Distance Education: A Strategy for Development
Luis M. Peñalver

Context:
In this selection, the author discusses a variety of changes in education in recent years. Although this article focuses on the global situation, institutional planners could consider some of these changes in preparing strategic plans for their own organizations.

Source:
Penalvar, Luis M. 1990. "Distance Education: A Strategy for Development." In M. Croft, and others, eds., Distance Education: Development and Access. Caracas: International Council for Distance Education, pp. 22–24.

Copyright:
Reproduced with permission.

Education and Overall Changes

The political and socio-economic dynamics of the contemporary world are different from the pre-war dynamics of 1914 and 1939. Today they are fuelled by a struggle for dominance between two powerful nations surrounded by a group of industrialized satellites. That struggle is being fought in political, economic, scientific, and technological arenas. At the beginning of this century's last decade, we appear to be treading a path towards world peace and liberation from the fear of nuclear destruction. However, an imbalance persists between North and South—that is, between a minority of industrialized countries that monopolize wealth, science, and technology and a majority of underdeveloped or less-developed countries whose population alternates between states of hope and despair in the midst of malnutrition, disease, ignorance, and unemployment. That imbalance has generated another type of fear. Social tensions in the Third World, a world marching towards a "survival development" at an ever slower tempo, have caused the fear of nuclear disaster to shift to the fear of social catastrophe. We must now take steps to combat the problems that fuel these fears. What is required is a new sensitivity and determination on the part of developed countries as well as concerted and persistent efforts on the part of regional, national, and world leaders to close the ominous, growing gap between North and South.

Education as a Development Factor

It is commonly recognized that education is one of the most important means of correcting the North-South imbalance. Its impact would help modify the human social context that serves as a feeding ground for the current crisis. Through education it would be possible to achieve the following goals.

• Education would raise the cultural level and the comprehension capacity of people and stimulate in them the desire for growth. Such cultural development must be achieved while preserving the identity and values of people in less developed countries which are currently threatened by their dependence upon the culture, science, technology, and communication of industrialized nations. Using advancements in these fields, people in less developed countries must search for channels that will shorten the route to development while still preserving their own cultural integrity. To inform, to form, and to preserve—these are the three functions that must be fulfilled at the levels of literacy programs, elementary or basic education, and continuing education.
• Education would also provide the knowledge and skills necessary to qualify personnel at various levels to carry out functions related to social development and the production of wealth. Vocational or technical education and higher education would prepare teams of labor-force and middle-rung workers for the production of goods and services as well as high-level specialists for planning and directing the socio-political and economic machinery of nations.
• In the areas of science, technology, and culture, higher education would allow people to increase their understanding of the universe, nature, and human experience. It would advance knowledge of the biosphere and encourage in particular societies those activities that further the development of customs, beliefs, and other products of human thought.
• Education would also lay a foundation for just social equilibrium. The state of imbalance that exists today creates a division not only between people in wealthy and impoverished nations but also among people in different regions within a particular country.

Nationally as well as globally people are divided into groups that have achieved high degrees of political, economic, and social progress and groups that are struggling to maintain a subsistence level of survival.

Fortunately we are now beginning to see evidence of an awareness of the need to uplift underdeveloped countries and a sense of the solidarity between the two groups. Throughout the world, people are coming to understand that we are all occupants of a kind of cosmic village—occupants who have common interests and a common destiny that demands mutually-accepted responsibility for survival.

Evolutionary Changes in Education

In the current stage of its evolution, education is driven by scientific advancements and by the requirements of a fast-growing population whose needs are increasing daily, whose problems are becoming more evident and strongly felt, and whose search for solutions is becoming more urgent. This current stage points to several changes in the structure and goals of education.

• Education is no longer merely a means of transmitting traditional values and models of already existing social structures. Increasingly, it is becoming an agent of social change, promoting new knowledge, new values, and new ways of improving the human condition.
• Education has ceased to be an exclusive domain of minorities of select individuals. Its doors are now open to the general population in countries throughout the world. A democratic ideology is replacing a former elitist mentality.
• This open door policy has also helped to improve the status of women. Education has begun to play a leading role in liberating women from prejudicial and oppressive traditions. By providing opportunities for women to qualify for all positions, education is beginning to combat forces that retard not only the development of women but also the development of society as a whole.
• Education has also begun to reject the notion that learning is an appropriate activity while human beings are in their chrysalis stage but not after they have reached a state of maturity. In the past, dedication to study was viewed as a worthy attribute during childhood and youth, but it was expected to be abandoned during adulthood in favor of dedication to work. Education is no longer viewed only as a means of preparing people for jobs or professions. Today we recognize that learning is a lifelong process and that educational systems should provide opportunities for inquiry and discovery throughout every stage of human development.
• Teaching and learning activities are no longer centred exclusively on what is termed formal education—programs of study within school systems—and they are no longer restricted to classroom-situations. Instead, education relies on various modes of operation that spread learning opportunities throughout communities and even beyond national boundaries. Continuing education courses throughout the world provide opportunities for cultural development personal growth or special or specialization in particular fields of knowledge.
• The current need for educational interchange and interaction among institutions and countires requires that we create institutional consortia, develop joint programs of study, and establish regional or international education systems. The Erasmus Program in Europe and the Andrés Bello Program in Latin America (referred to as Bolivarianos) are examples. The middlerange plans of UNESCO—which unfortunately have been limited by drastic financial restriction—point to a future international system that has the potential to drive education, science, culture, and communication towards more ambitious goals.
• Throughout the world, various regions and countries are taking a close look at the structures, content, and methods of education, and pressure for change is mounting. Changing human and social needs call for ongoing investigation, evaluation, and experimentation so that teaching-learning processes can be changed to accommodate those needs. It is in this way that distance education emerged, grew, and became one of the most remarkable and revolutionary advancements in the history of education.

The Challenge of Expansion

1. Efforts to Promote Education
The struggle to improve conditions and advance development in the depressed regions of the world have gone hand in hand with efforts to promote and strengthen education. Such organizations as UNESCO have planned and implemented activities intended to fight illiteracy and improve as well as extend existing opportunities in education. The efforts of this organization are now being thwarted because certain nations, among them the United States and Great Britain, have withdrawn their support, alleging political and administrative reservations. UNESCO is thereby deprived of 40 percent of a budget that was already dwindling because of a sharp drop in the dollar and an increase in the cost of goods and investments. Efforts on the part of underdeveloped countries to raise educational levels have resulted in serious strains on their own budgets.

The economic crisis and the burden of foreign debts, the handling of which is at the mercy of international banking concerns and the governments that sponsor these institutions, are depleting the resources of third world countries and thereby restricting their ability to increase and improve educational opportunities. Some developed countries, through limited bilateral aid programs, have helped promote certain educational activities in some countries; however, the overall economic crisis has resulted in reduced co-operative support from governments, organizations, and institutions such as foundtations and universities. The impact of this crisis on education and on other social systems is aptly demonstrated in the brilliant contributions of P.H. Coombs (1985). It is only through means of a concerted international drive, involving public and private sectors, that calamitous outcomes can be prevented.