Assignment No.2
Q.1 Explain with specific example the relationship of higher education with employment situation in the developing countries?
University education is more than the next level in the learning process; it is a critical component of human development worldwide. It provides not only the high-level skills necessary for every labor market but also the training essential for teachers, doctors, nurses, civil servants, engineers, humanists, entrepreneurs, scientists, social scientists, and a myriad of other personnel. It is these trained individuals who develop the capacity and analytical skills that drive local economies, support civil society, teach children, lead effective governments, and make important decisions which affect entire societies.
An educated populace is vital in today’s world, with the convergent impacts of globalization, the increasing importance of knowledge as a main driver of growth, and the information and communication revolution. Knowledge accumulation and application have become major factors in economic development and are increasingly at the core of a country’s competitive advantage in the global economy. The combination of increased computing power, diminishing prices of hardware and software, improvement of wireless and satellite technologies, and reduced telecommunication costs has all but removed the space and time barriers to information access and exchange.
The recent World Bank study Globalization, Growth, and Poverty: Building an Inclusive World Economy, by David Dollar and Paul Collier, describes how 24 developing countries that integrated themselves more closely into the global economy experienced higher economic growth, a reduced incidence of poverty, a rise in the average wage, an increased share of trade in gross domestic product, and improved health outcomes. These countries simultaneously raised their rates of participation in higher education. Indeed, the countries that benefited most from integration with the world economy achieved the most marked increases in educational levels. In addition, there is growing evidence that university education, through its role in empowering domestic constituencies, building institutions, and nurturing favorable regulatory frameworks and governance structures, is vital to a country’s efforts to increase social capital and to promote social cohesion, which is proving to be an important determinant of economic growth and development.
Despite great progress in the past few years, children are denied education. We must understand that education and development go hand in hand. The Role of education in developing countries is a very important one as lack of education causes poverty and slow economic development of a country especially if the country is a developing country. Education is very important for everyone it’s a primary need of any individual, every girl or boy child should have the right to quality education so that they can have better chances in life, including employment opportunities, and better health.
The role of education in poverty reduction is huge. Some advantages of education are: it boosts economic growth and increases the GDP of a country. It even reduces infant mortality rate, increases human life expectancy. Education is an important investment in a country as there are huge benefits. Education guarantees lifetime income; it promotes peace and reduces drop-out rates from schools and colleges and encourages healthy competition. Many children dropout form colleges as they are not aware of the advantages of college education.Education helps in making the right decisions at the time of conflicts.
These days school students are restricted only to academics. We also need to ensure that school education equips children with necessary life skills. Special focus needs to be given the most vulnerable and groups (including children living in slums, children with disabilities, and girls) who are most likely to be affected because of lack of well-trained teachers, inadequate learning materials, and unsuitable education infrastructure. Good teachers are a very important ingredient in every Childs education. Educated girls and women tend to be healthier, earn more income and provide better health care for themselves and their future children and these benefit also are transmittes from generation to generation and across communities at large, making girl’s education one of the best investments a country can make.
In India, a combination of discrimination, social attitudes, poverty, lack of political will, and poor quality of human and material resources leave children with disabilities more vulnerable to being excluded from education. It is essential that societies adapt their education systems to ensure that these children can get educated and have a better future.
Children who have access to quality educational programs perform better and are successful in their lives. It is vital that the education system in developing countries must be built in such a way that students apply their minds in the development of their country.
Access to education can improve the economic and financial lifestyle of citizens and determine the prospects of future generations, especially in developing countries. However, achieving these goals is complicated. Policymakers have implemented various measures to increase access to education but the results are mixed.
Q.2 Explain the concept of economics of higher education. What are different ways of financing higher education in Pakistan?
The year 2005 promises to be significant for colleges and universities in large part because of the impending reauthorization of the federal Higher Education Act (HEA). This Act currently provides $38 billion annually in loans to support postsecondary study and $14 billion annually for programs, over $10 billion of which are awarded to college students in the form of Pell Grants. The HEA also enacts policies to be administered by the Department of Education that range from regulation of postsecondary distance education providers to institutional accountability for educational outcomes. HEA programs and policies potentially affect 6,600 postsecondary institutions and 15.1 million students.
In this article, I address one particular complex of issues being considered by Congress as part of the HEA reauthorization process. These issues have to do with the rising costs of college attendance, their consequent impact on accessibility, and the appropriate federal role, if any, in regulating price increases.
In the ten-year period between 1994-95 and 2004-05, average tuition and fees, after being adjusted for inflation, grew by 36 percent in private four-year institutions and by 51 percent in public four-year institutions (College Board 2004a, Table 6b). Such increases have fueled concern that college is being priced beyond the means of low- and middle-income families and of black and Hispanic students who are inordinately represented in the ranks of the economically-disadvantaged. Critics have cited tuition increases in excess of inflation as evidence of mismanagement and waste. In Congress, discussion continues on whether the HEA should be amended to include sanctions against institutions whose future tuition increases exceed a to-be-determined federal formula based on cost-of-living indices. Threatened sanctions might range from institutions being put on a watch list, which would require them to submit a detailed accounting of expenses to the Department of Education, to the discontinuation of federal aid to students enrolled at those schools.
As a higher education administrator, I find the prospect of federal legislation to monitor or control the price of tuition alarming. The proposal is based on a misunderstanding of the economics of higher education, especially of institutions like Butler University that are dedicated to personalized undergraduate teaching. I would like to dispel some of that misunderstanding.
The economics of liberal arts teaching institutions
Unlike the 248 doctoral universities in the United States, which balance teaching with cutting-edge research and economic enterprise, teaching institutions include 217 national liberal arts colleges, which award at least half of their degrees in the liberal arts, as well as 572 master’s universities and 324 comprehensive colleges, which offer both liberal and professional studies leading to the baccalaureate.1 These 1,100-plus institutions comprise the classic image of American undergraduate education, where small groups of students interact with professors in and out of class, and each student is known by name and face.
In teaching institutions, our product is our graduates. We cultivate mature human beings who can think critically, communicate effectively, work collaboratively, and act ethically. Liberal education is not simply about the inculcation of knowledge; its end is the development of each student’s capacities to interpret and serve the world. This kind of education is necessarily personal and relational, for its outcomes are taught by modeling and exhortation as much as by testing and writing papers. My wife Suzanne has described classic baccalaureate education as an instance of preindustrial production. The object is not mass production of a standardized unit. Like shopping for fine clothes, each graduate should be “custom tailored,” not fitted “off the rack.” Undergraduate education done right is an apprenticeship, not a production line.
What are the economics of this kind of education? It is relatively costly. It eschews the “efficiency” of lectures to 600 students in favor of small classes taught by professors, not teaching assistants. Increasing productivity by reducing the workforce, having a professor teach more students, would be contrary to the ideal of personalized education. It also entails serious consideration of institutional size. Butler University, for example, has made a commitment not to grow beyond 4,000 full-time undergraduate students because there is evidence that, beyond that number, the quality of educational outcomes declines (National Survey of Student Engagement 2001, 12). For the last three years, we have capped the freshman class at 915. While this has led to increased selectivity as the applicant pool has continued to grow, it also means that the university does not realize the potential savings found in increased scales of production. Teaching institutions like Butler do not become more economical by producing more graduates every year. The very quality of the education they provide depends on limiting production.
If the ratio of students to staff is fairly inelastic and production is limited, then two customary avenues to increased productivity in industry are closed to teaching institutions. College administrators continually seek ways to control costs, stemming in recent years especially from rising expenditures for health care and technologymdash;two recurrent pressures on businesses in general. But mechanisms for increased productivity in industry cannot be thoughtlessly applied to higher education. The very mission and educational pedagogy of teaching institutions may militate against cutting costs by reducing staff or increasing net revenues by simply accepting more students.
Tuition and fees
These economics of baccalaureate education, however, are underlain by a more pervasive reality that is often not understood: tuition and fees have never covered the cost of college. In the public sector, tuition levels traditionally have been significantly lower than institutional costs because of state funding to subsidize costs (College Board 2004b, 2). However, that arrangement may not be sustainable. In Indiana, state appropriations for higher education rose in the 1990s, but with more students attending college, the actual share per student became smaller. Because of state shortfalls in recent years across the nation, the proportion of total costs covered by state appropriations has declined, necessitating the increases in tuition and fees mentioned earlier. Private colleges and universities charge higher tuition than public institutions, but even their tuitions don’t cover the full cost of education. The difference is subsidized in large part by endowment returns and annual giving, and shortfalls in these areas caused in recent years by the economic recession have contributed to tuition increases. At the same time, much of the rise in tuition and fees has gone to increasing grant aid to students in order to maintain accessibility. According to the College Board (2004b, 5), “institutional grants doubled in constant dollars over the decade.”
With this as context, I must dispute the perception that increases in tuition and fees have made college too expensive. In a recent op-ed piece, Purdue President Martin Jischke (2004) asserted that “going to Purdue today doesn’t cost a student any more than it did 10 years ago.” That is correct. A fundamental error is to confuse the rising sticker price of college with the actual cost of attendance. According to the College Board (2004a, 4), which publishes an annual report on college pricing trends, 60 percent of full-time undergraduates receive federal, state, or institutional grant aid, not counting loans that have to be repaid, and about ten million taxpayers benefit from federal education tax credits or tuition and fee deductions. This underwriting must be subtracted from published tuition and fees to arrive at a net price. The cumulative effect is that, in constant 2003 dollars, the net price for public four-year colleges and universities nationally in 1993-94 was $1,500; in 2003-04 it was $1,300, a decline of $200 (College Board 2004a, Figure 7). During the same period, the net price for private four-year colleges and universities increased from $8,600 to $9,600, a growth of $1,000 over the decade. Nationally, the rise in tuition and fees has also been accompanied by tax benefits and grant aid that have mitigated those increases. It is simply false to characterize higher education as being guilty of runaway costs that have unreasonably escalated the net price of college.
“Discounts”
Why is there a difference between the published price and the net price of college? In the private sector, the published price is an institution’s best estimate of what it can charge its full-pay students relative to the perceived value of the education it provides. It serves to balance the supply of places in the entering class with the demand of students for one of those places. This would be a straightforward example of the equilibrium point at the intersection of supply and demand curves, but in actual practice no institution charges all students the published price; there are always scholarships and grants that “discount” the price paid by certain students.
These “discounts” take place because a college is not primarily in the business of maximizing revenue. It is about providing education of the highest quality it can achieve. Improving quality includes attracting students of ability regardless of their capacity to pay and ensuring a diversity of experiences in the student body as part of preparing graduates to live in a pluralistic world. Scholarships and grants are merit-based to attract the academically able and need-based to reduce the economic barriers to college for middle- and low-income families, including families of color.
Some institutions can fund a large proportion of scholarships out of earnings from substantial endowments. Most private universities, however, create pools of grant aid by redistributing tuition revenues from families that pay all or most of their children’s way to students of ability and need. So while the published price may be an indicator of how much the education at a particular institution is valued, the net price reflects a “discount” that is oftentimes redistributed in the form of scholarships and grants to attract the academically able and the economically needy. According to the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (2005, 2), students in the private sector “receive more than four times as much grant aid from institutional sources as comes from federal sources” and the “proportion of minority students enrolled at independent four-year institutions is slightly greater than at state four-year institutionsmdash;29 percent at independent and 28 percent at state colleges and universities.”
Far from being complacent about issues of access and affordability for minorities and the economically disadvantaged, it is inherent in the educational mission of most institutions to strive for cultural and economic diversity in the student body. While the net price of tuition and fees has risen in the private sector by $1,000 over the past decade, much of the increase has been devoted to “discounting” efforts to ensure that students of modest means aren’t locked outmdash;in other words, to maintain and increase their access.
The role of government
The suggestion that the federal government ought to monitor or control tuition increases flies in the face of the economics of higher education. Especially as state grants for students pursuing postsecondary education decline, public colleges and universities have begun to emulate the private sector by using endowment campaigns and tuition increases to create pools of institutional financial aid.
One might object: why should economically prosperous families see part of their tuition payments underwrite grants for other students? One answer is that the diversity of students, whether in terms of talent, culture, economics, region, or legacy, helps determine the value of the very degree that one’s own child is seeking. Another is that without access to higher education, the economically disadvantaged risk becoming a permanent underclass. Unlike many European countries, which place students into vocational tracks in middle school and reserve university education for those in college-preparatory tracks, the United States has believed that the prospect of higher education should be open for all. It is the key to national prosperity.
Historically, higher education has been regarded as a public good, and states have heavily subsidized in-state students at their public universities. In exchange for state appropriations for higher education, the published tuition for in-state students at public institutions is artificially constrained and kept low relative to that charged at comparable private colleges and universities. A better comparison to tuition at privates is what a public charges out-of-state students. Published 2004-05 tuition and fees at the University of Michigan for an in-state student are $8,868; for an out-of-state student they are $26,854 (U.S. News amp; World Report 2004). (The published price for an out-of-state student to attend Michigan is higher than the published prices at most private liberal arts teaching colleges and universities.) For an in-state student from a prosperous family, paying the full $8,868 for a Michigan education is a bargain. For a low-income student, without scholarships and grants, $8,868 is a barrier to access. But as state funding has declined, Michigan, like other prestigious state universities, has considered enrolling more out-of-state students, because they bring more redistributable tuition income, and becoming more independent of the state legislature, which sets tuition for the school at levels lower than the school might need to meet its research and teaching responsibilities.
Controlling the price of tuition, whether by the state or the federal government, is insufficient to buttress access to higher education because current published prices may already be too high for low-income families. With the decline of state funding, and the prospect dim for significantly increasing federal higher education aid in the face of current record deficits, institutional aid must grow. If you’ve followed my reasoning, you’ll see that growth in institutional aid may entail increases in tuition and fees. On the very grounds of accessibility and affordability, then, federal price controls on tuition are exactly the wrong answer.
What might be more fruitful approaches? For state and federal government, let there be a recommitment to the underwriting of higher education as a public good. President Bush’s recent proposal to increase the maximum amount allowable for Pell Grants is a step in the right direction. With regard to tuition and fees, let the free market work. Let institutions continue to control their own finances. Higher education has demonstrated a continuing commitment to access and diversity, and tuition increases have actually been a means at colleges and universities like Butler of maintaining that access and diversity.
Q.3 Discuss need of assessment in higher education in Pakistan. Up to what extent you are satisfied with the present assessment system and how it can be improved?
During the process of gathering information for effective planning and instruction, the words measurement, assessment and evaluation are often used interchangeably. These words, however, have significantly different meanings.
Measurement
The word measurement, as it applies to education, is not substantially different from when it is used in any other field. It simply means determining the attributes or dimensions of an object, skill or knowledge. We use common objects in the physical world to measure, such as tape measures, scales and meters. These measurement tools are held to standards and can be used to obtain reliable results. When used properly, they accurately gather data for educators and administrators.
Some standard measurements in education are raw scores, percentile ranks and standard scores.
Assessment
One of the primary measurement tools in education is the assessment. Teachers gather information by giving tests, conducting interviews and monitoring behavior. The assessment should be carefully prepared and administered to ensure its reliability and validity. In other words, an assessment must provide consistent results and it must measure what it claims to measure.
Evaluation
Creating valid and reliable assessments is critical to accurately measuring educational data. Evaluating the information gathered, however, is equally important to the effective use of the information for instruction.
In education, evaluation is the process of using the measurements gathered in the assessments. Teachers use this information to judge the relationship between what was intended by the instruction and what was learned. They evaluate the information gathered to determine what students know and understand, how far they have progressed and how fast, and how their scores and progress compare to those of other students.
According to educator and author, Graham Nuthall, in his book The Hidden Lives of Learners, “In most of the classrooms we have studied, each student already knows about 40-50% of what the teacher is teaching.” The goal of data-driven instruction is to avoid teaching students what they already know and teach what they do not know in a way the students will best respond to.
For the same reason, educators and administrators understand that assessing students and evaluating the results must be ongoing and frequent. Scheduled assessments are important to the process, but teachers must also be prepared to re-assess students, even if informally, when they sense students are either bored with the daily lesson or frustrated by material they are not prepared for. Using the measurements of these intermittent formative assessments, teachers can fine-tune instruction to meet the needs of their students on a daily and weekly basis.
Accurately measuring student progress with reliable assessments and then evaluating the information to make instruction more efficient, effective and interesting is what data-driven instruction is all about. Educators who are willing to make thoughtful and intentional changes in instruction based on more than the next chapter in the textbook find higher student engagement and more highly motivated students.
In fact, when students are included in the evaluation process, they are more likely to be self-motivated. Students who see the results of their work only on the quarterly or semester report card or the high-stakes testing report are often discouraged or deflated, knowing that the score is a permanent record of their past achievement.
When students are informed about the results of more frequent formative assessments and can see how they have improved or where they need to improve, they more easily see the value of investing time and energy in their daily lessons and projects.
In the Master of Science in Educational Leadership online program offered by St. Thomas University, Professor Scott E. Gillig teaches a class called Educational Measurement. In this class, students are introduced “to elements of assessment that are essential to good teaching. It provides students with an understanding of the role of assessment in the instructional process,” including the proper evaluation of assessments and standardized tests, and how to make better use of the data in their daily classroom instruction.
Data-driven instruction, using accurate measurements, appropriate assessments and in-depth evaluation, is changing the way we view tests and instruction, as well as the way we communicate information to both students and families. Teachers who have a clear understanding of how and why these issues are important will find these changes give them a better understanding of their students and better opportunities to help their students achieve academic success.
Q.4 critically discuss quality and access as the two problems in higher education. Suggest some ways to address these problems.
Higher education is recognized today as a capital investment and is of paramount importance for economic and social development of the country. Institutions of higher education have the primary responsibility for equipping individuals with advanced knowledge and skills required for positions of responsibility in government, business, and other professions. Quality higher education is a source of great potential for the socio economic and cultural development of the country. “The nation can be transformed into a developed nation within the life time of a single generation.” Factors such as the distinctive nature of higher education institutions, international mobility of students, and teacher’s accessibility of computer based learning pursuit of research and scholarship, globalization of economy, and emerging challenges of the 21st century have a direct impact on the future development of higher education. The purpose of higher education is not simply to impart knowledge in certain branches of knowledge; it has deeper meaning and objectives. The purpose may be multidimensional and may be termed as personal, social, economic, and cultural. Education and particularly higher education cannot be divorced from its milieu and social context. Religious, moral, historical, and cultural ethos permeates through the fabric of the educational system of a country. “In the time of rapid international, political, and economical changes, the universities in South Asia and in developing countries are being transformed. Public expectations about access to higher education direct concern about role that universities can play in innovation and economic development” The applications of principles of market economies to the university systems of all countries have created a new context for higher education. The people in Pakistan and South Asia are neither deficient in talent nor in moral qualities in comparison to any other nation of the world, but about two centuries of foreign rule and blind imitation of western attitudes and methods, unsuited to the genius and spiritual conditions of its people, have spoiled some of the virtues and have brought a bad name to their intellectual capacities. “Pakistan is unfortunately really backward in education as in certain other spheres of intellectual activities but luckily people are not inherently incompetent or morally incurable.” It is however necessary that the diagnosis about maladies should be correct and the measures for curing these maladies should be appropriate in the light of that diagnosis.
South Asian countries are facing a critical period in their history, and on that account, everybody concerned with education has a responsibility for knowing what he is trying to do in bring up the next generation and why he is trying to do it. Higher education is faced with very severe challenges in the shape of various economic, social, political, and moral changes, and its future depends on the response made by its people to these challenges. “The problems plaguing the educational system of Pakistan and South Asian countries are multidimensional like population explosion, lack of resources, non-participation of the private sector, scarcity of qualified man power, inconsistency in the policies of various regimes, political instability, inefficient educational management system, wastage of resources, and poor implementation of policies and programme etc.”
The major challenges in higher education include:
Quantity
Despite the constraints of resources, the quantitative expansion has been highly spectacular in the post-independence period. The institutions have not only been multiplied, the student enrollments at colleges and universities have registered exceptionally high rate of growth. “The numbers of new entrants is now more than the total number of students in higher education prior to independence”. “The demand of higher education has thus increased by leaps and bonds. In spite of quality control as well as consolidation, it will continue to grow constantly for a long time to come. “The quantitative expansion is evident due to increasing aspiration of the people and social, economic, and political forces influencing the development of higher education. In the post-independence period, the role of higher education has been very well recognized in the development of science and technology, as well as various arenas of human advancement”.
Equity
The major breakthrough was evident in the democratic countries of the world where franchise was given to all adults irrespective of caste, creed, sex, and economic or social status. “The ideal of equity was severely constrained by exiting in qualities in the distribution of property and productive resources, low level of education and awareness among the people, and strong influences exercised by individual and group to further their own sectional interest rather than total social interest.” “The philosophy of social justice is very much akin to the principle of equity. It is a welcome development over the concept of inherent inequality which was sought to be explained by biological differences among individuals”
- The philosophy of equality of men being applied to political process, distribution of property, and productive resources is viewed as the source of inequities in society. This approach helped the development of capabilities among men through equal distribution of higher educational opportunities both in quality and quantity.
- There is the philosophy of inequality as a natural hereditary, biological phenomena, without any scientific rational evidence. This concept is rooted in sectional interest rather than in societal interest.
The growing numbers of colleges and universities have provided access to higher education to the people in various parts and sections of developing countries in South Asia. “But the enrollments of student’s especially female students is relatively very small”.
Development of society not only depends upon quantity of goods and services produced, but also on their quality. “It again leads to quality of life of the people and the quality of the society in general. It is rightly said that the philosophical basis of quality is the innate characteristics of a human being to attain a higher standard and the need of excellence for attaining a higher stage in the development. The scope of the idea of quality is severely limited by two widely prevailing views.
“The higher education commission has been providing financial assistance for these programs of faculty improvement which enable teachers to keep abreast with the latest development in their subject and conduct research studies as well as interact with experts in their own subject’s area and related field”. “These programs aim at improving the professional competence of teachers so that they can impart high quality instructions and contribute significantly to raising the standard of higher education in developing countries”
Among the challenges of higher education is the vital role of addressing student’s unrest. “The condition of higher education in universities and colleges is not satisfactory in the eyes of students. Lack of physical and educational facilities is bringing much hindrance in the way of development”. “Teachers are less motivated to do certain research work. Most teachers are not competent, and they are teaching in higher education institutions.” They have limited knowledge about subject matter they taught and many of them have no clear idea about the subject. “Even in Pakistani universities, the teacher at M.Phil. And Ph.D. level, are not competent”. “They feel it difficult to indulge in research work due to lack of knowledge about research methodologies”.
“Most students with backgrounds in arts, humanities, and management rather than in engineering technology, science, and medicine get involved in political activities. Therefore social or academic background is an important factor in determining the attitude of the students toward social economic and political issues”. “Therefore studies are necessary to fulfill the hope of the government and the aspirations of the youth as well as to cope with the changes which are the demands of all students of today”. The university students should learn to think about possible solutions to this fast changing world. “So in order to achieve this, the students at the university level need to get much deeper knowledge about the citizenship role in society and the new opportunities that open to the student due to economic development and technological advancement”.
Education can play a vital role in strengthening emotional integration. It is felt that education should not aim at imparting knowledge but should develop all aspects of a student’s personality. “It should broaden the outlook, foster the feeling of oneness, nationalism, a spirit of sacrifice, and tolerance so that narrow group interests are submerged in the largest interest of country.” “Students, the future citizens of the country, should be trained in democracy, its value and ideals so that they will have sense of justice which is conducive for the development of national integration especially in the particular situation of developing countries which are striving to build up a structure of democratic living”. Social and cultural factors, which are often ignored, are as significant as any of the purely technical factors in the formulation and implementation of administration policy. “The linkages between the policy and these factors are neither casual nor limited to the contemporary period so the university administration clearly demonstrates that the success or failure of university administrative reforms hinges on the presence and absence of certain variables given below.”
- Strong commitment and determined leadership
- Appropriate political environment
- Supportive social environment
- Types of reform agents
- Nature of reforms
- Favorable bureaucratic attitude towards change
However bureaucratic resistance to reform is a phenomenon which can be found both in the advanced and the third world countries. “Resistance to reform within a bureaucracy usually manifests itself in the behavioural patterns and attitudes of its members”. “These responses may be grouped in two broad categories, those that seek to project the university administration service as an institution, and the individual responses to various threats, perceived from within and outside the bureaucracy. In both cases changes in the status quo are regarded as a potential threat to survival”.
The current size of present faculty is very small according to the general international standard. “The teacher/student ratio is very small even according to many third world countries standards. The quality of university education at the college has decreased because of the exiting faculty”. “Many present faculty members are teaching courses which are not their own specialization”. “Many faculty members in most of universities are just master degree holders with little or no practical knowledge and higher education experiences”. “Concerning other elements of the budget and the allocations made by officers or governing boards among competing demands, the faculty should be informed of important developments in administrative planning including proposed capital expenditures, and the faculty should also be consulted on major issues of policy involved in such development.” “Obviously any viable plan must be designed as to capitalize as fully as may be consistent with academic standards upon all of these, and hopefully to forestall periodic crises.”
Q.5 what is meant by continuing education? Highlight its significance for a society and individuals.
Technology has the potential to revolutionize the traditional teaching and learning process. It can eliminate the barriers to education imposed by space and time and dramatically expand access to lifelong learning. Students no longer have to meet in the same place at the same time to learn together from an instructor. Fundamentally, modern technologies have the ability to change the conception of a higher education institution. No longer is a higher education institution necessarily a physical place with classrooms and residence halls where students come to pursue an advanced education. Thanks to recent developments in technology, the standard American image of a college or university as a collection of ivycovered buildings may need to be revised for the first time since the founding of Harvard in 1636.
Computers and telecommunications are the principal technologies reshaping higher education. Due to advances in each of these domains, electronic mail, fax machines, the World Wide Web, CDROMs, and commercially developed simulations and courseware are altering the daily operations and expanding the missions of colleges and universities.
Forces Promoting and Inhibiting Technology Use
Powerful forces are promoting higher education’s adoption of new technologies. The rapid advance of globalization that is lowering international barriers and transforming the business world is also expanding the potential reach of colleges and universities. With sophisticated communication technologies, institutions of higher education are no longer limited to student markets or educational resources in their geographic regions. Likewise, the growing need for lifelong learning opportunities to keep pace with social, economic, and technological changes fuels demand for accessible alternatives to traditional real-time, campus-based instruction. In addition, competition among higher education institutions contributes to technology’s advance within colleges and universities. Not wishing to be outpaced by competitors, many institutions are active participants in a technology “arms race” that requires the rapid adoption of new technological innovations as soon as they become available. The alternative is to fall behind other schools that are attempting to recruit the same students, faculty, and donors.
In spite of technology’s promise, its integration throughout higher education has not been rapid or painless. Many barriers to technology-based innovations exist within colleges and universities. Academic traditions, such as the faculty-centered lecture, make many professors reluctant to adopt alternative instructional strategies using the computer or telecommunication devices. The cost of many technological applications also prohibits their easy adoption at many resource-limited institutions. Before technology became such a central part of institutional operations, many colleges paid for new or improved technologies from funds left over at the end of their annual budget cycle. Now that technology has become an essential and recurring investment, most schools must locate additional funds to meet their increasing needs for technology resources.
Limited support to help faculty and staff members learn how to take full advantage of technology is another factor inhibiting more widespread use of technology in colleges and universities. According to the 2000 Campus Computing Survey, the single most important educational technology challenge facing colleges and universities is helping faculty integrate information technology into their teaching. The second most important challenge is providing adequate user support. According to Kenneth Green, director of the Campus Computing Project, higher education’s investment in technology hardware is, by itself, not sufficient to reap the full benefits of new technology advances. Green concludes that “the real [information technology] challenge is people, not products” (p. 1). Technology will neither reap its full potential nor revolutionize higher education if these barriers to its adoption are not resolved satisfactorily by individual institutions or the educational system as a whole.
Impact on Teaching and Learning
No aspect of higher education remains untouched by the technological developments of the 1980s and 1990s. Academic administration, as well as the instructional process, has been dramatically altered by new technologies. When compared to other college and university operations such as student services, housing, and administration, however, the teaching and learning process probably is being changed most dramatically by technology.
Traditionally, professors have used much of their class time with students to disseminate information through lectures and follow-up discussion. This was especially the case in introductory-level courses, where students lack a foundation in the basic concepts and principles of a field. In an era of advanced technology, this approach to instruction seems archaic and inefficient. Computers, especially web-based resources, can disseminate basic information more efficiently and more cost effectively than human beings can. For example, Gregory Farrington recommends that instructors use the web to do what it can do well. This includes presenting information to students in a variety of formats, twenty-four hours per day. Students can access course material when it is most convenient for them and return to it as often as they need to achieve basic comprehension, competence, or mastery.
This approach to information dissemination can save precious class time “for the intellectual interactions that only humans can provide” (Farrington, p. 87). Following this revised method of facilitating learning, traditional lectures can be replaced or pared down. In their place, classes can be more informal, seminar-like sessions with more free flowing discussion structured by students’ interests, questions, and concerns. In other words, appropriate use of technology applications can help instructors to structure more active learning opportunities. Research shows that active engagement in the learning process helps to motivate students and enhance their learning outcomes. New technologies can facilitate active engagement in learning by reducing the amount of class time where students sit passively listening to lectures.
Technology can also help to make education a much more interactive and collaborative process. Email, course-based websites, and computer-based chat rooms are some of the technology-enabled resources that facilitate communication and teamwork among students. Research by education scholars has shown that collaborative learning opportunities enhance recall, understanding, and problem solving. Technology can greatly ease the work of collaborative design teams, peer writing groups, and other types of collaborative learning groups, even among students who do not live in the same geographic area and who cannot meet face to face.
While technology helps to promote collaborative learning, it also helps to personalize and individualize education. By reducing the need to deliver vast amounts of information, technology can free an instructor to devote more time to individual students. With more time to interact and get acquainted, professors can adapt their teaching strategies and assignments to bring them more in line with the interests and needs of the students in their classes. Technology’s capacity to deliver large quantities of information over networks also expands the potential for tailoring educational programs to the specific needs of each learner. Dewayne Matthews argues that technology-enhanced programs “can be custom-designed around the needs and interests of the recipient instead of around the scheduling and resource needs of the provider” (p. 3). With the help of technology, educational programs–even full degrees–can be structured around flexible course modules that students can combine in a variety of forms to meet their personal and professional objectives. Matthews suggests that technology-mediated education makes traditional academic calendars and rigid curriculum structures obsolete because it can adapt education so well to individual learning interests and needs.
If education’s goal is to help the learner reach his or her full potential, why should education be designed for the convenience of the instructor or the educational institution? Essentially, technology is empowering learners to take more control of their education than ever before. The expanded reach that technology affords educational institutions has encouraged many new providers to offer educational services. This increased competition enables consumers to choose the learning opportunities that best meet their needs within the constraints of their life circumstances. As technology transforms the educational marketplace, the balance of power is shifting from the education provider to the education consumer. Education consumers are now freer to pick and choose, from a variety of sources, the learning opportunities that meet their goals. In this fluid educational environment, the old system of accumulating credits from one or two nearby institutions becomes too restrictive for many students who are balancing a variety of personal and professional roles.
There is a related shift underway as technology transforms the teaching and learning process. The traditional higher education measure of educational achievement, the credit hour, is also being questioned. Matthews argues that “learning outcomes, as measured by student competencies [rather than course credits], is the quality measure that makes the most sense to consumers” (p. 4). In the new educational environment defined by technology, innovative institutions such as Western Governors University award degrees by certifying that students have achieved certain required competencies, regardless of where those competencies were acquired. Such a dramatic shift in the way educational achievement is documented would have been unthinkable before the advent of the free market educational system stimulated by the technology advances of the late twentieth century. Measuring competencies rather than credit hours represents another shift in favor of the consumer. As long as a student can document competence in a subject or skill area, it makes no difference where or how the learning occurred.
Technology’s potential to lower the cost of education has been one of its principal appeals. The ability of computers and telecommunications to reach large audiences with the same high-quality educational programs has raised hopes for economies of scale never possible in the very labor-intensive traditional forms of instruction. To date, technology’s promise to lower instructional costs has not been realized. Developing the infrastructure to support technology-mediated teaching and learning has been a very expensive proposition. The possibility remains, however, that new, advanced technologies may eventually lower the costs of higher education as researchers and educators learn how to blend technology-delivered and traditional instruction in a more cost-effective manner.
Impact on Professors’ Roles
Technology has already changed the lives of college professors in significant ways. As the twenty-first century unfolds, professors’ roles will most likely evolve further as computers and telecommunications media are more fully integrated into higher education. Professors can now use technology to prepare for classes, conduct research, deliver instruction, and keep in touch with their students and colleagues in far away places. Electronic mail, fax machines, computerized databases and search engines, and high-tech classrooms are some of the technologies that have transformed the work of college professors. Many experts on teaching and learning and instructional technology are suggesting that a fundamental shift in faculty duties is underway as more technology applications are adopted in higher education. Because technology calls into question the professor’s role as a knowledge transmitter, educational reformers such as James Duderstadt, former president of the University of Michigan, suggest that professors should become “designers of learning experiences, processes, and environments” (p. 7).
Rather than serving primarily as a subject expert who shares specialized knowledge with students, this new type of professor acts more as a consultant or coach. With the aid of technology, his primary instructional role is to inspire and motivate students, to construct an environment that promotes learning, and ultimately to manage an active learning process. Ideally, in this carefully designed context, students take more responsibility for their learning and construct meaning themselves, rather than passively absorbing information from a professor. According to conventional wisdom in contemporary higher education, the professor has moved from being “a sage on the stage to a guide on the side.” This individual knows his subject deeply, but is also skilled at constructing situations conducive to learning. Effective utilization of instructional technology is part of the twenty-first-century professor’s redefined duties.
There has been some discussion that technology may eventually make many instructional positions obsolete, the same way it eliminated the need for telephone operators or police to direct traffic at busy intersections. Why employ undistinguished professors to lecture in classes when sophisticated telecommunications technology can bring world-renowned authorities into classrooms via satellite or the World Wide Web to inspire students and share the latest information in their fields? Critics of this proposal counter by arguing that big academic “stars” do not hold office hours, grade papers, construct exams, or counsel troubled students. They believe that professors should not lose their jobs to automation. According to this view, there will always be a need for many of the conventional faculty functions, such as designing learning opportunities, motivating students, and evaluating performance.
The future probably lies somewhere between these two contrasting options. Higher education will undoubtedly supplement its local talent with other human resources that have become easily accessible through technology. Yet it will also continue to employ professional staff members to design curriculum, manage academic programs, and work closely with students.
Technology is loosening professors’ control of the curriculum. Faculty and academic administrators once wielded nearly absolute power over the academic programs their institutions offered. However, technology has now made it possible–and commercially viable–for publishers, software companies, and other providers to design and distribute a wide variety of courseware and instructional modules. This alternative to “in-house” production of courses and academic programs is appealing for financial as well as educational reasons. Spreading the development costs of technology-enhanced educational products permits the integration of sophisticated instructional strategies, such as gaming and simulations, into educational programs. On the other hand, moving the design of educational programs further from those who know an institution’s students best causes many educators some concern. Technological advances usually lead to trade-offs. In this case, the benefit of being able to integrate high-tech elements into courses is counterbalanced by the reduction in local control of the curriculum.
Rethinking the Concept of College
Since higher education institutions first emerged, they have been physical places where people gather together to learn. Although higher education institutions have grown and become more complex over time, their basic essence has remained constant. Technology now calls into question the very idea of a college or university. Some accredited institutions of higher education, such as Jones International University, now exist entirely in cyberspace with no campus, classrooms, or athletic teams to tie together the academic community. The traditional campus-based institutions that have served the United States so well are being challenged in the early twenty-first century by a host of nontraditional competitors that offer education at a distance. Many of these entrepreneurial institutions are aided by an assortment of technologies, including computers, satellites, and electronic streaming video. Technology has vastly expanded the demand for education over the course of a lifetime. It has also released education from the confines of the conventional classroom. It has even removed the restrictions imposed by the clock by enabling people who have access to Internet technology to convene for the purpose of shared learning.
The multipurpose American university was so successful because it brought together the array of facilities, experts, students, and funding needed to educate the masses and expand the boundaries of knowledge in service to humanity. The university assembled the critical mass of talent and resources necessary to meet the knowledge needs of a dynamic society. Although this formula worked throughout the twentieth century, technology is challenging this comfortable arrangement. It has enabled many other organizations, such as corporate colleges and for-profit firms, to provide educational services such as degree programs, professional certificate programs, and a host of outreach services that were once monopolized by the higher education community.
The result of this “unbundling” of higher education roles remains in doubt. Technology has led to a vast expansion of the postsecondary education market, and it is calling into question conventional views of what a higher education institution is or should be. However, no one knows precisely what a college or university (physical or virtual) will look like once the other side of the technology revolution is reached. In the past, when higher education adopted technological innovations, the educational system became more open, more complex, and more dynamic. If the past history of higher education can serve as a guide to its future, the technologies now working their way into the system will lead to a more diverse and responsive educational enterprise. How that enterprise resembles the system that functioned throughout the 1900s remains to be seen.
Special Challenges of Technology
In spite of its nearly irresistible appeal, technology presents higher education with difficult challenges. Systematic planning of technological enhancements to educational programs is difficult when technology changes so quickly and unpredictably. Academic planners are continually playing catch-up to implement new technology applications that appear more quickly than a careful planning process can anticipate. Similarly, paying for new technologies with exciting educational applications remains troublesome for institutions with more needs than resources. Authors who wrestle with the funding issues raised by technology argue that new budgeting strategies are necessary to keep institutions from lurching from one technology-funding crisis to the next. Institutions must view technology as a routine expense, not an exceptional special expenditure.
Training faculty and staff members to utilize technology effectively remains a challenge that many colleges and universities have not resolved satisfactorily. It seems clear that building a physical technological infrastructure is not enough. It is also necessary to build a human resource infrastructure for technology to fulfill its promise to higher education.
Finally, adequate evaluation of technology’s contribution to higher education remains a challenge. For example, in Teaching with Technology, Wake Forest University vice president David Brown concludes that “the case for computers [in collegiate education] rests on scant amounts of hard evidence”(p. 5). Much of the immense investment in technology that occurred in the 1980s and 1990s was to a large extent an act of faith. Brown argues that the logic in favor of using technology in higher education is compelling, however. He believes that “more choice leads to more learning” (p. 4), and that technology greatly enhances the “box of tools” a professor can employ to reach diverse students. According to Brown, most of the evidence that supports using computers in education is indirect. In his view, research demonstrates that repetition, dialog (question and answer, point and counterpoint), collaborative learning, and visualization and animation (using pictures to support learning) enhance learning. Because computers and other technologies can support these proven educational strategies, Brown concludes that the weight of logic comes down firmly on the side of technology use in colleges and universities. Although Brown makes a strong case for technology, more empirical evidence is needed to justify higher education’s massive investment in computers, high-tech classrooms, distancelearning programs, and other technology-based initiatives.
An Emerging New System
Duderstadt asserts that the United States needs a new educational paradigm in order to deliver educational opportunity to a broader spectrum of humanity. The advanced technologies available at the beginning of the twenty-first century are laying the foundation of a new higher education system, better equipped to meet the needs of a complex and rapidly changing society. The outlines of this system, transformed by technology, have begun to appear. The educational system that George Connick believes will eventually result from the current technology revolution has four defining attributes. First, it is easier to access than the old campus-based system. Second, it is unconstrained by the barriers of time and space because technology can liberate education from the restrictions imposed both by the clock and geography. Third, it is student-centered because technology can increase students’ learning options. Fourth, it is cost-effective because technology can reduce the labor-intensive nature of higher education and permit the reorganization necessary to make institutions more responsive and competitive.