The Role of International Organizations
Several international organizations have, in recent years, established initiatives to assist African countries in establishing and developing distance education systems and in facilitating cooperation in their activities. These organizations include the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), The Commonwealth of Learning (COL), Consortium International francophone de formation à distance (CIFFAD), and the International Council for Distance Education (ICDE).
UNESCO. Among the United Nations agencies, UNESCO has taken a leading role in promoting distance education in Africa. In September 1990, UNESCO organized a regional seminar on distance education in Arusha, Tanzania, which was attended by representatives from all leading distance education institutions, funding agencies (including the World Bank and the African Development Bank), and other international organizations. At the Arusha Seminar, many participants expressed the need to find innovative ways to meet increasing demands for education and training at all levels and for different learner populations in the region. It was evident during the seminar that distance education has an important role to play in providing greater access to education, and thus in helping to overcome problems of equity, particularly with regard to disadvantaged groups. Distance education can offer high-quality, cost-effective educational materials by calling upon experts to produce courseware centrally for wide distributi
on.
It should be pointed out that there is already a tradition of distance education in Africa; some well-functioning operations demonstrate the efficiency of the distance education delivery mode. There are, therefore, considerable existing capacities, both institutional and professional, on which to build. Additionally, there is willingness on the part of African institutions and organizations to cooperate in distance education activities on regional or sub-regional levels; examples include DEASA (Distance Education Association of Southern Africa), ZADE (Zambian Association for Distance Education), WADEA (West African Distance Education Association), and SAIDE (South African Institute for Distance Education).
As a result of the Arusha Seminar, UNESCO has proposed establishment of a Regional Programme for the Development of Distance Education in Africa (RPDDEA), which will provide both a framework and a tool for supporting such cooperation. This initiative is in consonance with the program "Priority Africa," approved by the General Conference of UNESCO at its twenty-fifth session in 1989, which aims to provide a basis for activities in the fields of education, science, and culture, and which would help to overcome constraints that hinder development in African states.
The objective of the RPDDEA is to assist African states to strengthen their national capacities in order to efficiently develop and operate distance education systems. A main concern is to make optimal use of human, material, and institutional resources available in the region by setting up a mechanism of cooperation. The establishment—by common consent—of a master plan of action within the overall framework of the RPDDEA will facilitate the implementation of the separate activities and, at the same time, avoid duplication of various multilateral and bilateral activities. Consequently, wastage will be limited and a synergy of national efforts will be facilitated. The rationale of this cooperative effort is to pool human, physical, and fiscal resources and to share results. The long-term development objective is to strengthen the role of higher education in human resources development and to expand its capacity to absorb the increasing number of high school graduates who presently have no access t
o existing institutions of higher education.
One of the strategies adopted by UNESCO is to strengthen selected national institutions to the extent that they can meet national as well as regional needs. To this end the Open University of Tanzania is receiving considerable resources and support from UNESCO and other organizations and will, in time, be able to extend its programs to other countries in the region. UNESCO has also been instrumental in establishing institutional links between the Open University of Tanzania and the Open University of Spain and in funding a Chair of Distance Education at the Open University of Tanzania.
COL. The Commonwealth of Learning has initiated or developed distance education projects in all of the seventeen Commonwealth countries in Africa (which now includes South Africa). Established by Commonwealth governments in September 1988, with its headquarters in Vancouver, Canada, COL has a mandate to create and widen access to learning and to improve the quality of education by using distance education techniques and associated communications technologies to meet the particular human resource development requirements of member countries.
During the past six years of its existence, COL has focused its activities on five key areas:
- instructional materials
- telecommunications and technology
- information services
- training
- continuing professional education
Examples of major programs within the African region have been cited throughout this paper to illustrate how attention to these areas has been translated into action. Other areas that have received special attention include teacher education, the role of women in development, and the environment.
UNESCO and COL have entered into a formal agreement to establish closer working relations on matters of mutual interest and on common goals. In 1993 the two organizations co-sponsored the consultancy mission that finally produced the implementation plan for the Open University of Tanzania.
CIFFAD. The Consortium International francophone de formation à distance is an international body for the French-speaking countries that has played a role similar to COL's. Mauritius and Seychelles, which are bilingual, have benefited from both COL and CIFFAD. These two organizations, which were established at about the same time, clearly illustrate the growing importance that the whole international community places on international cooperation in using distance education to make learning opportunities more readily available and effective.
ICDE. Under the auspices of the International Council for Distance Education and UNESCO, a joint initiative entitled "Multi-Channel Learning Base" has been established to serve thirteen countries in Eastern and Southern Africa. Based in Harare, Zimbabwe, the project will attempt to strengthen the capacity of African countries to develop effective distance teaching systems. As a first step, ICDE has commissioned an international team of distance educators to prepare a Compendium for Developing and Managing Distance Education Operations, which will serve as a basic reference for building competence in open and distance learning systems.
Professional Associations
The establishment of professional associations for distance education has been one of the most effective ways of enhancing international cooperation. In Southern Africa, for example, a quiet revolution in distance education has been taking place in the last two decades. Since 1972, distance teaching institutions and staff in the three smallest countries have met and exchanged information, materials, and experiences on a regular basis. Functioning under the joint auspices of the former Universities of Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland, the joint Correspondence Committee (BLSCC) facilitated collaborative activities in distance education between and among the three countries. Gradually the membership of the joint committee was expanded to include neighboring countries, and its name changed to the Distance Learning Association of Southern Africa (DLASA). More recently, the association has transformed itself into the Distance Education Association of Southern Africa (DEASA), with a total membership of eighte
en institutions from nine countries in the sub-region.
Through support from The Commonwealth of Learning (COL)/Australian International Development Assistance Bureau (AIDAB) and coordinated by the Programme Advisory Committee for Southern Africa, DEASA has emerged as a major professional association for human resource development in the sub-region. Its main activities have focused on the training of staff in the various aspects of distance education, particularly course writing and editing, the application of media technologies, the production and distribution of handbooks developed at the training workshops, and the production of a regular newsletter to facilitate information sharing among the members. More than 120 people, over half of them women, have participated in the DEASA training workshops.
Plans are currently under way to establish a network of activities between DEASA and the newly founded distance education associations in Zambia (ZADE) and West Africa (WADEA), both of which are professionally and financially supported by COL. Institutions in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and The Gambia comprise the membership of WADEA.
Materials Acquisition and Development
When the officials at Makerere University in Uganda wanted to launch a distance education program for the in-service training of secondary school teachers, they decided to use existing course materials rather than to write new courses. At their request, COL assisted the University, through the Centre for Continuing Education, to start a Bachelor's of Education program by facilitating the transfer of course materials from the University of Nairobi and by providing training for course writers, editors, and instructors. The first group of 200 students was enrolled in January 1992. At the same time, a parallel Bachelor's of Commerce degree program by distance education was started with an initial enrollment of 100 students. COL facilitated the acquisition of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants' (ACCA) Level I materials for use in the program through a special grant from the United Kingdom Overseas Development Agency.
The two programs have benefited from a series of training workshop sponsored by COL and from resource persons drawn from Makerere and Nairobi. Makerere University is gradually building its own capacity to handle the programs effectively with decreasing reliance on Nairobi. Additionally, Makerere will be able to produce its own materials to replace those borrowed from outside. The success of the collaboration between Makerere and Nairobi has been replicated elsewhere in the establishment of distance education programs at the University of Zimbabwe and the Open University of Tanzania. COL will continue to encourage closer cooperation between Third World countries since such cooperation increases the relevance and lowers the cost of joint activities. A final example of international cooperation in materials acquisition and development is the transfer of Land Surveying course materials from New Zealand to be used in Zimbabwe and Kenya for the training of technical support staff.
Training of Distance Educators
The staff members of distance teaching institutions are often drawn from other sectors of education and require training to develop the particular skills needed for implementing and managing distance education programs. Professional associations have given special attention to the training of distance educators. The areas of training covered in workshops haveincluded course writing and editing, radio script writing and production, instructor orientation and training, and management of student support services and record-keeping systems. COL has facilitated the sharing of training experiences and expertise among various countries and institution in Commonwealth Africa.
Another international organization that has made a significant contribution to the training of African distance educators is the International Extension College (IEC), based in Cambridge, England. For over twenty-three years, IEC has been active in the professional development of staff from distance education programs, primarily in developing countries and particularly in Africa. Further, IEC has continued to provide project support and consultancy services by experts drawn from different parts of the world, including Africa.
The latest development in international collaboration for the training of distance educators is the Rajiv Gandhi Fellowship Scheme, an initiative of COL in association with the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and with support from the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. Under this project, 100 fellowships will be awarded to graduates from fourteen Commonwealth developing countries to enable them to enroll for the two-year Master's of Distance Education program offered at a distance by IGNOU in India. The program will be offered in two parts: the post-graduate diploma program, lasting one year, to be followed by the master's degree program for an additional year. IGNOU will handle all aspects of the academic program from the admission of students to the conduct of final examinations and the conferment of diplomas and degrees; COL will arrange for the provision of tutorial sessions locally. The African countries that have been invited to participate in the first phase of the project are The Gambia, Ghana
, Mauritius, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. This initiative demonstrates a laudable example of collaboration among Third World countries in the training of professional distance educators.
Research and Evaluation
A variety of important research and evaluation projects focusing on distance education have been completed in African states in recent years. In 1991, a comprehensive evaluation of the distance education unit of the Department of Non-formal Education in Botswana, the first evaluation since its inception in 1973, was carried out by one external consultant and two local consultants. The final evaluation report has been used by the government as the basis for planning future development in adult and further education.
A survey of distance education in Ghana was conducted in 1992 by two external and two internal consultants; as a result, a national distance education unit was established by the government to coordinate and conduct distance education programs in higher education and training. Additionally, possible linkages between Ghanaian universities and their Canadian counterparts are being explored with assistance and advice from COL.
In 1993, COL sponsored one external consultant to join a team of international evaluators to conduct an impact evaluation of the distance education unit of the African Medical Research Foundation (AMREF), based in Kenya. The final report made a number of recommendations for improving and expanding the distance education programs in the years ahead.
An international team of experienced distance educators, put together by the South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE), carried out a review and assessment of distance education provision in South Africa early in 1994. The aims of this review and assessment exercise were threefold:
- To provide a thorough assessment of the current provision of distance education in South Africa
- To propose ways in which distance education can contribute integrally to the realization of the principles and goals proposed for the new education and training system, especially those of open learning
- To recommend needed changes in present educational provision
The report of the review and assessment will be discussed widely in public and modified where necessary for use by the Government of National Unity as the basis for consultation with all stakeholders and appropriate institutions to establish the policies, objectives, and approaches that will characterize open learning and distance education in the new South Africa.
The latest initiative in research and evaluation has been launched through a project entitled "Distance Education Studies in East and Southern Africa" (DESESA), which brings together the six countries of Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Its main objectives include researching, documenting, and publishing information on state-of-the-art distance education, providing a discussion forum for distance education specialists, collaborating in the orientation and training of researchers, and generally strengthening the capacities of the local distance education institutions.
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