PROF MS MAKHANYA, PRINCIPAL AND VICE CHANCELLOR
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA
DOMESTIC TRENDS IN DISTANCE EDUCATION: THREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES
DISCUSSION ON THE LAUNCH OF THE NEW WHITE PAPER OF HIGHER EDUCATION
UNISA, MIRIAM MAKEBA HALL
7 FEBRUARY 2014
A very good morning to you all. Allow me to echo Prof Singh’s welcome to Mr Gard Titlestad. As the
higher education advisor to the Norwegian government for many years, and now a salted distance
education protagonist, I think he has just demonstrated why he is so eminently qualified to share his
views on global trends in distance education. It is always good to hear fresh views and different or
alternative perspectives on many of the issues and challenges that we are dealing with, or which we will
have to deal with in the years to come.
I have been tasked this morning to share my views on domestic trends in distance education, and
highlight some of the threats and opportunities that we will be facing, particularly in the context of the
recently released white paper, and it is that, to which I now turn.
The present picture of South African higher education is a bleak one, echoing many of the global trends
and dynamics that Gard has just mentioned. Key amongst these are:
1. the ongoing global recession that has exacerbated our national socio-economic and political woes;
2. the potential and pitfalls of technological innovation;
3. the growing phenomenon of internationalisation with the attendant commercialisation of education
(evidenced by an explosion of private HE providers and more deeply entrenched institutional
corporatisation); crises of leadership and management;
4. relentless calls for (free) access against a backdrop of widespread poverty;
5. concerns about the quality and relevance of our qualifications;
6. unsatisfactory levels of student support;
7. the changing nature of the academic and the academe;
8. the calibre and preparedness for work/professions of the graduates that we produce; and
9. serious deficits in terms of access to the internet in South Africa
In such an environment higher education providers are called on to ensure that their institutions have a
built-in agility (in terms of their strategies and operations) which allows them to adapt comfortably and
in good time to changing dynamics, so as to best accommodate emerging challenges and best utilise
nascent opportunities. However in the case of South Africa, this is easier said than done, because such
agility presumes institutional stability, continuity and a very sound foundation, which is lacking in many
HEIs because of their historical legacies. This is true for both basic and higher education, and there has
been a serious decline in both the quality of education and the calibre of students who eventually find
their way into our universities. This is particularly noticeable when it comes to ODL students who often
come from more underprivileged backgrounds than those students who meet admission criteria for
contact institutions. This poses serious challenges in terms of student counselling and support and in
assisting students into the desired levels of competency, proficiency and appropriate study habits.
A brief snapshot of higher education in South Africa reveals the following: Almost 2 million students
were enrolled in both public and private post-school education and training programmes in 2011.
Almost half of these students (over 900 000 students) are in public higher education, institutions, while
over 500 000 students are in public and private FET Colleges and close to 300 000 students are enrolled
at public and private AET Centres. Almost one million students (938 201) were enrolled in South African
public higher education institutions (HEIs) in 2011. Of these, 59% (556 695) enrolled in contact
programmes, while close to 41% (381 506), enrolled in distance education programmes. Over one-third
of all students who enrolled in public HEIs in 2011 are registered with the University of South Africa
2
(UNISA), making UNISA the largest public university in South Africa in terms of student enrolment, and
establishing ODL as key pillar of South African higher education provision.
In general, public HEIs vary greatly in terms of enrolment, ranging from about 7 000 to about 60 000
students per institution (excluding UNISA). Of the 23 public HEIs in the country, nine offer distance
education programmes. UNISA is the only public HEI which is an exclusively distance education
institution and over 85% of all distance-education students are enrolled at UNISA. Many of the other
public HEIs that offer distance education programmes have relatively small proportions of their students
enrolled in distance education programmes, with the exception of North West University, where over
40% of its students are enrolled in distance education programmes. Among public HEIs that offer mainly
contact mode education programmes, the University of Johannesburg (UJ) and Tshwane University of
Technology (TUT) had the highest headcount enrolment in 2011, at approximately 50 000 students each.
But what these statistics do not reveal, colleagues is the flip-side of the enrolment coin. The Green
Paper for Post School Education and Training (2012) asserts [that]
“Despite the many advances and gains made since 1994, the system continues to
produce and reproduce gender, class, racial and other inequalities with regard to access
to educational opportunities and success. One of the greatest challenges facing the
system is the large number of young people who face a very bleak future if major
changes are not introduced …….the post school system is not meeting the needs of the
economy and society as a whole…. A major problem in the system as a whole is that
provision of post-school education and training is inadequate in quantity, diversity and,
in many but not all instances, quality. Approximately three million young people
between the ages of 18 and 24 (that number is now estimated to be closer to 5 million)
are not accommodated in either the education and training system or the labour market
(These are the so-called NEETS). This is an appalling waste of human potential, and a
potential source of serious social instability.”
I think we would agree that the notion of education as a “public good” is fading into the background as
the demand for skills accelerates on the one hand, and the demand for access to higher education
escalates on the other, and one finds in the new White Paper for Post School Education and Training :
Building an Expanded, Effective and Integrated Post-school System (RSA 2014) an attempt to address the
plethora of challenges facing the country (outlined in the Green Paper) in a manner that simultaneously
3
redresses the past, adopts a more pragmatic approach to the reality that is South Africa today, and sets
out the vision for the South Africa of the future, namely:
“an integrated system of post-school education and training, with all institutions playing
their role as parts of a coherent but differentiated whole…. “ (RSA, 2014: vii).
You have just heard the Minister of Higher Education and Training, Minister Nzimande explaining the
policy objectives of the White Paper so I will not repeat those, but I will focus on the role rather on the
university sector, and in particular, new developments around ODL provision.
In the university sector the aim is:
“to ensure that a wide range of high-quality options is provided throughout the system,
as well to improve articulation between higher education institutions and between
universities and other post-school institutions. South Africa needs a diverse university
sector which is purposefully differentiated; the White Paper sets out principles to guide
the ongoing differentiation of the university sector and the formulation of institutional
missions.
It is also made clear that even though participation rates are set to increase, from just over 937 000
students in 2011 to about 1.6 million enrolments in 2030, universities must simultaneously focus their
attention on improving student performance, and student access, success and throughput rates, which
must become a national priority, as must issues of gender equity and disability and the development of
the scarce and critical skills needed for South Africa’s economic development.
Other commitments
made in the White Paper include:
•
The progressive introduction of free education for the poor in South African universities as
resources become available;
•
A new Central Applications Service (CAS)
•
increasing research and innovation, improving the quality of research, and building on areas of
strength identified as important for national development.
•
The development of a policy for the staffing of universities and the retention and growth of the
academe;
•
The establishment A National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences
•
Support for the study of African languages.
4
Strong partnerships and collaboration are encouraged across the sector, especially with the newly
named TVET colleges (former FET colleges). Universities are also called to build strong partnerships
with employers in order to promote the expansion of workplace training opportunities, especially in
those areas where qualifications or professional registration depends on practical workplace experience.
It is likely that ODL will play an increasing role in such partnerships, both in terms of training TVET staff;
its vocational offerings and the development of cooperative and productive relationships with
employers. Key to this relationship of course, will be paths of articulation in and between the
institutions and their courses and qualifications. This will require a more synergistic and strategic
approach to our courseware development and to our quality regime.
It is roughly estimated that the private TVET and higher education institutions will have an enrolment of
approximately half a million by 2030. That number is daunting in anyone’s books! And while we
understand fully the rationale for the push for access, HEIs have misgivings about its very ambitious
aims. The TVET sector is currently in disarray and the resources and capacities required to arrive at
efficient and effective quality providers, will undoubtedly place an additional burden on other public
HEIs who should be working in collaboration with the TVET sector, towards their successful
operationalization.
On 3 February the Minister launched a ten-year campaign called 2014 – 2024 Decade of the Artisan,
which will be run under the theme: “It’s cool to be a 21st Century Artisan”. He stated:
The Decade of the Artisan campaign seeks to promote artisanship as a career of choice
to South Africa’s youth within the post school education and training system as well as
to highlight skills development opportunities that are available for artisans. In terms of
the National Development Plan (NDP), South Africa needs to produce 30 000 artisans a
year to help grow the economy and reduce poverty. At present the country is training
an average of 12 000 qualified artisans a year. As government, we are determined to
meet the target set in the NDP and we are collaborating with various partners across the
public and private sector to make it happen.
I think that gives us all a clear sense of the determination and drive that is marking the
development of this sector.
The White Paper asserts:
5
There is currently little distance education provision for the post-school sector below
university level. The Department will seriously investigate the possibility of providing
distance education programmes at the TVET and community college level, including
dedicated staff and equipment. The theoretical component of apprenticeships might
also be offered through distance education, especially for those students who live or
work far from an appropriate college or who prefer this model.
One envisages a growing role for ODL providers in regard to these goals and it is probable that the full
extent of our commitment and involvement will be better understood and realised as the process begins
to take shape and direction. Be that as it may, it is possible that the size and shape of our core mandate
may change as we fulfil the requirement of the White Paper. However, I can assure you that Unisa will
not commit willy-nilly to any direction or collaboration. As you know we are currently engaged in a very
comprehensive review of our institution in preparation for our next strategic planning phase. You are all
involved in that process. We will make no rash decisions and those that we do make will be consonant
with the institutional strategy that we craft for the next strategic phase. So there is really no reason to
panic about the fact that our beloved Unisa will lose its illustrious identity.
Of course, most relevant for Unisa, is the fact that we will no longer be the sole providers of ODL. The
DHET is aiming for a post-school distance education landscape based on open learning principles, to
complement the traditional campus-based provision. It will consist of a network of education providers
supported by learning support centres and/or connectivity for students and will make available a wide
range of learning opportunities to potential students that are closer to their homes and at times
appropriate to their contexts. The DHE&T encourages the development and use of high quality national
learning resources as OER, the collaborative development of learning resources, more efficient use of
existing infrastructure, and an increasing emphasis on independent study as preparation for subsequent
lifelong learning. 1 Universities, especially comprehensive universities and universities of technology, will
be encouraged to expand distance higher education for vocationally oriented diploma programmes, and
all universities will be encouraged to expand online and blended learning as a way to offer niche
programmes.
1
A useful definition of open education resources is provided by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). They are “educational resources that are openly available for use by educators
and students, without an accompanying need to pay royalties or licence fees” (UNESCO and Commonwealth of
Learning, A Basic Guide to Open Educational Resources (2011: 5).
6
It will be necessary to ensure continuing professional development for full-time staff in the post-school
sector, and to increase staff numbers as the numbers of distance education enrolments grows. In
addition, it is essential to expand equitable access to ICT resources. Quality assurance will be an issue
with the expansion of open and distance modes of delivery, and must be given attention by the
Department and the Quality Councils.
This is a key development for Unisa on a number of fronts, the most obvious being the removal of our
relative monopoly as ODL providers in South Africa. We stand to lose students regionally, to those
universities who provide ODeL courses, and where there is a perception that both the service and the
quality of the course will be better than that which Unisa currently offers. We cannot allow that.
Second, in embarking on the OER route we need to safeguard against the uptake of our courses by new
ODeL providers, as this poses the risk of the bleeding of our intellectual capital out of the institution at
our expense. In my view it would make more sense for Unisa to work collaboratively with other
institutions and to share the cost and workload involved in courseware development, rather than just
“making it freely available.”
Third, Unisa runs the very real risk of losing good, experienced staff to institutions that are embarking on
ODL provision. Add this to the possibility of losing staff to the two new universities and we are faced
with a significant institutional risk in regard to our HR capacity. I can however tell you that we are
working in a focused manner on our talent management, our training and our remuneration, incentive
and benefits packages so that we provide the best possible working environment and conditions for our
staff and I trust that this will contribute to their decision to remain with us. I can tell you though, that I
have no doubt whatsoever, that people who might be thinking of leaving will soon discover that the
financial grass is in fact not greener on the other side!
But colleagues I have to tell you that the opening up of ODL offers Unisa a once off opportunity for Unisa
to position itself as THE ODL provider nationally and continentally. We have 140 years of experience in
ODL provision and that means that we have made the mistakes and found the solutions. We have
mastered ODL provision successfully where others are yet to do so, and we have been globally
acknowledged in that regard. We have built up an international reputation that is the envy of ODL
providers across the world.
7
In South Africa we are also fortunate to have a government that has accepted ODL into mainstream HE
provision.
That has not happened anywhere else in the world to my knowledge – in fact, the
commitment of governments to supporting ODL as mainstream HE, is one of the key aims of the ICDE
and the ACDE as we move into the future. There is a realisation that without government buy-in and
support, ODL will always remain the step-child of higher education. But that means that ODL – and in
South Africa that is primarily Unisa - must eliminate traditional perceptions of inferior quality and status
but proving its worth. Now more than ever before, Unisa will have to raise the bar by improving on the
quality of its offerings; the levels of its service; its throughput and success rates; and most importantly
the calibre of its graduates. We have a very limited window of opportunity. If we fail, others will
become the preferred providers and the past 140 years will ultimately mean very little. Then we will
really be the “university of last resort”. We must guard against that at all costs.
A final point that I would like to raise is that of quality. One of the key concerns in regard to ODL - and
especially ODeL - is the issue of quality. MOOCs, OER and other innovative and potentially useful
technologies have recognised and acknowledged quality assurance as their greatest stumbling block –
irrespective of the various efforts that have been made to bestow legitimacy upon them or to try to
accord them similar or equal status to the more traditional HE qualifications. Unisa is very fortunate that
ODL is an accepted component of South Africa’s HE system, which is quality assured. Few other ODL
providers, especially those in the developing nations can make that claim. This is something that we can
and must capitalise on as we position ourselves more assertively in the national and global arena. The
existing structures and remits of the Quality Councils will remain largely unchanged, but individual
Councils will be have greater flexibility to quality assure qualifications on NQF levels from which they
were previously restricted. So for example, Umalusi could quality assure certain Level 5 qualifications on
the General and Further Education and Training Qualifications Framework. SAQA will mediate where
differences arise between Quality Councils.
Ensuring articulation of qualifications is an important concern for the DHET as well as for SAQA and the
Quality Councils. SAQA must provide guidance on articulation between the three sub- frameworks 2 and
must endeavour to ensure that institutions avoid unfair and irrational barriers to acceptance and credit
2
The three sub-frameworks are: the General and Further Education and Training Qualifications Sub-framework; the
Higher Education Qualifications Sub-framework; and the Trades and Occupations Qualifications Sub-framework.
8
transfer. All institutions in the post-school system must work together to ensure that there are no dead
ends for learners. And of course this goes back to the point that I made earlier on articulation
I would like to conclude and perhaps reconnect with some of the more macro issues raised by Gard, by
sharing with you for your further consideration, some of the key imperatives facing HEIs right now: Lad
(2011 3) ranks these in descending order of importance, as follows 4:
“10.
Staying abreast of the changing regulatory environment – that is what we have been doing this
morning!
9.
Anticipating demographic shifts (this links to internationalisation)
8.
Improving governance and accountability (This is something that I will enlarge on in the
academic address next week. Suffice it to say though, that Governance is emerging very strongly
as a new trend in HE management and operation and I am really thrilled that Unisa, under the
guidance of our Chair of Council, and the VP: ASS has had the foresight and the support to
embed ethics, governance and sustainability in such a proactive manner at Unisa. We are in
fact, at the forefront of university governance!)
7.
Using assets strategically (This speaks to the stewardship of our resources)
6.
Decreasing governmental commitment (Third stream income)
5.
Going global
4.
Understanding and controlling costs
3.
Sustaining adequate net tuition revenue
2.
Making education affordable – access and affordability; and
1.
Going Digital – some might say – we need to “get with the programme”.
The New Media Consortium (NMC) Horizon Report: 2014 Higher Education Edition identifies 6 key trends
that are anticipated to emerge more strongly in higher education over the short to medium-term (that
is, 3 – 5 years). These are:
•
Growing Ubiquity of Social Media;
•
Integration of Online, Hybrid, and Collaborative Learning;
•
Rise of Data-Driven Learning and Assessment;
3
Ladd, L. 2011. Top 10 imperatives facing HEIs in 2012. OnCourse – December 2011. Grant Thornton’s National
Higher Education Practice. http://www.grantthornton.com/staticfiles/GTCom/Not-forprofit%20organizations/On%20Course/On%20Course%20-Top%2010%20article-12.14.11.pdf
4
* please note: the italicised comments are personal reflections.
9
•
Shift from Students as Consumers to Students as Creators;
•
Agile Approaches to Change;
•
Evolution of Online Learning
Aligned to these, 6 challenges are identified:
•
Low Digital Fluency of Faculty;
•
Relative Lack of Rewards for Teaching;
•
Competition from New Models of Education;
•
Scaling Teaching Innovations into practice;
•
Expanding Access (Over the next 12 years, the World Bank estimates a 25% increase in global higher
education attendance from 200 to 250 million – some even suggest 262 million); and
•
Keeping Education Relevant (The paradigm that has worked for over a century is gradually becoming
obsolete – what will we replace it with and will it be at appropriate quality levels?).
Distinguished guests, colleagues, I would like to suggest that higher education is at one of those rare
junctures or turning points in history. There definitely does appear to be a momentum towards various
forms of convergence amongst the traditional and less traditional models of HE provision, and I suspect
that this will take on various forms depending on the geo-politics. In South Africa we are witnessing a
fundamental reshaping and reordering that is clearly drawing HEIs closer together in a way that
presupposes far greater collaboration – not only amongst institutions but also with government,
business and other HEI stakeholders.
I am not convinced that the future shape of South African higher education will mirror the shape of that
in the North for example, to the extent that it does at the moment; neither am I convinced that South
African ODL will mirror that which one might find in the North in the future. I suspect that as the world
pauses and higher education “reformats its hard-drive” (to use an ICT analogy) we might find some very
different HE models emerging, including ODL. Because in the pausing, and the reformatting of our HE
“hard-drives”, we open up a space to write new identities that reflect our various unique characteristics
- identities that are not poor imitations or pirate copies of an original that was written a long time ago.
Let us have courage and confidence as we tackle our challenges, to maximise our opportunities and
shape our unique Unisa identity. I thank you
10