Author:
Chairman, Educator, Sociologist, Policy Analyst
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Date Posted: 04:56:30 11/01/99 Mon
In reply to:
Chairman, CEOs - Telecom, Power, ISDs
's message, "Re: A HYPOTHETICAL - SCRIPT - CEOs'COMMENTS!" on 04:47:32 11/01/99 Mon
CHAIRMAN: Thank you all for those positive comments. I think we have time for one or two more questions. Yes, (calling on one of the educators)
EDUCATOR: I am from a small private university and I am interested in the idea of collaboration and outreach. We are a small college with very limited resources and we have a lot of people who have approached us to provide certain programs we now conduct to our residential students. And so you can understand why we are keen on this proposal and the implied collaboration if I understand you correctly. My question is to the policy analyst. If you're talking of shared resources, who pays for the shared resources and how is that going to work? How is student assessment to be conducted and who would be responsible? I ask this because our institution has a different set of arrangements and our reporting and accounting systems may be different from the public institutions.
POLICY ANALYST: I am glad you see at least something positive in the concept. I can understand your concerns about financial accountability. Those are valid concerns that I think can be addressed by negotiation and mutual agreement between higher education institutions themselves. Institutions may come up individually with mechanisms for special allocation for purposes of collaboration. There could be incentives in terms of recognition of faculty and institutions through publication of such collaborative work and by reports of internal assessment and external accountability. This is part of the many details for further discussion today and in the design of implementation strategies. (Points to the sociologist).
SOCIOLOGIST: I am from the nearby university. I have been listening with interest and cannot help my agitation about the assumptions of learning you have adopted to base the whole concept on. I think, the proposal is starting out at the wrong end. I would assume that the first thing is to determine the number of people who are demanding higher education. Then you want to know whether people are comfortable with learning without a teacher or instructor. I think computer assisted learning is a mammoth leap from where we are now. For one thing, I do not know of one single rural high school that has a computer used for learning so that as they enter higher education at a distance, they have the skills to use computers comfortably for learning at a distance. My comment is that, I believe that our students would learn much more by interacting face-to-face with another human being than to learn by being in front of a computer. What is your reaction?
POLICY ANALYST: Thanks for your critical observation. My experience has been that implicit learning takes place everywhere, everyday with our encounters with one another and out environment. I also find that apart from verbal presentation, visual presentation and simulated demonstration allows me to grasp things better. This I believe is possible with ease through computer demonstrations than is possible by a teacher who may not have the skill of dramatizing certain elements of learning. Besides, teachers are scarce and may not always be available at times when students need their help. Children learn in their growing years largely by observing and later by listening as well. It is difficult really to measure which knowledge is due to structured learning and which to other interactions. My assumption is that, people are scared of technology because they are not given the chance to try it out. Of course, students will be given introductory training in the use of technology to begin to use it. After that, learning should not depend so much on whether there is a teacher or not. Individuals should be provided the tools for learning, not to be forced to learn. I think we will not know the difference between what is and what will be if we do not begin to venture test both.
Nevertheless, I want to thank you and everyone who have contributed to the discussion so far. Our debate will continue in small groups later.
CHAIRMAN: I want to interrupt at this point. I think we should have a break. I know there are others who want to say something but we are running out of time.
The brief presentation and resulting questions indicate some "positives" and mainly "negatives". It seems to me that many of us are not familiar with the implications of the idea of "higher education without campus". I definitely would like to have more time and greater discussion on the matter. That is one reason for the small group discussion afterwards to give an opportunity to others who have not spoken to give us their feedback.
I think, we in education have a cultural and mainly educational shift to make. But before we do, we must thread cautiously in order not to make expensive decisions with very little productive outcomes. Despite that, I want to thank the director for his initiatives to have us consider this idea. But we must be cautious that "newness" does not necessarily mean "better than". On the other hand, we may miss the opportunity to make the right decision to do something good if we are too cautious. On that note, I thank you all once again. This session is officially closed but don't forget the discussion afterwards. But the debate should also continue in your individual organizations and other public forum.
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