Author:
Chairman, Educational Planner, Policy Analyst
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Date Posted: 04:18:49 11/01/99 Mon
In reply to:
Policy analyst
's message, "Re: A HYPOTHETICAL - SCRIPT - broad issues!" on 04:09:42 11/01/99 Mon
CHAIRMAN:We will take questions now. Please introduce yourself and the organization you represent before you ask your question. Yes, (gesturing to the educational planner, the first to raise his hand).
EDUCATIONAL PLANNER - QUESTIONS: I am the educational planner in the Department of Education. I've several questions. Firstly, the idea seems attractive on the surface and I know it is something new for us. My questions are: (1) what is the implementation time-frame you're looking at? What about the other technical and technological requirements such as power source, telephone systems, satellite, etc.? What is the cost of this undertaking? And what is the point of higher education when there are not enough jobs now for everyone?
POLICY ANALYST- ANSWERS: These are very good questions. And I am not going to attempt to satisfy all of them. In terms of implementation time frames, I think the sooner we start, the better prepared we will be 20 years from now. How can we begin? The beginning of change towards the goal of higher education without campus is when we can think positively about its "do-ability". We can take either a position of, "Ah, that is doable in theory but it is another thing in practice" or we can say "let's do it, and let's start planning right now for it". But then you ask, what about the technical hurdles such as power source and communication infrastructures? Again, "if there's a will, there's a way". You know that in some parts of the country, individuals are using solar energy already. We have a lot of sunlight during most times of the year. Solar energy would appear to be a low maintenance power source for our situation and I believe, is environmentally friendly. But I stand to be corrected by the representative from the National Power and Energy. This does away with costs of maintaining large equipment, paying compensations for establishing alternative sources such as hydro-electricity, dependence on fossil fuel, and it fulfills the requirement for pollution free appliance. In terms of telecommunications infrastructure, I believe that technology is now advanced to a stage where there can be direct satellite communications that can facilitate electronic communication via computers and TV. Those in the industry can elaborate on this. Again, such technology would do away with vandalism of communication pylons located on "traditional land" and ensuing land compensation claims as you all know too well, just to name a couple.
To your point about job availability for higher education graduates, I guess there are a number of assumptions or philosophies for human resource development. What you are suggesting is what is called "the manpower model", which is fine if we can hold down individuals to perform only the jobs for which they have the qualifications or for which they are trained. You know that many of you here are in administrative positions when you were trained either as doctors, teachers, engineers, nurses, or whatever. Several academics and economists are now politicians. So how can we be certain that higher education is only justifiable because there are jobs out there for its output? We therefore should realize that education's, higher education's purpose is not only to prepare individuals for the work place although that is largely perceived to be the purpose. Individuals have a mind of their own. I believe in the flexibility, the capacity of human beings to adapt to changing circumstances if they can see the need to do so, if appropriate incentives are perceived to exist, or if it means survival or extinction. What I am saying is that our responsibility is to facilitate the means or processes by which individuals who can and are willing should be given the opportunity to advance their knowledge and competence. And it is up to them to use that knowledge and competence in whatever way they choose. If we end up with a highly educated population, is that bad? On the contrary, I think new jobs will be created as a result of restructuring our ways of providing education. More training will be required to get conventional teachers and new student teachers to take on board, ways of handling technology and information to enhance learning for both the residential student and non-residential student. This shift in itself will create jobs for people with different technical & technological skills to keep the systems running. Again, if we think that this is too soon to start, thirty years from now we will still say that it is too early to start when the rest of industry and the world has moved on 5 to 10 steps ahead. The effect on our economy and education is that we would be 5 to 10 steps backwards.
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