To describe a distance learning student
is rather like trying to give a definition of the human race, excluding
perhaps babies and small children.
I suppose you could make that statement about all students. Although
traditional places of learning tend to be circumscribed by geographical
location, age, sex, ability or interest group, if you put them all
together, most people would probably be catered for. Unfortunately,
face-to-face tuition is not always available in the right place
at the right time. An Adult Education college in Wandsworth may
be offering ancient Hebrew this year, and a disillusioned car mechanic
might find it difficult to take time off to study zoo animal management,
even if he could find a centre offering it. And how many Zambian
villages can offer ambitious young inhabitants a course in business
studies?
Although each distance learning college or centre, like its face-to-face
counterpart, offers a limited range of subjects, and those not necessarily
at all the levels the public may need, the very nature of this mode
of learning makes all things, or nearly all things, possible for
a large proportion of the population.
In line with popular understanding, research shows that ‘jobs
for life’ are now a thing of the past, and that retraining
is becoming necessary for an increasing percentage of the workforce.
Distance learning can sometimes be the only means, and is frequently
the best means, of acquiring a new post, or of gaining promotion.
Redundancy and early retirement leave people casting around for
interests to pursue, for new skills to acquire. This can be the
case for mothers with young children, and people temporarily or
permanently disabled. And people resident overseas may not easily
be able to train or retrain on the spot for a variety of reasons.
Such situations often require individualised programmes of study
which can be followed at home, on the bus, in a waiting room or
a library, at odd moments of the day or evening, or on a Sunday
afternoon.
The Open and Distance Learning Quality Council, which accredits
open and distance learning centres throughout the UK, receives incessant
inquiries world-wide about the possibility of following courses
of all kinds and about the reliability of different colleges. Touching,
sometimes heroic reports also come our way. There was the grandfather
of 76, who, cut to the quick by his grandson’s mockery, achieved
a grade A in GCSE Maths after a 4 month homestudy course. An illiterate
‘lifer’ became a highly successful journalist through
studying by correspondence. Letters from poverty stricken inhabitants
of the developing world demonstrate the amazing degree of self sacrifice
and mental stamina some people are capable of when seeking to improve
their circumstances through study.
In a sense, therefore, availability of educational provision is
endless. The ongoing technological revolution, with video conferencing,
courses and tutorial support on the Internet, tutorial contact via
E-mail and so on, facilitates things even further, increasing the
speed of contact for many, and thus improving the pace of individualised
learning and customer satisfaction all over the world.
The picture painted so far depicts something little short of an
ideal educational environment: law degrees offered by a college
in Guildford can indeed be studied by a student based in Singapore;
a business studies course can be provided from Jersey for a student
in Kiribati. As we all know, however, that is not the full story.
Distance learning often requires of the student a degree of initiative
and mental resilience not always associated with learning in a classroom
with a peer group and a teacher in attendance. The completion of
an enrolment form can in itself prove daunting. Learning alone can
be difficult, despite encouragement from friendly tutors, especially
if you are not accustomed to studying. And finding your own examination
centre is not always easy. All this after you have shopped around
to find the best value course at a reliable college, because prices
and standards vary in an unregulated commercial market.
But if the availability of money, motivation and perseverance can
in themselves be deterrents to undertaking a distance learning course,
it would be unfair as well as foolish to end on a negative note.
For, despite everything, colleges and centres throughout the country,
accredited by the ODLQC, are helping an estimated ½ a million students
at any given time to change and enrich their lives. Letters and
phone calls of appreciation from satisfied students abound, both
at the colleges themselves, and at the Council’s offices.
Contributed by: Margaret Philpot (Secretary), Open and
Distance Learning Quality Council, 27 Marylebone Road, London NW
1 5JS. U.K
This article first appeared in Educational Courses in Britain
