from the beginning of 2004) and broadly supported. However, it was assumed that this did not mean that the SDDEP should be given exclusive or monopoly rights to distance education provision; it was accordingly suggested that regional institutions should share existing infrastructure and resources for “off-campus” delivery with one another and the SDDEP. • A variety of instructional modes is being used across institutions e.g. tutorials, contact sessions, print, video, TV transmissions, e-learning. It was clear from the responses to this question that HEIs have developed a highly flexible system/network across the country, which is in the national interest. This is an existing resource which could be enhanced and extended though institutional and regional collaboration. • The range of learning delivery modes used by various institutions has increased student access and choice. In terms of quality assurance in many of the reported instances these modes require better planning of programmes, improved logistical and student support and increased staff development, to attract and maintain a more mature, critical and sophisticated student body. And this has positive spin-offs for the quality assurance requirements of residential programmes. Engagement with flexible learning delivery modes has proved to be an important catalyst for teaching and learning innovations and new initiatives. This was largely due to ongoing blurring at an institutional level between traditional contact and distance delivery modes. • The vision and current practice of most institutions includes collaboration in terms of resources, infrastructure and the use of technology (eg the University of Natal/ESATI/UDW/Unisa postgraduate programme in Public Health, and the UPE/US sharing of interactive satellite reception centres). Collaboration (still currently fragmentary) would offer opportunities for more effective facilitation, coordination, development and support. Collaboration through the existing networks also provided capacity building opportunities across the sector. • The institutional responses reflect an incipient paradigm shift in thinking about modes of delivery and institutional competitiveness, which require direction and effective leadership from SAUVCA/CTP, and incentives such as funding, in order to benefit the entire sector and respond to the national goals of a transformed higher education system in South Africa. Existing fora and resource organisations (eg NADEOSA, SAIDE, OU-UK, Commonwealth of Learning, Africa-NEPAD) can play key roles for regional, national and international collaboration. Open/distance learning (ODL) From the responses received there is evidence that many of the characteristics of ODL mentioned by Anderson and Daniel (see above) are increasingly being adopted by institutions, across the HE sector in South Africa. Most of the 19 institutions which responded mention learning materials, course related exams, planned localised support with regular tutor/teacher contact organised in their own or other institutions’ venues, and the use of ICT. ODL has become the internationally preferred label for innovative non-traditional modes of delivery whose defining purpose is to overcome barriers to access. International good practice in ODL includes excellent (well designed and produced) learning materials, face-to-face contact, and the appropriate use of technology and various communication systems - all brought together in a properly-integrated course design in which the various learning resources complement each other in such a way that they foster effective learning in a competitively cost-effective way. The coherent integration of various learning resources into a flexible pattern which enables effective learning is the hallmark of best ODL practice, and it underwrites a concept of teaching which transcends the categories of “contact” and “distance”. A criterion for distinguishing ODL from conventional “contact” teaching is the frequency and nature of the “contact” involved. But it is clear that this criterion is elastic, and cannot yield a clear-cut distinction. In ODL “contact” is supportive, while in contact teaching, contact is the primary mode of delivery. We note that in ODL the face-to-face contact sessions are typically less frequent (for example one to two hours per subject per week tutorials or seasonal residential sessions of a week or two). Such arrangements of face-to-face contact sessions are then a little different from traditional “part-time” provision. But in ODL the focus of these contact sessions is more on learning facilitation, rather than direct teaching as in lectures. In addition, in conventional “contact teaching” it is assumed that the “face-to-face” contact is the primary mode of delivery, and is between the learner and the individual academic expert (“academic teachers who are also engaged in critiquing and developing knowledge in their fields”!) But this, of course, is a utopian ideal, and extremely rare, certainly in undergraduate teaching in HEIs. In terms of the goal of transforming the higher education system by providing increased access, as required in the NPHE, the responses from institutions indicate that they have indeed increased access simply in terms of the numbers of learners reached, outreach to rural areas and provinces beyond their locations, variety of programmes offered (school teacher upgrading, economic management sciences etc), and variety of ICTs used. In their different ways all these programmes have helped to redress past inequalities and are assisting institutions progressively to reflect the demographics of South African society, and these are indeed developments that (in the words of the NPHE) can be “welcomed by the Ministry”. Institutions, however, need continuously to monitor their overall student demographics to ensure that redress is across all modes of provision, and that, indeed, ODL programmes are not used to keep the “contact” sections of institutions predominantly white. However, the key issue of quality, or epistemological access, still remains. As the NPHE reminds us, the White Paper emphasizes that the transformation of distance education provision requires focusing on improving the quality of programmes and learner support services. The informal survey conducted for this Report did not seek to elicit information for assessing the quality of provision in terms of such matters as programme design, sequence, clarity, comprehensiveness, user friendliness, attractiveness of learning material, the quality of assessment strategies and learner support services. Nor did the informal survey set out to clarify the place of ODL programmes in the overall institutional missions, objectives, ethos and underlying philosophy, or to what extent ODL programmes were having a beneficial effect on conventional modes of delivery. These are issues that might be taken up in the current CHE project, and quite clearly have significant implications for the work of the HEQC. Terminology While the range of terminology used in institutional responses is rich and colourful, it also shows unevenness in the description and content of institutional provision in terms of the characteristics of ODL as outlined above. Terms used include distance education, open learning, open and distance learning, telematics and e-learning. The use of ICT features prominently in many of the responses. Whatever terminology we decide to retain, it will be important to demonstrate how this rich range encompasses the elements of good practice in ODL. This should also show that we are conscious of the fact that use of new technologies is not necessarily distance education or as John Daniel aptly puts it: Today many people automatically associate the educational uses of the newer information and communications technologies with distance learning. This leads them to link three ideas and assume that technology-based teaching will foster distance learning and therefore show productivity gains over classroom methods. There will be widespread disappointment when this assumption proves false as it usually will. The notion of a continuum of delivery modes recognises that between the two poles of pure correspondence (merely print) and pure contact (face-to-face interaction between individual academic experts and learners) teaching, there will be a variety of shades of combinations of the use of various learning resources and media in educational provision. A sharp distinction between “contact” and “distance” modes of delivery is no longer possible, and, as a consequence, the distinction of institutions in terms of modes of delivery has become redundant. However, while this is correct in theory, in practice most HEIs carry features of their prehistory, and, in terms of predominant modes of delivery they tend to be located at some point along the continuum. The “convergence” of modes of delivery is a rapidly emerging reality, although in practice, and in most countries, especially the developing world, it is not yet a reality, or where it exists it is in small pockets of innovation within institutions or programmes. The quality of such small pockets of innovation has also not been assessed. The development of a diverse institutional landscape The White Paper comments that: 2.37 The Ministry of Education favours an integrated and co-ordinated system of higher education, but not a uniform system. An important task in planning and managing a single national co-ordinated system is to ensure diversity in its organisational form and in the institutional landscape, and offset pressures for homogenisation. Such pressures exist at present, and will intensify as the demand for higher education places escalates, and as the system responds to the acknowledged needs to widen access and diversify the curriculum. Current developments in the public higher education sector in South Africa are in line with this aspiration. Although we can say that, in general, there is the increasing use of patterns of learning resources which mimic “best practice” ODL, ODL is itself a label for the use of a diversity of learning resources which have different functions in relation to different programmes and learning outcomes. In other words a higher education system that accepts ODL as its mainstream mode of teaching can accommodate considerable diversity. If for the sake of enhancing the quality of our higher education teaching, we want to encourage the development of a “national network of centres of innovation” which draw on the best expertise available in our higher education system, and a “national network of learning centres” which do indeed provide excellent facilities and student support services, then institutional diversity in both programmes and modes of delivery is a valuable national resource. A diverse higher education institutional landscape of this kind seems to have been envisaged in the White Paper’s recommendation that there should be the: 2.61 … development of a national network of centres of innovation in course design and development, as this would enable the development and franchising of well-designed, quality and cost-effective learning resources and courses, building on the experience and expertise of top quality scholars and educators in different parts of the country. (our emphasis) The next paragraph in the White Paper recommends that: 2.62 … contact and distance education institutions will be encouraged to provide effective and flexible learning environments on a continuum of educational provision. (our emphasis) This diversity of organisational form (in terms of modes of delivery) already evident in our higher education institutional landscape needs to be encouraged and supported adequately, particularly through appropriate funding systems. International experience shows a growing trend towards the development of both “single” and “dual” mode institutions within one country, and there are already many indicators that the distinction between “open, distance, or flexible learning and conventional education” will disappear early in the 21st century: … by the end of the 20th century, it was evident that another set of changes would mean that open and distance learning would not continue as distinct activities in the future. There were many indicators. First the methods of specialist institutions of ODL had begun to be adopted by the more traditional institutions. In the UK more than 90% of Universities were involved in some ODL teaching. (Peters 2000:467) In the light of such developments it would be counter-productive for us to curtail or restrict the burgeoning ODL practices in any of our public HEIs. ODL has de facto become the mainstream mode of delivery for many higher education institutions, in our country and elsewhere. The self-descriptions of institutions as either “contact” or “distance” or “dual mode” lag behind these developments. 7. Funding Considerations If all higher education institutions in South Africa, including the dedicated distance education institutions, were to move in line with international trends towards the adoption of broadly similar ODL delivery models, questions could be asked about the implications for Government funding. These questions should be answered against the background of the new funding framework to be implemented by Government in the near future. A brief summary of the new funding framework is provided at Appendix E. The new funding framework inter alia provides funds in respect of teaching inputs for each institution based on the number of weighted full-time equivalent (FTE) students enrolled at that institution two years prior to the funding year. The weighting is done according to study level (four levels, undergraduate to doctoral), study field (four fields, ranging from the least expensive fields to the most expensive), as well as according to delivery mode. The weighting for delivery mode is defined as 0,5 for undergraduate and honours distance education students, and 1,0 for contact education students and all masters and doctoral students. The said weighted FTEs are multiplied by a unit price, which in 2002 would have been R5 732, to calculate the teaching input funds to be received by each institution. The table below summarizes the situation for the whole higher education sector where a distinction is drawn between those students for which the 0,5 weighting applies (including those enrolled at traditional contact institutions), and those students for which the 1,0 weighting applies. FTEs weighted by study level and study field (A) Delivery mode weight (B) FTEs weighted by study level, study field, and delivery mode (A x B) Teaching input funds 5 732 x A x B Students for which the 0,5 weighting applies 200 000 0,5 100 000 R573 m Students for which the 1,0 weighting applies 677 000 1,0 677 000 R3 881 m Total 877 000 777 000 R4 454 m This table shows the distribution of teaching funds for the whole sector had the new funding framework been applied for 2002. The FTE student numbers quoted are approximations (for example, students at the former teacher training colleges were not taken into account) and are used to illustrate rather than to define. It is interesting to note that if the weighting of 1,0 had been applied, instead of 0,5 (ie if no distinction had been made between contact and distance modes of delivery), then, in order to ensure that the total sum of allocations still fell within the boundaries of available funds, the unit price would have been lowered to: R4 454 m / 877 000 = R5 079 Thus, removing the distinction between contact and distance education funding immediately, would have lowered the unit price for 2002 from R5 732 to R5 079. This represents an 11% drop in the unit price. The effect of this on the total funds to be received in terms of the new funding framework is of course far less than 11%. The overall decrease is expected to be slightly above the annual inflation rate, and far less than the up and down adjustments of up to 30% called for by the implementation of the new funding framework. This to a large extent allays fears often expressed that South Africa cannot afford to move towards a single funding basis as far as delivery mode is concerned, and also suggests that the phasing in of a single basis over a number of years, would in general cause little disruption. The advantages to be gained by moving towards modern ODL models by far outweigh the devaluation of the unit price by 11%. The following remarks provide further perspectives on these considerations: • The fact that ODL models may at the end of a phasing in period not have been applied to all programmes currently on offer, would still make ODL by far the general prevailing model and therefore a reason for adopting a single funding basis. For example, it is questionable whether the investment should be made to adopt ODL approaches in the case of programmes taken by only a few students. This, however, would not justify the introduction of a separate funding category for, say, “correspondence” programmes, because of the small percentage of students involved. This is in line with the current funding philosophy where a large number of delivery models are funded on the average within the broad category of contact education. As regards the rest of the courses offered through ODL, quality should be evaluated by the HEQC and the sector should promote the application of benchmarks jointly developed by institutions. • The phasing in of a uniform weighting of 1,0 over a number of years will generate increased subsidy income, especially for the dedicated distance education institution. The granting of such additional funds within the new funding framework to these institutions, should perhaps call for some kind of undertaking by institutions which receive such additional funds, that they will devote them specifically to the development of best practice ODL programmes, and the establishment of off-campus Higher Education Learning Centres equipped and managed to provide quality support for ODL students, especially in remoter rural areas. Furthermore, the Department should be requested to monitor the application of such funds, especially in respect to the development of higher quality ODL programmes and Learning Centres. As regards the possible phasing in of the weighting of 1,0 for those students to which a weighting of 0,5 will apply in terms of the new funding framework, two scenarios can be compared. Scenario 1: This Scenario maintains the current distinction between contact and distance programmes until the difference in weights has been eliminated. If for example a period of ten years is taken to adjust the weight of 0,5 upward to 1, then the table below shows the corresponding decrease in the unit price (in real terms). The period of ten years is chosen for illustrative purposes, and would not reflect the imperative for the sector to reposition itself in a shorter period of time. For the sake of simplicity and in order to compare the two scenarios, the assumption is also made that the number of students in the system remains constant. This Scenario gradually relaxes the tension in the increasing difficulty of maintaining exact definitions for “contact” and “distance” modes of delivery as the gap between the relevant weights becomes smaller and smaller. This Scenario also provides for Government steering of the system towards adopting more cost effective and higher quality delivery models, without trying to define the detail of the delivery process. Scenario 2: This Scenario maintains the current distinction between contact and distance modes of delivery as well as the weights associated with these two categories. Furthermore, a new ODL delivery mode is introduced which is assumed to grow annually at 10% at the expense of the other two modes (“correspondence” and “contact”) over a period of say ten years. The weight associated with this mode after ten years should be equal to 1, since this is assumed to be the generally applied mode at that stage. This weight is also chosen to apply during the ten-year period to serve as financial incentive for moving towards the ODL mode. The table below again shows that the decrease in the unit price (in real terms) is the same as that for Scenario 1 under the assumptions made. Again, for the sake of simplicity and in order to compare the two scenarios, the assumption is made that the number of students in the system remains constant. Apart from the problem of maintaining exact definitions for contact and distance education (which is not really possible), this Scenario also calls for the introduction of a new ODL category (with the equally difficult task to introduce suitable definitions) to be applied only for ten years. It is clear that Scenario 1 should be preferred to Scenario 2, because of the similar outcomes as regards unit price and the difficulty of introducing and maintaining a suitable definition for the ODL category for a limited period of time. Scenario 1 Scenario 2 Adjustment of 0,5 weight Unit price in real terms Percentage of ODL students Unit price in real terms Year 0 0,5 R5 732 0% R5 732 Year 1 0,55 R5 659 10% R5 659 Year 2 0,6 R5 588 20% R5 588 Year 3 0,65 R5 519 30% R5 519 Year 4 0,7 R5 452 40% R5 452 Year 5 0,75 R5 386 50% R5 386 Year 6 0,8 R5 321 60% R5 321 Year 7 0,85 R5 259 70% R5 259 Year 8 0,9 R5 197 80% R5 197 Year 9 0,95 R5 137 90% R5 137 Year 10 1,0 R5 079 100% R5 079 8. E-learning ICT has had, and will increasingly have, a profound impact on higher education. “ … the advent of technologies such as the Internet, computer-based multimedia, and the World Wide Web, has resulted in some significant changes in teaching and learning in post-secondary education and training.” (Bates 2001:17) This is widely accepted and also applies to e-learning or “on-line” learning. As with other emerging modes of education delivery, e-learning or “on-line” learning also lacks an exact definition. It definitely belongs to the broader class of ODL models which are all models using the leverage provided by modern technology to the fullest. In Section 3 (p 8) the following broad description was given for ODL models: • well sequenced, clearly presented and attractive course designs; • course related examinations and well designed forms of assessment; • comprehensive user friendly learning material; • regular contact with tutors; • planned localized support, for example, tutorials, discussion groups and teaching, often using the facilities of traditional institutions; • ICT, video links, web sites, e-mail (telephone, including cellular phones) In the case of e-learning or “on-line” learning, face-to-face contact with lecturers and tutors has sometimes been limited and in some cases, has been replaced with electronic contact through the Internet. However, there is a general recognition that to be effective e-learning still requires some form of face-to-face contact. The Internet can be used to transfer learning material where bandwidth permits this. Good e-learning is also characterized by well-designed, clearly presented and attractive course and learning material according to structured processes and assessed quality criteria. E-learning as a specific mode of ODL is particularly suited for use within the lifelong learning market, where frequent face-to face contact with tutors and lecturers is often impossible. As pointed out before, the lifelong market is steadily increasing in size and importance, and it is essential that ODL models used by institutions should be designed to have the necessary flexibility to be used within an e-learning setting. All institutions should therefore endeavour to acquire an e-learning capacity to serve a future education market where time and place will largely be irrelevant. E-learning is, to a greater or lesser extent, de facto the domain of all HEIs and should therefore not be restricted to a single institution. Another important issue worth noting here is that the nature of teaching is changing. Teaching is no longer an activity of “transferring content”. The principle of learning facilitation follows a learning-centered education paradigm. Those who have always interpreted teaching as the transfer of content/knowledge, will realize that such teaching will disappear as a career in the new world, where information is freely available and ICTs play a huge role in the transfer of information and knowledge. Those who realize/know that teaching and contact opportunities concerns the facilitating and optimizing of learning, will bloom in this new and developing world of ICT. Tony Bates, in, National Strategies for e-learning in post secondary education and training (Bates 2001) provides an excellent account of the prospects for e-learning, especially in developing countries, and his conclusion is that: (a) in the light of the exponential growth of e-learning and the use of the Internet in affluent countries no country can afford not to develop a local e-learning capacity, “What is not in question is that those concerned with national planning for post-secondary education and training need to give as much consideration to the potential and implications of e-learning as to campus buildings and facilities.” (p 18). However, (b) “E-learning is not the answer to many of the most pressing educational problems faced particularly by poorer developing nations. Other strategies, such as open universities, can provide greater access and more cost-effective delivery.” (p 117) In the Preface the Series Editor comments as follows: E-learning is not a passing phenomenon. It will continue to develop, and will bring about fundamental changes in the provision of education at post-secondary level, both for school-leavers and lifelong learners. All planners and policy-makers will sooner or later be confronted with the need to make informed decisions about e-learning. (Bates 2001:10) And this claim is echoed in Coldrake et al: In contrast to the largely static nature of former technological developments, the growing power of networked computing and the convergence of information and communication technology hold the promise of enhancing communication and personal interaction, aspects that are central to education. (Coldrake et al 1999:6) Bates asserts that: If e-learning represents a significant element in the future of education, as seems increasingly likely, the sooner that a nation or an education system gains experience and practice in e-learning, the more economically competitive that nation is likely to become (p 115 – his emphasis.) A striking feature of e-learning is that it is profoundly “borderless”. It is no respecter of time, place or national and cultural borders, and there is a sense in which this is one of its major benefits: Although almost all are at the very beginning of using such new technology, its future use in education cannot be underestimated, particularly because of its ability to link students in the smallest towns of every country with the rest of the world. (Carnoy and Rhoten, 2002:6) In our context one of the major challenges for the higher education system is how to overcome what is seen as a pervasive problem of the schooling system to prepare students for higher education study. Over the years South African HEIs have engaged in a variety of attempts to address this problem, and it is increasingly being understood that the most effective solution lies not in providing “add-on” academic development programmes, but in transforming the curricula and teaching and learning practices in HEIs. Effectively to address the “problem” of how to provide higher education access to “students poorly prepared for access at these levels” – a “problem” likely to be with us for some time to come – we need curricula and teaching and learning practices which are responsive to two dimensions of our context: the diverse levels at which our students arrive at our doors, and the developmental needs of our country. The potential exists that effective collaboration between public HEIs and the imaginative exploitation of the promises of highly flexible e-learning programmes, especially in the main undergraduate qualification pathways, may enable the system to develop the kinds of locally responsive curricula that we need. Bates claims that “E-learning raises some fundamental issues regarding national policy for post-secondary education and training … ” (Bates 2001:63) And one of his main points is that in the field of e-learning, the main competition for a national higher education system “will come from outside the system, from foreign universities and from the private sector.” (p 62) But providers such as these may represent a threat not only to national educational institutions, but also to national cultures and languages. The less than flourishing development of the African Virtual University (see www.avu.org) is a symptom of the kinds of problems involved in a decontextualised view of higher education. Vijay Kapur, in “Distance education in India and the USA – the cultural dimensions” (Kapur 2002) claims that “The interface between instruction strategies generated within one cultural setting and learners coming from another is not devoid of confusion and misunderstanding.” (p 5) And this is an obstacle to learning: “ … an absence of contextual match between conditions of learning and a learner’s socio cultural experiences” (p 5) will have a negative impact on the learning process. Thus, “The provision of distance education courses does not remain a purely technical issue – instead such courses take on cultural and social contexts, especially when examples are not culturally unidimensional and idioms do not transfer easily between cultures.” (p 6) And the argument here is not so much in defence of cultural specificities but it is about the quality of learning. In e-learning “ … course designing is usually done by outside agents who may possess the academic skill and knowledge but lack the situational specific cultural understanding essential to the effective transmission of knowledge.” (p 8) This provides a strong reason – in terms of learning theory – to support the view that we need to develop strong local e-learning capacity, by “building on the experience and expertise of top quality scholars and educators in different parts of the country” in designing programmes and developing high quality learning materials which are responsive to our context, and enable our “ill-prepared” students to gain effective epistemological access to quality higher education. In addition, the main interests of non-public sector and non-local providers are likely to be commercial, and at least unsympathetic to some of the fundamental ideals of our public national higher education system. And “ … probably the main danger of relying on foreign provision of e-learning is the threat to quality and professional standards.” (Bates 2001:71) But “ … trying to stop foreign institutions from offering programmes into a country by refusing them accreditation is a fairly futile operation. Welcome to globalisation.” (Bates 2001:48) Over the long run, dependency on private sector or international agencies for e-learning will have serious implications for equity of access to educational services, the development of a national e-learning capacity and national and cultural identity. (p 79/80 – our emphasis) For the sake of national development, and also for its potential to improve the quality of teaching generally within institutions, e-learning needs to become a core part of the activity of post-secondary institutions (p 97), one reason to move in this direction is that “There is no doubt that involving professors and instructors in e-learning can help to revitalize teaching and learning in an institution.” (p 72) National higher education policies should encourage this development. But as in the case of other good ODL models where careful design and technology are integral to these models but costly, this has major financial implications: Many institutions (and governments) have assumed that the introduction of e-learning is a zero-based funding issue: there are no extra costs. This is an incorrect assumption. It has been shown in the previous chapter that e-learning is not a cheap alternative to face-to-face teaching. It has to be approached in the same way as any other new line of business: it needs investment. Businesses invest in new technology not necessarily to save money, but to obtain competitive advantage. The main advantage for public institutions and governments investing in e-learning is not likely to be to save money, but to improve the quality of learning, and to develop workforce skills that will eventually facilitate economic development. Governments and institutions that think that e-learning can be successfully introduced without additional investment should not go this route. (Bates 2001:96 – Bates’s own emphasis) Bates recommends that the strategy should be to encourage the development of a national e-learning capacity: “Probably the most effective strategy in the long run will be to meet the competition from outside head-on by building strong internal e-learning programmes through the existing public sector.” (p 62) Bates offers a number of models for how this might be done, but one of these is especially relevant to current developments in the South African higher education sector: There is much that national or state governments can do to facilitate the development of e-learning within existing public post-secondary institutions. In the long run this is likely to be the most sustainable policy with the biggest impact, although it will require additional and significant public-sector investment. (p 47 – our emphasis) Bates comments that: “ … technology, and particularly the threat of out-of-state e-learning programmes, can provide the incentive to bring institutions together to collaborate.” (p 59), and adds that: “ … especially for small or economically less developed countries, competition between local institutions in the field of e-learning is likely to be counter productive. The real competition for local universities and colleges will come from outside the system, from foreign universities and the private sector.” (p 62) If we take account of what Bates argues, and many other informed commentators contend, the rapid growth of e-learning is a development that we cannot ignore if we have the interests of South African public Higher Education and its role in preparing students for the globalised economy at heart. We can recall Bates’s claim that “the sooner that a nation or an education system gains experience and practice in e-learning, the more economically competitive that nation is likely to become” (p 115). There is, thus, strong reason to recommend that HEIs should develop strategies for developing this capacity. The strongly growing lifelong education market that will become the dominant market for all HEIs, demands learning materials and delivery methods suited for this market. The need for this development is true for all HEIs, because contact students will need the same access. Three of the main problems in relation to developing a high quality e-learning capacity for HEIs, and which are no different from developing good ODL models, are: (a) the start up and maintenance costs of establishing a reliable and high quality e-learning infrastructure and delivery platform; (b) lack of access, for the majority of our students, to the appropriate technology; and (c) the scattering of local academic expertise (including resourceful and imaginative academics willing to work in teams which include those whose skills have been honed in our “academic development” programmes) across the institutions that comprise the sector. These problems demand a systemic solution that can only be found through proper collaboration between HEIs and strong Government support for these initiatives. The mistake should not be made of trying to develop an e-learning capability at a single institution; collaboration between HEIs as is in the case of the e-University in Britain, is a possibility (see Appendix D). Bates claims that “The big difference between e-learning and open universities is the direct interaction between the instructor and the students in e-learning, leading to more individualised instruction.” (p 112) This, however, comes at a cost. Although there are some economies of scale compared with conventional education, e-learning requires a reasonable student/teacher ratio to avoid instructors becoming swamped with e-mail and discussion forum messages. What e-learning is offering is a more interactive education encouraging critical thinking, communications skills, and flexibility for both students and teachers, compared with the one-way mass media of open universities. (Bates 2001:112) In conclusion, while it is undisputed that regular face-to-face contact between learners and lecturers or tutors within the framework of good ODL models of education delivery, would in general provide for greater learning efficiency, it should be recognised that more and more learners in the lifelong learning market would have to make do without such regular contact. E-learning as a customised extension of ODL to serve this market of the future should therefore be offered by all HEIs. The challenge remains to develop learning materials and content which for the sake of cost effectiveness, could simultaneously be used for a setting where regular contact is possible as well as for a setting where contact by any other means is not possible. The importance of collaboration between institutions to drive down costs cannot be emphasised enough. The development of good quality ODL learning materials, including e-learning content, is costly. The implementation and maintenance of e-learning programmes, for example acquisition and regular replacement of personal computers used within ODL models are equally costly. These costs could be reduced by collaboration between all HEIs to operate at lower costs, as well as private sector involvement and Government support and incentives for such collaboration. One particular area of substantial savings is in the joint use of very expensive software, for the managing of ODL learning materials. While we need to develop a national e-learning capacity, both for the sake of the quality of learning and access for our “ill-prepared students”, in our context it can at best provide a supplement for well-designed ODL. ODL brings with it (as we have argued) a concept of teaching, which transcends the distinction between “contact” and “distance”, and prompts us to think much more carefully about the design of learning systems and the learning resources, which will be available to students. At this stage in the development of our higher education system, e-learning should be seen as one additional learning resource in an ODL system. Well-supported excellent print material and increasing use of on-line learning is likely to be the best option for us at this stage. In our situation there is a dearth of geographically dispersed well-qualified “tutors” or “facilitators”, and it is here that we can think of ways in which electronic communication systems can be used. 9. Residential Universities As we noted previously, one of the reasons offered by the Ministry (NPHE) for being concerned about the “uncritical introduction and adoption of distance education as a panacea for the challenges that confront higher education in South Africa” (p 48) is that: … one of the greatest challenges that faces higher education in South Africa is to ensure that it educates and nurtures the next generation of intellectuals and leaders, especially black intellectuals, including professionals and researchers. It is unlikely that this role can be played either by higher education institutions that are narrowly driven by market imperatives or by “virtual” universities. They cannot replace the traditional contact higher education institutions where scholarship, research, teaching and service are valued in equal measure and where the focus is on the full range and breadth of disciplines. And more importantly, where knowledge generation and intellectual development are themselves the product of social interaction and engagement. (p 48) This is a weighty consideration, which deserves our close attention. We have already shown why a distinction between “contact” and “distance” modes of delivery can no longer be used as the criterion for drawing up a typology of institutions; we need to accept that there is a continuum of modes of delivery which spans most contemporary HEIs. As we have said, at best it might be possible to make a rough distinction between institutions on the basis of where on the continuum their predominant modes of delivery lie. But the Ministry’s reason, as formulated above, introduces a dramatically different kind of dimension into these debates. This is that if we think merely in terms of “modes of delivery” we have an impoverished conception of the ways in which traditional higher education institutions accomplish their constitutive ideals. Traditional “residential” universities, such as, paradigmatically, “Ivy league” universities in the USA and “Oxbridge” universities in the UK, have characteristic features, which contribute to the rich education of their students in many subtle and less subtle ways. One feature is, of course, the presence of concentrations of outstanding scholars and academics from a diversity of disciplines and modes of intellectual enquiry, in frequent contact with each other, and themselves at the leading edges of research and innovation in their particular specialist fields of enquiry. The idea that teaching in higher education should be rooted in research has its natural home in such communities. But other features of traditional élite residential universities underwrite their educative power. We might think, for example of the fact that, typically, students live their lives full time for four or five years, at a malleable stage of their development, immersed in the rich cultural and academic ethos of the university. The community of diverse scholars and a diversity of more and less advanced students in constant formal and informal contact with each other generate this ethos. But it is also generated by the on-site availability of well-stocked libraries and other resources, facilities and equipment, which provide ready access to knowledge way beyond the knowledge that is on the formal curricula of the institution. And we cannot discount even the impact of the rich social life of more or less organised clubs and associations that foster diversity of interests and generate standards of commitment and excellence in a range of activities that, on the face of it, might appear to have little to do with higher knowledge. A great deal of the impact of institutions such as this, and the kinds of intellectual and moral autonomy and vitality, commitment to social values and moral development, which they foster, depends on the constant interaction and engagement at various levels of those gathered in the university. In such an institutional context we can make sense of the idea that “knowledge generation and intellectual development are themselves a product of social interaction and engagement.” And we cannot underestimate the intangible influence of the physical environment, and the rituals, obscure traditions and institutional ethos, which express the history of generations of confident and creative scholars committed to the disinterested and disciplined enquiry which are the hallmarks of higher education. This richness is hardly conveyed in the phrase “contact institution” with its narrow focus on “mode of delivery”; the phrase “residential institution” comes closer to the heart of the matter. Such institutions are the outcome of gradual developments, and struggles we might add, over generations. They were not “designed” by some all-seeing planner in one fell swoop but emerged gradually out of political, economic, intellectual and cultural turmoils of 18th and 19th century Europe and North America. And, typically, they have achieved substantial economic independence from public funding sources. But if one set out to design a “total learning system” they would clearly provide an ideal model on which to work. Apart from the prominent – world-renowned – examples of such institutions, there are many less internationally famous, including in our own country, which have tried to model themselves on these ideals, and have indeed managed to go some way to achieving them. But one clear lesson of the escalation of higher education during the past half century, is that it is not possible to use such a model as the template of the institutional type for the provision of access to higher education for more than a restricted élite; not only is it enormously costly, but it depends on the availability of a critical mass of outstanding scholars gathered together in a single institution. We might regret that we do not, in our context, have either the human or material resources to replicate this model on a wide scale. But it is counter-productive to hanker after an unattainable ideal. If “residential” universities on this model do offer an irreplaceable kind of higher education – one which is essential for the education and nurturing of “the next generation of intellectuals and leaders, especially black intellectuals, including professionals and researchers” – then it is important to retain some such institutions on our higher education landscape. But if we take seriously the equity and development challenges in our context it would be unwise to drive all our HEIs into such retrospective enclaves. HEIs on this model might indeed enhance the “quality” of education for a restricted number of students – but they do so at the cost of ignoring the other two legs of the “eternal triangle” - cost and access. Access to HEIs of this kind remains, inevitably, limited, and probably to those who can afford it. We can note that there has been a significant increase in the proportion of black students at residential universities. Like all public HEIs, such institutions are a public resource, and if we regard them as having an irreplaceable contribution to make to our collective future perhaps we need then to devise innovative ways of making the resources of these institutions available to a wider range of students than can be accommodated on a three- or four-year privileged full time basis. The use of modern ODL methods supplemented by a customisation for learners not having the opportunity for regular contact with lecturers or tutors (e-learning) seem to be the natural answer to this. 10. Recommendations If the South African higher education system is indeed going to “meet the challenges that are critical to improving the quality of life of all our people” and “grasp the opportunities presented to us by the contemporary world” then the following need to be taken into account: • One of the principal challenges to the higher education system is to provide high quality access to the wide diversity of our population – a target of 16% of the age cohort is not beyond our reach; • The needs of a globalised economy, and redress from past inequitable access, require the provision of higher education learning opportunities to a range of mature learners, many of whom have other responsibilities; • All modes of delivering higher education, distance education in particular, will use ICT increasingly in future. ICTs are likely to make tutoring specialized subjects possible in rural areas, where currently there are insufficient qualified persons available to conduct tutorials. However, the majority of our population do not, at this time, have ready access to sophisticated ICTs; • Current practices across the whole sector, and a willingness to find ways of moving beyond “narrow institutional interests” provide a window of opportunity for developing a coherent public higher education system in our country based on ODL with which, at affordable cost, we can achieve our ideals of generating high level disinterested teaching and research; • If we do not enable public HEIs to compete effectively with other providers from outside of the national public higher education sector, we will be failing accountably to serve the higher education needs of our society and its population; And • Present, and likely future, financial constraints necessitate pragmatic and affordable solutions, which exploit the resources – especially the human resources – of the current higher education system in South Africa, to the benefit of the whole society. Against this background, SAUVCA therefore recommends that: 1. The new Dedicated Distance Education public Higher Education Institution (the “comprehensive” HEI to be formed by a combination of TSA, Unisa and Vudec on 1 January 2004) is accepted and supported by the sector. However, it is understood that the establishment of this HEI does not imply the curtailment of the ODL developments at other public HEIs. 2. The sector and the Ministry should abandon the practice of classifying institutions according to “mode of delivery” and encourage the development of a diverse institutional system. The significant shift in the concept of teaching to one that transcends the categories of “contact” and “distance” modes of delivery, implies that we can now, at best, talk of a “continuum of modes of delivery”. The practices of ODL are now widespread across the whole sector in both “contact” and “distance” teaching, and it is no longer viable to classify institutions in terms of being either “contact” or “distance” or any “modes of delivery”. A higher education system that becomes too homogenised is likely to close down the spaces for innovation: diversity of programmes and modes of delivery in institutions is one of the chief characteristics of a vibrant higher education system. 3. National benchmarks (including minimum standards) for a quality assurance system which focuses sharply on the features of institutional best practice ODL should be developed by the sector through SAUVCA/CTP in partnership with the HEQC. 4. No additional categories should be introduced either in the information system or the funding framework to define various emerging forms of ODL. However, the current definitions for “distance” and “contact” education should be phased out over a period of, say, ten years, as part of the implementation of the new funding framework until a common weight of 1,0 applies to all learning programmes. All institutions receiving more funds due to this phasing-in process should give the undertaking that such additional funds will be applied towards developing best practice ODL learning programmes and collaboratively established and maintained Higher Education Learning Centres, and the Department should be requested to monitor the application of such funds. 5. All public HEIs should be guided through incentives towards developing strong co-operation in establishing shared, properly staffed, well-equipped, well-maintained, properly managed, and jointly financed Higher Education Learning Centres. These HE Learning Centres should provide effective administrative and logistical support, sites for the delivery of ODL programmes with effective teacher-student interaction (such as audio-visual and computer assisted support), access to on-line library services, and PCs (possibly with broad-band connexions) and other reliable communication facilities, available to all public HEIs. (See 7c) 6. A national, collaborative and shared facility for the hosting of ODL learning material and content management software should be established. Such a shared facility would make an electronic system or platform available to all public HEIs (including the software for this), and provide a server on which HEIs could place their course content for delivery (either through each Intranet or the Internet). This facility should be jointly designed, owned, established and operated by South African public HEIs (possibly under the auspices of SAUVCA/CTP), working with the state (in terms of providing access to funding or expertise), private sector (public-private partnerships, joint ventures) and overseas partners as appropriate. 7. SAUVCA/CTP should set up a task team to recommend: (a) Practical ways in which national collaboration, that overcomes narrow institutional interests, in the delivery of HE programmes can be implemented. (b) Procedures to work towards much more co-operation between institutions in the development of high quality ODL learning material – especially in relation to the major undergraduate qualifications (may involve using various institutions’ expertise in specific areas). The need for Responsive Curricula, and the SAUVCA “generic” SGBs, are relevant here. (c) Provision of coordinated, appropriate training and support for staff at HEIs in the development and use of ODL/e-learning materials (e.g. the UK has set up JISC to advise and support the national HE system). (d) Mechanisms and procedures for the establishment of national public HE learning centres (see 5 above) and an hosting facility (see 6 above) in such a way that they are managed and resourced by the sector as opposed to any single institution. (e) Ways to foster the ability of HEIs (where applicable and so desired) to offer high quality e-learning as a natural extension of their existing ODL programmes, drawing on the best expertise available in the national HE system and being responsive to our local students and context. (f) That a research project on the implications of different forms of ODL which draws on international experience and lessons learnt, for facilitating and encouraging “deep” learning be commissioned. 8. The Department of Education should be formally requested to initiate a dialogue with the sector to facilitate the refinement of an institutional framework that accommodates the conceptual changes in terms of modes of learning delivery and that encourages greater collaboration; to discuss the funding implications of this institutional framework and to ensure that appropriate ODL quality assurance mechanisms are mainstreamed through the HEQC. Bibliography A Sources cited in the Report Government Documents Green Paper Green Paper on Higher Education Transformation Pretoria: Department of Education, December 1996 NCHE National Commission on Higher Education Pretoria: Department of Education, August 1996 NPHE National Plan for Higher Education, Ministry of Education, February 2001 TELI Technology Enhanced Learning Investigation Pretoria: Department of Education, July 1996 White Paper White Paper on Higher Education, Department of Education 15 August 1997 Other ACU Bulletin The Association of Commonwealth Universities – BULLETIN No 138, April 1999 abcd@acu.ac.uk African Virtual University www.avu.org Anderson, J “Designing Better Education: Distance learning, Open Learning, Designer Learning” presented at a conference Open Learning in Developing Countries? October 2001? Bates, T National Strategies for e-learning in Post-secondary Education and Training Paris: UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning, 2001 www.unesco.org/iiep Carnoy, M & Rhoten “What does globalisation mean for educational change?” 2002 Coldrake, P & Stedman, L Academic Work in the Twenty-first Century – Changing roles and policies Canberra: Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs: Higher Education Division, 1999 Daniel, J “Distance learning in the era of networks” in ACU Bulletin No 138, April 1999 Hall, M “Education and the margins of the network society” in Muller, Cloete & Badat (eds), 2001 Kapur, V “Distance Education in India and the USA – the Cultural Dimensions” Special Lecture, 26 March 2002. www.seattlecentral.org. Peters, G “A Personal Vision of Open and Distance Learning in the Next Millennium” in Reddy VV and Manjulika S (eds) The World of Open and Distance Learning New Delhi: Viva Books Private Limited, 2000 SAUVCA A Vision for South African Higher Education, SAUVCA Position Paper, November 2002 B Other Sources Consulted ACU: VC-NET No 7, June 2000 – developments in borderless and virtual higher education, Association of Commonwealth Universities vcnet@acu.ac.uk AVU “About the African Virtual University” www.avu.org AVU AVU Newsletter – November 2002 www.avu.org Blake, N “Tutors and Students without Faces or Places” in Journal of Philosophy of Education Vol 34 No 1, February 2000 Bollag, B “Developing Countries turn to Distance Education” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 15 June 2001 Commission on Institutions of Higher Education CIHE “Best Practices for Electronically Offered Degree and Certificate Programs” date unknown www.neasc.org/cihe Commonwealth of Learning “An Introduction to Open and Distance Learning” www.col.org Council on Higher Education HEQC Founding Document, November 2000 Department of Education Higher Education Act – Act 101 of 1997 Department of Education Distance Education Policy Document Pretoria: Department of Education, December 1996 Distance Learning Course Finder www.dlcoursefinder.com “The world’s largest database of online learning, listing over 50 000 courses” Harry, K (ed) Higher Education through Open Distance Learning: World Review of Distance Education and Open Learning London: Routledge, 1999. See Review at www.col.org/worldreview/volume1.htm HEMIS Classifications, 20 December 2001 International Association of Universities Newsletter – December 2002 www.unesco.org/iau Kaminski, K & Milheim, WD “Institutional Challenges in the Creation and Delivery of an Online Degree Program” in Technology Source, November/December 2002 Khvilon, E & Patru, M (eds) Open and Distance Learning: Trends, Policy and Strategy Considerations Paris: UNESCO Division of Higher Education, 2002 mpatru@unesco.org Lankshear, C, Peters, M & Knobel, M “Information, Knowledge and Learning: Some issues Facing Epistemology and Education in a Digital Age” in Journal of Philosophy of Education Vol 34 No 1, February 2000 Lelliott, A, Pendlebury, S, & Enslin, P “Promises of Access and Inclusion: Online Education in Africa” in Journal of Philosophy of Education Vol 34 No 1, February 2000 Marshall, J “Electronic Writing and the Wrapping of Language” in Journal of Philosophy of Education Vol 34 No 1, February 2000 Moore, D (ed) From Correspondence to Flexible Learning (1999-2001) Florida: Technikon SA, 2001 Moore, D (ed) From Correspondence to Flexible Learning (1993-1998) Florida: Technikon SA, 2000 Muller, J, Cloete, N & Badat S (eds) Challenges of Globalisation – South African Debates with Manuel Castells Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman (2001) Overland, MA “India uses Distance Education to meet Huge Demand for Degrees – Foreign colleges and companies eye a potentially lucrative market” in The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2000 www.chronicle.com SAUCVA Circular 164/2002 “Higher Education and GATS” SAUVCA “A Code of Conduct for Public-Private Partnerships in the South African University Sector” SAUVCA, April 2001 Standish, P “Fetish for Effect” in Journal of Philosophy of Education Vol 34 No 1, February 2000 Tait, A (ed) Perspectives on Distance Education. Quality Assurance in Higher Education: Selected Case Studies Vancouver: The Commonwealth of Learning, 1997 info@col.org US Department of Education A Profile of Participation in Distance Education: 1999-2000 National Centre for Educational Statistics: Washington DC, 2002 Wall, D & Owen, M (eds) Distance Education and Sustainable Community Development Edmonton; Athabasca University, 1992 Waller, V & Wilson, J “A definition for E-learning” Open and Distance Learning Quality Council, October 2001 www.odlqc.org.uk World Bank “The African Virtual University – Concept Paper” World Bank, 1995 APPENDIX A 1 SOUTH AFRICAN UNIVERSITIES VICE-CHANCELLORS ASSOCIATION LEARNING DELIVERY MODELS IN SOUTH AFRICAN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS QUESTIONNAIRE ON CURRENT INSTITUTIONAL AND OPERATIONAL TYPES As part of SAUVCA’s research into Learning Delivery Models in South African Higher Education (especially “distance education”) we will provide a brief account of the range and variety of “modes of delivery” currently in use at our public Higher Education Institutions. This aspect of the investigation falls under the research framework section on Current Institutional/Operational types in South Africa. Thus, we are interested not so much in details about the number of programmes offered, nor in such matters as costs and headcounts of students registered, but rather in current Learning Delivery Models. In the questions below we use the neutral terms “on-campus” and “off-campus” to distinguish between “conventional” modes of delivery, and the various kinds of “distance” modes currently in use. For dedicated distance education providers, off-campus includes regional and learning/study centres. To help us with this investigation, which is in our common interest as public Higher Education Institutions in South Africa, could you kindly provide us with brief feedback on the following points: 1. Does your institution distinguish between “conventional” and “distance” programmes? If yes, what is your institution’s preferred terminology for the different modes of delivery for the learning programmes you offer? 2. Does your institution have Satellite Campuses, Regional Centres and/or Learning Centres? If so, how many, and where? 3. What instructional modes and media (tutorials, lectures, print, video, TV transmissions, etc) are used at these sites? 4. What academic interaction is possible between off-campus students and lecturers/tutors? 5. If your institution provides special support services for off-campus students, please give a brief description. 6. Which programmes, if any, are offered both on- and off-campus students? What are the differences in the manner in which they are offered as an on- and off-campus programme? 7. Are academic staff provided with special training/development and support to prepare them for off-campus delivery? Please elaborate on the type of support provided. 8. Does your institution offer any off-campus programmes in collaboration/partnership with other public or private HE or FET providers? Please provide a list of programmes and partners. 9. What plans or vision does your institution have regarding future developments in the delivery of programmes (collaboration, new programmes, target audiences, etc)? APPENDIX A 2 Institutional responses to Questionnaire (Jan/Feb 2003) Institution Pages Total Questionnaire 1 12 Universities; 7 Technikons 1 University of South Africa (Unisa) 4 1a University of South Africa (Unisa) 11 2 Rand Afrikaans University (RAU) 3 3 University of Potchefstroom (PUCHE) 2 4 Vista University Distance Education Centre (Vudec) 2 5 University of Stellenbosch (US) 2 6 Tech Free State (TFS) 2 7 University of Natal (UNatal) 2 8 University of the Free State (UFS) 4 9 University of Fort Hare (UFH) 2 10 Technikon Pretoria (TechPta) 3 11 University of Cape Town (UCT) 3 12 University of Pretoria (UP) 3 12a University of Pretoria (UP) – Appendices 9 13 University of the Witswatersrand (Wits) 2 14 Border Technikon (BorTech) 1 15 Port Elizabeth Technikon (PE Tech) 3 16 Peninsula Technikon (Pen Tech) 2 17 Durban Institute of Technology (DIT) 2 18 University of Port Elizabeth (UPE) 3 19 Technikon South Africa (TSA) 3 20 Technikon South Africa (TSA) – Appendix 43 APPENDIX A 3 Institutional responses to Questionnaire (Jan/Feb 2003) Questions  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 Unisa No, but there are various forms of student support 5 Regional learning centres 7 satellite learning centres Study guides; Tutorial support; audio and computer –based support Study Guides; tutorial letters; online facilities; e-learning; etc Discussion classes; tutoring facilities; online NA Yes, special training and development Many collaborations and partnerships 1 Jan 04 New institution. Regional consortia. Unisa will retain its core business – and increase its student support provision 1a Unisa 11 page list of partners 2 RAU No – multimodal teaching learning model Regional Offices – no additional centres NA – but learning centres could be used, should they become available E-mail and telephone No special services as yet In the new multi-modal model there will be no difference Yes, in-house training programmes to train students, tutors and lecturers in new multi-modal model No It is essential to collaborate with other HEIs on the development of suitable course material for the new multi-modal teaching-learning model. 3 PUCHE Yes – “face-to-face” and “distance” (but telematic learning blurs the distinction) 53 Learning centres Video-assisted group meetings; satellite transmissions; facilitator runs group meetings and grades assignments Regular direct access to lecturers via internet or telephone; indirect contact thro TLS Telematic Learning Systems (TLS) is the main communication channel for such students There are some – the main difference is in the number of meetings Yes, all developers of study material get specific instruction. Facilitators get video and instruction guide Some education programmes with the Open Learning Group. Some study material developed in collaboration with other HEIs Distinction between on- and off-campus is increasingly blurred. Increase collaboration. 4 Vudec Yes – “contact teaching” and “distance education” 8 Teaching campuses, plus learner support centres throughout the country Study guides; tutorials; AV aids, Video conferencing; tutorial letters; telephone 2-week vacation schools; contact sessions at learner support centres None All No None To resuscitate its Instructional Design Unit. Collaborate. 5 US Yes – “contact” and “technologically mediated programmes” Electronically linked interactive classrooms at other sites VSAT interactive transmissions – synchronous interactive video-voice Direct synchronous interaction via VSAT; email and other interaction via Internet Electronic access to library and admin services; electronic contact with lecturers; some on site visits (problem solving sessions MBA; MPA; LLM; MPhil (agric); M Fam Med; PG Dipl (nursing; M Ing An integrated team plans all off-campus programmes. Lecturers training in all respects re technologically mediated programmes. Direct support for lecturers in preparation of study material. Dipl with Medunsa. Educor collaboration being phased out. Preferred niche – off-campus technologically-mediated programmes for mature adults. Actively engage in collaboration re the sharing of technology and logistical systems. 6 TFS Part-time contact sessions moving towards multimode delivery modes 4 Regional learning centres Face-to face lectures; interactive video conferencing; self-paced learning and study guides E-mail, telephone; fax; overnight courier services Learner counselling; SI; on-line library and information services. TEFSA and Edu-loan Faculty of Management and B Tech. More contact hours for on-campus Local part-time lecturers appointed according to the same standards as main campus teacher. Video conferencing support for tutors. Minimal Collaboration. Target potential learners in technological programme mixes. 7 UNatal Yes – “contact” and “open learning network” vs “distance programmes” “Distance” lecture sessions at five main cities 13 Open learning centres Print materials; tutorials + some video material See 2 and 3 None Accounting; BNAP; B Community Development. B Ed (Hons), ACEs and NPDE not offered on-campus No – a major gap in our system. Academics expect Open Learning to be shut down – so they do not take it seriously. Previously with SACTE. Some minor partnerships The previous DVC had a vision of Natal becoming a digital university where it would not have mattered whether you were on or off campus. Open learning for non-traditional mature students 8 UFS All offerings “mixed mode”, “multimode” or “open learning.” One satellite campus At least 10 “delivery sites” Face-to face; small group facilitation; resource-based learning + tutorials Contact at learning centres; internet-based interaction Direct telephone email and internet access to lecturers. Full library access, (also electronically – and focussed admin support. BML; B Com; B Pub; MBA; LLB. On-campus – large group lecturing, off-campus electronic communication. Pilot project, some modules offered thro e-learning for both on and off campus Academic staff specifically trained in the design and writing of open learning and on-line learning material, and the use of interactive modes of delivery. The partners involved only provide the necessary logistical, administrative, marketing and technological support for learning material developed by the UFS as the provider of these programmes The use of different models and forms of open learning, also for working adults. Collaboration with eDegree for the delivery of internet-based (on-line) programmes 9 UFH “Open and distance learning” 20 learning centres Print; face to face tutorial support; some in-school support Meetings with tutors for four hours on Saturday mornings; co-ordinators visit centres on a regular basis At learning centres None Writing workshops Partnership with the ECape DoE – consortium for the NPDE Mainly in the field of educator training – including new curriculum statements. 10 Tech Pta “Contact” and “mixed mode” 3 satellite campuses and 17 + 3 learning centres Tutorials; lectures; print; videos; video conferencing; telephone; audio tapes Contact sessions at centres; contact with tutors – telephone, email Dept Telematic education – to utilise and manage technology. Full time dedicated academic staff – telephone and email contact with students. Web for academic support – self-help packages, re note taking, studying on-line, stress management, etc B Tech and M Tech; the only difference is time of contact Bureau for Staff Development offers training courses. Some internal work sessions after learning centre visits. Medunsa Expanding agreements with other national and foreign HEIs 11 UCT “Time” and “Place” distinctions (4-fold matrix) None NA Email, phone or post NA NA NA NA Currently formalising policy on educational technology within the institution 12 UP “Mode 1” (contact mode, resource rich, ICT enhanced. “Mode 2” (paper-based, enriched with contact and ICT support) Service points, and “viewing points” Service points – admin; facilities for ITV; small library. Viewing points – ITV venues hired from HEIs ITV broadcasts, tutorials where needed, normal communication (email, tel, courier, cell phone Call centre; Tutorial letters; cell phone support; library access Programmes listed in Appendix B. Same curricula – but block contact for off-campus students, in total the same number of contact hours Yes, Instructional design training for preparing DE materials, and doing ITV broadcasts All agreements with private providers are being discontinued and teach-out programmes were agreed. Committed to maintaining high quality. UP is unambiguously a contact institution – but with DE in carefully identified niche areas 12a UP (Add) 13 Wits “Conventional”, “distance” and “flexible” None NA See 1 None B Ed (Hons) – flexible mode A small e-learning initiative – a WebCT co-ordinators helps staff – but mainly with on-campus delivery RAU – and a foreign provider Intend to improve computer-based learning 14 BorTech “Contact” and “distance” None Contact at all sites NA NA None NA NA Contact is the primary mode – with the merger, video conferencing and computer-assisted learning. 15 PE Tech “Contact” and “block release” – no pure distance One satellite campus (George) plus two delivery sites in NMMM Lectures; tutorials; excursions; print, etc Tutors; visits from lecturers on regular basis Email links; on-line chat groups; telephone; video conferencing; regular visits; tutors Block release Staff who use video-conferencing are trained for this. No training for off-campus lecturers Lusaka. Univ Stell + One other Distinction between ‘distance’ and ‘residential is increasingly blurred. Video-conferencing, telematic transmissions, on-line computer assistance, etc 16 Pen Tech “Contact”, “distance learning”, “Extended campus” 5 “extended campus” sites Web-based learning; field trips; lectures; tutorials; assignments; practicals Internet, email site visits, field trips; Face to face contact. On-line core material and discussion groups; posted information; site visits and trips. Contact students have more site visits, and a weekly seminar IT support World Bank Target participants from Angola, Namibia, and SA. 17 DIT No – all contact – but experiential learning is “off campus” Multi-campus institution Lectures; tutorials; print; video; on-line learning, etc Tutorials; telephone; electronic None Many programmes. B Tech offered in a mixed mode ? Regional collaborative programme Reinforce quality of current provision – but will consider flexible modes of delivery 18 UPE The distinction is problematic – SMATE and other programmes SMATE – 8 Regional centres. Other – 21 centres Tutorials; lectures; satellite transmissions; videos; study guides SMATE – contact delivery mode; Satellite delivery, cellphone interaction; tutorials Help line for admin and academic matters SMATE – programmes offered on and off campus with no difference. Other B Ed (Hons) and M Phil. On-site tutor training. Some orientation of academic staff re satellite broadcasts ECape DoE – some use of TSA venues, etc. Teacher upgrading, and degree-level programmes. 19 TSA Resource based learning; Teletutoring and other contact; some Online programmes (COOL) 24 Learning Centres distributed across all nine provinces Tutorials, workshops, teletutoring, Print, Audio cassettes On-line Telephone contact, and contact sessions Job placement project, pre-registration assessment, Career guidance, HELP programmes etc Only off-campus A variety of staff-development courses; and orientation and training in admin and generic skills Many collaboration partners Research into "comprehensive institution"; all programmes undergoing curriculum review APPENDIX B PROVINCIAL DISTRIBUTION OF CENTRES (Called viewing/learning/delivery/satellite/teaching/regional centres) PUCHE UNISA TSA VUDEC UN TFS TP UP UFS UFH PEN TEC PE TECH DIT UPE TOTAL Eastern Cape 7 1 3 1 7 3 2 17 1 2 8 52 Western Cape 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 12 Northern Cape 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 8 Free State 2 2 3 1 6 1 15 North West 6 3 2 3 8 Limpopo 6 2 3 2 1 1 1 16 Mpumalanga 4 1 2 1 2 2 12 Gauteng 15 2 5 5 5 3 2 37 Kwa-Zulu Natal 8 3 3 8 4 2 2 30 TOTAL 52 13 24 6 15 4 13 10 11 17 5 3 2 21 196 ACTUAL LOCATION OF CENTRES Eastern Cape: Queenstown, Sterkspruit, Cala, Umtata, Butterworth, Lusikisiki, Flagstaff, Bizana, Maluti, Mount Frere, Mount Fletcher, Kokstat, Bisho, Alice, East London, Stutterheim, Port Elizabeth, Grahamstown, Uitenhage, Aliwal North, Matatiel, Cradock, King Williams Town, Lovedale Western Cape: Outshoorn, Cape Town, Wellington, George Northern Cape: Kimberley, Sol Plaatjie, Vryburg Free State: Phuthaditjaba, Kroonstad, Welkom, Sasolburg, Bethlehem, Thaba-Nchu, Bloemfontein, Qwa-Qwa North West: Mmabatho, Rustenburg, Potchefstroom Limpopo: Polokwane, Thohoyandou, Louis Trichard, Giyane Mpumalanga: Witbank, Nelspruit, Middleburg Gauteng: Vaal Triangle, Onderstepoort, Groenkloof, Prinshof, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Benoni, Mamelodi, Sebokeng, Soweto, Florida, Vereeniging Kwa-Zulu Natal: Durban, Empangeni, Newcastle, Pietermaritzburg, Edgewood, Vryheid, Newcastle, Ladysmith, Tugela Ferry, Stanger APPENDIX C TWO EXAMPLES OF COLLABORATION IN ODL These examples show how other developing countries have implemented the kind of collaboration suggested in Recommendations 5 and 6 of this Report. In both examples successful implementation of collaboration was facilitated by: • strong leadership from a coordinating structure (the Board of the NOLNET Trust or the Commonwealth Youth Programme Pan-Commonwealth Office and its four Regional Centres). • government participation and support in raising funds from external donors and access to other resources from the relevant Ministry. • conditions for the collaboration spelt out in Memoranda of Agreement. 1. THE NAMIBIA OPEN LEARNING TRUST (NOLNET) NOLNET was founded as a charitable education trust to coordinate open learning in Namibia and facilitate and improve access to shared resources for ODL students. The partners in this collaboration are public secondary and higher education institutions involved in ODL and the Ministry of Education. They are the University of Namibia, Namibia College of Open Learning, Namibia Polytechnic and the Namibia Institute for Education Development. What does the collaboration entail? The participating institutions have pooled together their existing learning centres into a network of 47 centres located in urban and remote rural areas of Namibia such as Katima Mulilo in the Caprivi Region. These centres are jointly managed through the NOLNET Trust. Categories of Centres. There are three categories of centres: Level 1 Centres. These centres are equipped to serve the needs of tertiary and secondary students. The resources in these centres consist of textbooks for both secondary and tertiary students, at least 4 on-line computers, photocopying, fax, and audio-visual equipment. There are 16 such centres managed by trained staff. Level 2 Centres. There are 15 of these centres managed by trained staff and equipped largely with secondary level textbooks, at least 1 on-line computer, photocopying, fax, and audio-visual equipment. Level 3 Centres. These centres are located either in the regional centres or campuses of the parent institutions or at the public libraries, community centres and teacher resource centres. These centres have books and communication lines. Leadership, management and financing Coordination, leadership and management of the collaboration is driven by a Board consisting of representatives of all the partner institutions and assisted by a full-time Executive Director. The Ministry of Education’s participation in NOLNET has been crucial in that it has: a) provided access to its centres and thus expanded the network of centres, especially in rural areas, and b) played a pivotal role in sourcing funding from external donor agencies. The European Union provided substantial funds for NOLNET to upgrade or purchase equipment. Maintenance of equipment and other centre operation costs are paid from institutional annual subscription fees and fees charged for services rendered at centres, for example access to the internet. 2. COMMONWEALTH COLLABORATION IN THE DEVELOPMENT, DELIVERY AND ACCREDITATION OF A DIPLOMA IN YOUTH DEVELOPMENT The Commonwealth Secretariat through its Commonwealth Youth Programme (CYP) had for over twenty years, through residential courses at its four regional centres in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and South Pacific, offered training in youth development to a total number of only 1 700 students. In order to provide increase access to this training, CYP decided in the early 1990s to establish collaboration with ODL higher education institutions, to change this training to an accredited diploma offered through supported distance education. Today the Diploma in Youth Development is offered and accredited by 24 partner institutions in the four regions of the Commonwealth. UNISA is one of these partner institutions and is supported by 9 members of the consortium for youth development in the delivery of the course. What does the collaboration entail? This collaboration is multi-faceted and covers all aspects of programme development, delivery and accreditation. Curriculum development - The London Pan-Commonwealth Office (PCO) of the CYP appointed Huddersfield University to develop a draft curriculum framework and oversee the quality assurance mechanisms of the diploma in youth development. Extensive consultation throughout the four regions of the Commonwealth then took place to gain support for the programme and to identify suitable partner institutions. Through this consultation the draft curriculum framework was discussed, amended and finally approved by all four regions of the Commonwealth including the partner institutions. Materials development - Content specialists in the areas covered by the 15 modules of the diploma were identified by each of the four regions of the CYP. These specialists developed draft modules which were then submitted to the four regions for review by the CYP regional centres and partner institutions. After the writers had incorporated the feedback from the reviews, the modules were sent to instructional designers appointed from partner institutions and trained by the CYP at a weeklong residential workshop. The instructional designers working closely with module writers transformed the modules into interactive good quality learning materials. Final content and design editing for coherence and standardisation of the modules was done by an agency appointed for this purpose and supervised by Huddersfield University and the PCO. As one of the partner institutions, UNISA developed and instructional designed one of the 15 modules. CYP printed the modules and delivered them free of charge to all partner institutions before the start of the pilot phase in 1999. Delivery and accreditation of the diploma - A Memorandum of Agreement was signed between the CYP and partner institutions specifying roles, responsibilities and financial arrangements of the collaboration. The main role of partner institutions was through "supported distance education" to deliver, accredit and align the diploma with the national qualification frameworks. Together with the relevant national youth ministries, partner institutions recruited youth workers for the diploma and then enrolled, provided the learning materials, appointed tutors and provided the necessary support throughout the different stages of the study cycle. At the end of two years study, successful students receive the institutions certificate and a Commonwealth certificate with logos of all 24 partner institutions. Coordination, management and financing - The CYP PCO and the four regional centres coordinate and manage the collaboration. This entails advocacy with governments and institutions, coordination of the curriculum and materials development processes, monitoring of quality assurance mechanisms, overseeing the legal and regulatory frameworks and sourcing and allocating financial resources. CYP used the funds raised for the collaboration to develop the curriculum framework and materials, organise regional reviews and Pan Commonwealth training and review workshops and support partner institutions for the initial costs of institutionalising the collaboration. Institutions were provided with materials free of charge, but are expected to cover operational costs from students’ fees. Some countries provide free bursaries to students registered for the diploma while others, like South Africa, provide partial bursaries only to needy students. Evaluation - The pilot stage of the diploma has been completed and evaluated. A decision on the next steps will be taken at the May 2003 Commonwealth Youth Ministers Meeting. CYP and partner institutions are in favour of continuing to offer the diploma. What needs to be sorted out are, amongst others, the future role CYP PCO and its regional centres, copyright issues and conditions for future use of materials by partner institutions. APPENDIX D Press release 15 February 2000 Major project launched to develop higher education on the internet. The first steps are being taken to establish a new way of providing higher education programmes through web-based learning. The project’s working title is "e-University". The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), working in partnership with the other UK higher education funding bodies, is launching a collaborative project designed to give UK higher education the capacity to compete globally with the major virtual and corporate universities being developed in the United States and elsewhere. The project will help expand the UK’s share of the overseas higher education market, and increase the range of continuing professional development and vocational courses in the UK. The key characteristics of the project are: • It will establish a new vehicle for delivering higher education programmes through web-based learning. • That vehicle would be jointly owned, established and operated by a consortium of higher education institutions, working with private sector and overseas partners. The project is not designed to set up a new, self-standing HE institution, but will draw on the expertise of existing HE institutions. • It will focus on meeting expanding demand for HE programmes both in the UK and overseas. • It will be established on a scale that will enable it to compete internationally. • It will be established with a central core of founder members, but also involving other HE institutions who wish to take part and who can demonstrate that they have a high quality contribution to make. • It will be identified as a provider of the highest quality, both in its programmes and in the student support structures that underpin them, maintaining and enhancing the international reputation of UK higher education. Brian Fender, Chief Executive of the HEFCE, said: "The UK has a strong track record of world-leading initiatives in the use of new technologies in higher education. This project is designed to harness the potential of the whole of the higher education sector in providing high quality courses in these new markets". "Many individual higher education institutions are seeking to develop web-based applications on their own or in groups. By working together in a partnership, we can pool the resources and expertise needed to exploit more fully than any single institution can the huge possibilities offered by new technologies and the internet in particular to establish a world class provider with global reach". Ends For further information, contact Philip Walker (0117 931 7363) or Julian Burnell 0117 931 7431 at HEFCE. Notes 1. The HEFCE is writing to all HE institutions with further information about the project; that information is available on the HEFCE website http://www.hefce.ac.uk/Partners/euniv/. 2. The launch of the project was welcomed by the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, David Blunkett, in a speech given at the University of Greenwich on 15 February; for details contact Kate Omrod, 0171 925 5373 kate.omrod@dfee.gov.uk APPENDIX E BRIEF SUMMARY OF NEW FUNDING FRAMEWORK The following is an extract from a SAUVCA/CTP document on the new funding framework: 2. The new funding framework uses the components listed below to distribute the available funds to institutions on the basis of specific parameters such as unit prices, and institutional attributes such as student numbers. For the purpose of the summary, Scenario C of the total allocation of 2002/3 subsidy under the new funding framework has been used. For this Scenario C, the Ministry uses in its example the total amount of R7 969 m for 2002/3 of which R7 123 m is available for block grants. SAUVCA and CTP wish to highlight that some of the latter funds are also used for earmarked purposes. A brief description of the various components is given below. 2.1 Research output funds (13% of the available funds) 2.1.1 The total research output funds to be distributed amongst institutions is set at 13% of the available funds. This turns out to be R940m for 2002. Between 10% and 15% of the total research output funds will be top-sliced for earmarked research development purposes. In the example quoted by the Ministry, 10% has been chosen for 2002, which leaves R940m – R94m = R846m for distribution amongst institutions according to their research outputs. The research output of each institution is defined as the weighted sum of the number of research publications for 2000, the number of research masters graduates in 2000, and the number of doctoral graduates in 2000. The weightings are set at 1: 1: 3. The unit price per research output unit is determined by dividing the total number of weighted research output units for all institutions into the available R846m. The amount assigned to each institution is then equal to its weighted research output units multiplied by the said unit price. 2.2 Foundation programme funds (1% of the available funds) Funds for foundation programmes will be top-sliced from the remainder of the funds to the equivalent of approximately 15% of the expected FTE enrolment of first-time entering undergraduate students in contact education programmes funded at the lowest unit price (Funding Group 1, undergraduate) used to calculate teaching input funds. It is assumed (not stated in the document) that this will also form the basis for allocations to be made to individual institutions. The example quoted by the Ministry, assigns R59m for this purpose. This leaves R7 123m – R940m –R59m = R6 124m for the remaining components. The remaining three components are teaching input funds, teaching output funds and institutional factors, the latter replacing the set-up costs in the previous draft published by the Ministry. These components are linked to one another through the following relationships: institutional factor funds are percentages of the teaching input funds for each institution, and total teaching output funds are set at a percentage of between 20% and 30% of the sum of total teaching input and output funds. The determination of the institutional factor is, inter alia, dependent on the FTE numbers in the teaching input grid (which the Ministry may adjust annually) and feeds back into the teaching input grid. The funds available for the institutional factors are not top sliced but form part of the block grant, thereby creating a feedback loop which complicates the determination of the lowest unit price of the funding grid which will have to be done by solving a set of simultaneous equations. The lowest unit price (Funding Group 1, undergraduate) used to calculate teaching input funds, is in essence then a scaling factor, similar to the existing a-factor, which will cause these three components to match the remaining funds, whilst simultaneously satisfying the above relationships. 2.3 Teaching input funds (63% of the available funds) Teaching input funds per institution are first of all calculated by weighting the number of FTE enrolled students for the year n-2 according to study level (1:2:3:4 for the equivalent of undergraduate, honours, masters and doctoral students) and according to study field (1: 1,5: 2,5: 3,5 for Funding Groups 1,2,3 and 4 respectively). The weighted FTE students are multiplied by the lowest unit price (Funding Group 1, undergraduate), calculated as explained above, to obtain the teaching input funds per institution. The Ministry may adjust the number of FTE students upward or downward for a particular institution. In the case of distance education students, the equivalent of undergraduate and honours students are further weighted by a factor of 0,5. This is the only distinction made between contact and distance education students. In terms of the quoted example, the total teaching input funds turn out to be equal to R4 454m. 2.4 Teaching output funds (16% of the available funds) 2.4.1 Teaching output funds per institution are firstly calculated by weighting the number of qualifications awarded by an institution in the year 2000 by weighting factors as defined in the document under discussion. The number of weighted output units is then multiplied by a unit price which would simultaneously satisfy the relationships referred to under paragraph 2.2 to obtain the teaching output funds per institution. For the example quoted by the Ministry, the total teaching output funds turns out to be equal to R1 125m. 2.5 Institutional factor funds (7% of the available funds) 2.5.1 Disadvantaged students factor: If the percentage of African plus coloured unweighted FTE contact students who are South African citizens in a particular contact education institution, exceeds 80%, 10% of the teaching input funds for that institution will be added. Nothing is added if the composition percentage is lower than 40%, and for percentages between 40% and 80%, funds are added proportionately to a maximum of 10%. For the example quoted by the Ministry, the funds allocated in respect of this factor equal R177m. 2.5.2 Size factor: If the number of unweighted FTE contact plus unweighted FTE distance education students in a particular institution, is less than 4 000, then 15% of the teaching input funds for that institution will be added. Nothing is added if the size of the institution exceeds 20 000, and for sizes between 4 000 and 20 000, funds are added proportionately to a maximum of 15%. For the example quoted by the Ministry, the funds allocated in respect of this factor equal R296m. 2.5.3 Shape factor: If the percentage of unweighted FTE contact education students in Funding Group 1 plus those in Funding Group 2, is less than 67%, no funds are added. For percentages between 67% and 100%, funds are added proportionately to a maximum of 15%. This factor is not defined for distance education institutions. For the example quoted by the Ministry, the funds allocated in respect of this factor equal R72m. End