Opening Up Access To Distance Education.

How can distance education increase access to previously disadvantaged individuals and groups? It may be argued that there is no reason why distance education should necessarily be concerned with this issue, especially if “distance education” is narrowly defined and is considered in terms of “education delivered across space.” In this instance, distance education is linked to the system of delivery; it reaches those unable to study because of physical distance. However, this conceptualization of distance education usually leads to the expanded argument that distance education be used to remove barriers for others whose primary barrier may not be geographic. A major reason for establishing distance education systems was to reach groups that would otherwise not be able to access learning opportunities. Achieving greater egalitarianism in education was a primary motivation for establishing the British Open University; overcoming physical problems of distance was less important.

If the first question is “who should have access,” a second question is “access to what?” Most distance education in western society is designed as individualized learning for academic and vocational credentials. Much less is targeted as social purpose education (education to prepare for and facilitate change aimed at improving the social, political, and economic conditions of disadvantaged groups) or even at providing generalized non-credit liberal adult education (Wiltshire, 1980). It must be acknowledged, of course, that some education may serve diverse purposes, depending upon the students’ own goals. Students may use a particular course to meet individual and/or social purposes. For example, a student may enrol in a credit English course not to satisfy degree requirements but rather to enhance her or his participation in political or community activity.

If, however, the primary purpose of most educational endeavours is to serve the economy and is considered to be an investment in “human capital” such that students, companies, and society will advance economically (Schultz, 1961), then it could be argued that the “educational” experience is very limited and that it provides little access to liberal or critical adult education. Given the individualized and asocial nature of the individual learning experience provided by the more traditional approaches to distance education, it may be that this approach to learning is best suited to delivering the more limited educational experience discussed above. (It must be acknowledged that computer- and video-conferencing may render the learning experience less isolated and more social. However these technologies may also be less “accessible” to some.) By extension, it could be argued that distance education should perhaps be satisfied with increasing access to learning opportunities that serve an economic end. If this is the case, satisfaction with accomplishing this goal should not mask the failure to promote access to “social” education as it is described here. And, importantly, success in one area should not be allowed to dictate a narrow purpose. It is argued here that distance education can serve diverse and even opposite educational goals.

There is some evidence that distance educators are becoming more interested in the social dimension of distance education and a little less obsessed with the latest delivery systems as ends in themselves. The 1995 deliberations of the Canadian Association for Distance Education (CADE) conference substantiate this point. This observation does not mean that distance educators have embraced a broader social purpose to develop more diverse interests in and for democratic society. It does, however, provide an opening.

How can distance education serve the social purposes of adult education in the next century? If distance education consciously uses more social forms of learning (for example, group and co-operative learning) and if it is linked to social movements, there is greater likelihood that the kind of educational experience (including experiential and critical knowledge) that leads to diverse social purposes may be realized. For example, instead of emphasizing individual learning that is designed to serve a company’s economic goals by preparing future human resource managers, a learner may be provided with an opportunity to learn how to work with others to establish a genuinely democratic self-managed enterprise. In this example, the distance learning institution could provide vocational technical knowledge linked to the meetings of a community enterprise group.

Establishing such links is difficult because it is at odds with the notion of “manufactured consent” (Chomsky, 1994). In this context “consent” refers to the belief that to compete in a global economy it is necessary to attract investors who, in turn, are attracted by the availability of a highly skilled and educated workforce. (However, according to Swift [1995], the actual evidence to support this point of view is slight.) To mobilize distance education to support sustainable development and a local economy is to resist the corporate drive to globalization. If distance educators are to be a force for democracy, they must contest the external “reality” (recognizing the multiplicity of realities, depending upon perspective). Equally as important, they must recognize the internal constraints of the distance education institution itself.