Education for all Through Electronic Distance Education30 June 1994 Peter T. Knight Revised version of a paper prepared for the International Conference on Distance Education in Russia, Moscow, 5-8 July, 1994. The author thanks Prita Chathoth for assistance in preparing a first draft. Takeshi Utsumi, Gary Hyde, and Greg Kearsley provided helpful comments. The views presented in this paper are those of the author and should not be attributed to the World Bank. Abstract The digital revolution is driving major changes in the way education is produced and delivered. Sharp and continued falls in the cost of storing, manipulating, and transmitting information are interacting with rising relative costs of traditional education and increasing demand for life-long educational services. In the early twenty-first century people will be able to study what they want, when they want, where they want, and in the language they prefer, electronically. Russia needs to train its managers and financial personnel in analytical techniques necessary to operate successfully in a market economy. Building on a strong technological base, Russia can spread these skills from her few existing centers of excellence across her 11 time zones through modern electronic distance education. In the process Russia can become a leader in the emerging global market for education services. The World Bank can play a significant role in promoting, financing, and even producing electronic distance education serviceshelping make the vision of quality education for all a reality. Technology, Educational Costs, and Electronic Distance Education Dynamic and constant changes in technology and knowledge require that education evolve from being "terminal" into a life-long and on-going activity. Accelerating technological change requires continuing education for a worker to remain competitive in the labor market. Without continuous learning, workers of all kinds will find their human capital rapidly depreciates, with a corresponding fall in the wages or salaries they can command in the labor market. Information delivery and education are becoming essential services that need to be made available on demand, just like any other utility. Traditional means of education are not adequate to meet the needs of large populations for lifelong learning, even in rich countries. In poorer countries, education for all, at least past the primary level, looks like an unrealistic dream if conventional strategies are pursued. Even where available, the quality of education leaves much to be desired and is often declining as costs rise faster than incomes and tax revenues. The rate of increase in the cost of education in the West has consistently outpaced the rate of inflation. This indicates a lack of productivity increase in a crucial sector of what is increasingly becoming a knowledge-based economy. The rising relative price of education, indeed of education in general, is alarming educators and university administrators who seek to provide the best quality education at an affordable price. While the relative price of conventional education is rising, the digital revolution has been decreasing the cost of storing, manipulating, and transmitting information by 50 percent every 18 months, with no end in sight. This technological wave is now driving major changes in the way education is produced and delivered. At the heart of this change is the convergence of the once distinct media of image, sound, books, and computer networks into digital multimedia. This is making the world's knowledge base accessible anywhere on the planet through satellites, coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, and even conventional copper wire through new techniques to pump large amounts of information down the "last mile". Even the book "is being rapidly transformed into an electronic learning tool that utilizes sound, images, and motion in addition to a printed text" (Task Force on Distance Education, 1992). Online educational "communities" already provide on-demand and customized education to subscribers. In the early twenty-first century, people will be able to study what they want, from whom they want, when they want, where they want, and in the language they prefer, electronically. Electronic distance education (EDE) will be not a matter of science fiction, but the lifeblood of the worldwide knowledge-based economy. The marketplace for many educational services will be global, with great increases in the quality of education available to the individual at lower real costs per capita than conventional education today. "Computer, television, cable, satellite, laser, fiber-optic, and microchip technologies (will) combine to create a vast interactive communications and information network that can potentially give every person on earth access to every other person" (Barber 1992). While technology today makes it possible for students in an African village to access the same "global brain" of the world's information resources as those in New York, Moscow, Paris, Tokyo, or São Paulo, the "hardware", and perhaps more importantly, the "software" of social, political, economic and organizational arrangements to permit this are lagging well behind the technological potential. Realizing that potential should be a major goal of global institutions like the World Bank. Global Trends in Distance Education The latest trends in education show that universities have started catering to a wide variety of geographically dispersed students. There is a growing interdependence among institutions as well as technologies. Many well-known national universities are turning international by offering courses in several countries via EDE. A new culture of global education is being born. We will soon see a number of institutions specializing in international education and training. Several institutions specializing in distance education have earned national and international preeminence in the academic field. Britain's Open University, with headquarters in Milton Keynes outside London, has gained worldwide attention and many countries have developed their own open universities on this model. Founded in 1969, the British OU is now the largest British university, employing a full-time staff of over 3000. Although television is used extensively, about 90% of the material used by the British OU is print-based. Face-to-face encounters with tutors in a large number of regional centers supplement print and televised materials. Through its Project LINK with the Russian space agency, the British OU is active in Russia today, but it currently relies largely on print materials and video tapes plus meetings with tutors. In the United States, National Technological University (NTU) and the Mind Extension University (ME/U) rely heavily on satellite television to distribute the courses of a group of participating conventional universities. NTU was founded in 1984 and it offers a wide range of advanced science and engineering courses using live, satellite-based narrowcast instructional television, sometimes backed by E-mail. About 45 technical universities in North America uplink to NTU's transponder using compressed digital television and there are downlinks in these same universities as well as some 500 sites in high-tech companies and governmental agencies. Both degree courses and continuing education seminars are offered. NTU seeks to be fully global by the year 2000. ME/U employs a similar concept based on satellite and cable television, focusing mainly on technical and business courses, some of which permit interaction with the instructor and other students by telephone and/or E-mail. Of particular interest is the Educatial Technology Leadership masters' degree program established in 1988 at George Washington University using ME/U to meet a growing need among education professionals to understand, manage, and use electronic educational technologies. The student body for this program is international. In Europe, EUROPACE operates much as does NTU in the United States. EUROSTEP is an organization of institutions and companies active in the field of education and training which use multimedia and satellites for the dissemination of education and training across Europe. Established in 1989, it is headquartered in Leiden, the Netherlands and has a network of more than 700 registered receive sites. The programs range from vocational training to post graduate education, from informal adult education to programs for secondary schools. China's Central Radio and Television University (CRTVU) is an institution of higher education directly under the State Education Commission. It runs multimedia distance higher education courses using radio, television, print-based, and audio-visual teaching materials. It was inaugurated in February 1979, and now heads a modern distance education system made up of CRTVU, 43 Provincial, Autonomous Regional, and Municipal TV Universities (PRTVUs), 654 branch schools at prefecture and city level, 1500 work stations at the county level, and more than 10,000 teaching classes that cover China's rural and urban areas. While initially using China Central Television's microwave network, the whole Chinese distance education system centered on CRTVU now makes use of a Chinese satellite capable of reaching all of China plus neighboring countries in Eastern, Central, and Southeast Asia. With 146,000 entering students, 300,400 students matriculated, and 120,000 graduates in 1992, CRTVU is probably the world's largest univeity. Current distance education literature supports the thesis that modern digital and telecommunication technologies can deliver information and impart knowledge equal to and, if used efficiently, even better than traditional means. Research on delivery modes and their correlation to student achievement outcomes has shown that students learn better via teletraining mode than face-to-face instruction (Chute, Balthazar, Poston 1989; Task Force on Distance Education, 1992). Course design and overall quality of instruction are also usually better in EDE courses than in traditional classroom instruction. The new electronic technologies such as CD-ROM interactive disks, computer bulletin boards, and multimedia hyper-text available over the global Internet using the Mosaic interface and the World Wide Web "can provide students with far greater involvement in the process of learning and allow them the exercise of far greater control over that process than is possible in many traditional learning environments." "Integrat sound, motion, image, and text create a rich new learning environment awash with possibility and a clear potential to increase student involvement in the learning process. The interactive capabilities of both program and delivery systems allow for feedback, dialogue, and on-going assessment that are impossible in all but the most localized and direct applications of resident instruction" (Task Force on Distance Education, 1992). Electronic Media for Distance Education It is a common misconception that face-to-face classroom instruction can be videotaped and distributed to produce multimedia-based EDE courses. The truth is that it takes considerable time and effort as well as expertise to design and develop quality multimedia EDE. Once developed, however, the course materials may be used again and again. Thus, in the long run, despite the initial investment in time and money, EDE is very cost-effective. In order to make them more effective, EDE courses should be designed for maximum teacher-student and student-student interaction. To be more attractive to the adult population, course content should be relevant and challenging, transmitted visuals should be of high quality, and the cost should be less than face-to-face instruction. The use of a variety of media within and among courses should be considered during course design and curriculum planning stage. Certain concepts from traditional classroom learning that are absent in conventional distance learning modes can be acmmodated with computer communications (Maule 1993). Currently, a variety of media are used in EDE. They include instructional television, audiographics, compressed video, computer conferencing, and audio/video conferencing. The new technologies entering EDE arena are all digital in nature (e.g. hypermedia, computer networks, integrated data systems, digital television). In future "virtual" classrooms and worldwide lecture halls will be the norm in DE. Paulsen (1987) describes a virtual school as an information system. "This entails the gathering, processing, storing, transmitting, and presenting of information. These activities may be performed manually by people or automatically by computers." A virtual school will not exist as a physical entity with all the accompanying paraphernalia but it can perform all the functions and assume the responsibilities of a regular school. Computer-mediated instruction improves teacher-student interaction and thus enhances the learning process. Due to its objective nature, students feel free to express their views and opinions on any subject matter. Students using computer networks to communicate with their peers contribute to both learning and teaching processes. One of the biggest advantages of electronic networks is the rapid dissemination of information. Spreading and sharing of new thoughts and ideas get new results via networks -- the wider reach and unbiased inputs obtained through network-based interactive communication enhances the whole spectrum of educational experience. Networking has the added benefit of information sharing among educators and researchers. Users from all over the world are able to communicate and share ideas. It will also bring together knowledge and research from all corners of the globe to a common platform. This could eventually create global standards in scientific fields. The Internet (accessible via Relcom, Demos, Sovam Teleport, and Glasnet in Russia) links universities, research institutions, libraries, small and large businesses and corporations, and millions of individuals around the world. The most powerful technologies, intended for gathering information worldwide over the Internet are: E- mail, Mosaic, and videoconferencing (Galitsky, A. et al., 1994). Through E-mail one can reach any recipient having an E- mail address -- on the order of 20 million people in over 146 countries and growing at about 8 percent a month -- delivered within several minutes by sending him or her a text message, which can be returned. Computers with full TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internetworking Protocol) Internet connections allowing direct access to other computers and the information they contain (a growing proportion of the world's knowledge base) totaled an estimated 2.2 million at the end of 1993, linked together in some 35,000 networks in 78 countries as of May 1994. The nber of networks in the United States increased by 160 percent in 1993. The rate of growth outside the U.S. was even faster, 183 percent (Internet Society, 1994). Users of Internet can instantly exchange text, graphics, sound, video or data with anyone, anytime, and anywhere, and this has been made quite simple by "front-end" interfaces such as Mosaic, a software developed by the National Center for Supercomputer Applications at the University of Illinois and available free over the Internet. Using Mosaic, and the World Wide Web developed at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, Internet users can easily scan worldwide multimedia computer sites and retrieve necessary information. Resources will be at researchers' fingertips within a matter of minutes. Even full-color, full-motion video can be retrieved with Mosaic. This makes asynchronous, "just-in-time" individualized education which can be retrieved around the globe a real possibility. "The next Internet technology supporting distance learning is the organization of audio and video conferences. Special (commercial and publicly available) software allows establishing multi-point connections with possibility of translation audio and video data through the Internet. Such technology may be closely compared with interactive TV, where the recipient may intervene in a TV discussion, but be located many thousands of miles away. And note that costs of organizing Internet conferences can be much less than transmission of broadcast TV learning programs. A demonstration of three such videoconferencing systems -- CU-See-Me, MBONE, and ShowMe -- via the Internet will be organized by Takeshi Utsumi on July 7, 1994, during his Global Lecture Hall demonstration, which will be received at the International Conference on Distance Education (ICDED94) in Russia" (Galitsky, et al., 1994). Cyberspace offers limitless possibilities for education in general and EDE in particular. The collaborative work environments created using multimedia technology will increase student interaction giving new possibilities to distance learning. Asynchronous communication made possible by computer conferencing, electronic mail, and voice mail allows students to control the time, place, and pace of study and also to interact with other students (Miller 1992). In the coming years, EDE will undergo revolutionary changes when students will gain access to large databases and dial-up and on-demand information services. Electronic Distance Education for Russia In the former Soviet Union, correspondence education had been widespread and extensive for several decades, dating back to 1929. Soviet distance education involved both a number of autonomous specialized distance teaching universities and what Keegan (1993) calls the "consultation model" where study commences with a residential seminar on campus at an institution also providing conventional education, following which students study at home from the learning materials provided. Home study was interspersed at regular intervals with on-campus consultations. Correspondence played little role in the second, and predominant group. Kashitsin (1993) indicates that in 1985 approximately one third of the 5.1 million students in higher education were in "correspondence" or evening programs. A major negative legacy of the Soviet systems of correspondence education is the generally poor reputation they gave to distance education. Since many of the programs duplicated those provided by conventional higher education, "and most of the students were employed adults, complaints were heard about lower standards and correspondence education being a `second rate' form of gaining knowledge. Despite this, correspondence study is still a major component in all branches of higher education in Russia" (Kashitsin, 1993). On the other hand, a very positive legacy of the Soviet educational system is the extremely high literacy of the population and the large number of people with sophisticated technical and engineering skills. But the Russian labor force lacks the analytical tools and market culture needed to be able to take full advantage of their skills in a market-oriented economy. There is thus an urgent, nationwide demand for training in such subjects as accounting, management, and finance. The return to this investment in retraining is very high (Kapelushnikov, et al, 1993). This is the basic rationale for the Russia Management and Financial Training Project recently appraised by the World Bank and developed with participation of a large number of Russian experts. The magnitude of the retraining task, with such a large population spread out over 11 time zones, and the paucity of well-trained experts in the relevant fields almost cry out for use of distance education, starting from a few "centers of excellence" where these skills are concentrated. But if Russia is to use distance education, the new system and methods need to be clearly differentiated from the traditional Soviet-style systems. Television and computer-mediated instruction and interaction could be an integral part of a modern Russian distance education system, which could then move into fully-digital advanced technologies. The postal system being unreliable and the telephone system inefficient, instructional TV -- both broadcast and narrowcast, making extensive use of satellites -- and computer-based communication are the most suitable for EDE in Russia and other countries in the FSU. Over 95% of the population in Russia have access to television. So television may be used to meet the general educational needs of people at all levels. For more advanced training and education, computer network-based systems supplemented by narrowcast television on the NTU model offer significant advantages over other EDE systems. Computer networks are expanding extremely rapidly in the FSU and are likely to be fully integrated into educational institutions everywhere. Lessons from Germany's and Japan's post World War II economic recoveries, which were based on their strong human resources as much as on the replacement of destroyed physical capital, will also apply to Russia. Russia has a large and motivated labor force. The members of this labor force know how to learn, and are eager to learn new skills which will make them effective in a market-oriented economy. Motivation is high because this is a question of survival for them -- massive unemployment threatens them if the twin challenges of privatization and (for many) conversion from defense production to civilian production cannot be met (Kapelushnikov, et al., 1993). If the Russian labor force can be trained efficiently and effectively to work and thrive in a market economy, Russia's economic recovery will be accelerated. Russia's integration into the world economic community can be facilitated by its strong natural resource base and even stronger scientific and technical human resource base, which provides the basis for exports of high-technology goods and services (Kapelushnikov, et al, 1993; Galitsky, et al, 1994). EDE can play a major role in facilitating the transition of Russia to a market economy. The potential benefits of an all-Russia EDE system have been well documented (Keyssar and Knight, 1993; Guriev, 1993; Working Group on Distance Learning, 1993). The idea is to establish a large network of interconnecting EDE centers in key locations in Russia with a main center in Moscow. If such a system is in place in a year or two, Russia could emerge from behind to become a world leader in EDE. If implemented in a phased and systematic manner, the Russian DE system could later evolve into a universal model for DE in the emerging global marketplace for education. Since Russia already has the intellectual capacity, manpower, and technology needed to create and operate a successful multimedia-based EDE program, it has the potential to become both an exporter as well as an importer of technology and know-how once the infrastructure for a modern system of DE is developed. Russia has a strong technological base in electronics, satellites, telecommunications, and computer science, much of it concentrated in the military-industrial-scientific complex located in closed cities and satellite towns. This strong technological base can allow newly privatized companies of the military industrial complex to produce the equipment needed for a modern DE System, helping convert military and intelligence capabilities to productive civilian uses. But in turn, the distance education system can strengthen these companies by allowing them access to training in management, finance, and accounting which they require if they are to realize their full potential in a marked-oriented economy (Gatsky, et al, 1994). The Global Role of the World Bank in Electronic Distance Education What should the role of the World Bank be in promoting the use of EDE to achieve global educational objectives, such as Education for All? With the Bank's development mission, what role should it play in developing and implementing EDE? The World Bank can and does encourage its member countries to invest in education and training through a wide variety of research and publications, including the annual World Development Report, several of which, beginning with the 1980 number, have stressed the importance of investing in human resources through population, health, education, and nutrition projects. The World Bank can also play a significant role in promoting EDE by funding EDE components of educational projects in its borrowing member countries. A World Bank loan supported the development of China's Central Radio and Television University. The Bank's role in supporting the Russian EDE initiative through the Russia Management and Financial Training Project is another example of this kind of action. If successful, this project may motivate other countries to follow suit. The World Bank already offers special courses in economics and related subjects through its Economic Development Institute (EDI). Seminars, workshops, and courses are being offered to officials and administrators from many countries including Russia and other countries in the FSU. These courses are offered in several languages. In its new strategic plan, recently presented to the World Bank's Board of Directors, EDI has committed itself to increased use of video, multimedia, electronic networking, and teleconferencing (Economic Development Institute, 1994). EDI can become an important node in the emerging worldwide electronic university, specializing in policy-making and implementation for economic and social development. World Bank support could be extended to building national links to what U.S. Vice President Albert Gore has called the Global Information Infrastructure (Gore, 1994). This can be accomplished by both telecommunications projects and education projects. By focusing more of its research effort on EDE, the Bank can also play an important role in the sharing of information and analysis of EDE. Conclusion Most of the developing countries are unable to provide even basic education to all segments of their population. 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