Basic Education At A Distance: World Review Of Distance Education And Open Learning (world Review Of Distance Education And Open Learning, V. 2)

Basic Education at a Distance At the beginning of the twenty-first century, about one fifth of humanity is functionally illiterate. This means that they cannot participate fully in their societies or protect their basic rights. As most of these people live in the rural areas of the developing world, the task of helping them to gain access to basic education is formidable. Does open and distance learning have a role in reducing the growing numbers of undereducated people in the world? Open and distance learning has been used in many ways in the recent past to provide both adult basic education and primary education. What lessons does this experience offer education policy makers? Many existing policy documents link distance education with new information and communication technologies, portraying them as promising universal access and exponential growth of learning. Is this portrayal justified by experience? Basic Education at a Distance answers these key questions, and in doing so, assesses the impact and effect of the experience of basic education at a distance all over the world and in a wide variety of forms. This is the first major overview of this topic for twenty years. Chris Yates is Education Co-ordinator and Jo Bradley is Publications Co-ordinator at the International Extension College, Cambridge. World review of distance education and open learning A Commonwealth of Learning series Series editor: Hilary Perraton Higher Education through Open and Distance Learning World review of distance education and open learning: Volume 1 Edited by Keith Harry Basic Education at a Distance World review of distance education and open learning: Volume 2 Edited by Chris Yates and Jo Bradley Editorial advisory group: Maureen O’Neil Professor Hugh Africa Professor Denise Bradley Dato’ Professor Gajaraj Dhanarajan Sir John Daniel Professor (Miss) Armaity Desai Dr Maris O’Rourke Hans d’Orville Dr Hilary Perraton President, International Development Research Centre, Canada (chair) Vice-Chancellor, Vista University, South Africa Vice-Chancellor, University of South Australia, Australia President, Commonwealth of Learning Vice-Chancellor, Open University, Britain Former Chairperson, University Grants Commission, India Director, Education, Human Development Network, World Bank Director, Information Technology for Development Programme, Bureau for Policy and Programme Support, UNDP Director, International Research Foundation for Open Learning, Britain (secretary) The world review of distance education and open learning is published on behalf of the Commonwealth of Learning. The Commonwealth of Learning is an international organisation established by Commonwealth governments in 1988. Its purpose is to create and widen opportunities for learning, through Commonwealth co-operation in distance education and open learning. It works closely with governments, colleges and universities with the overall aim of strengthening the capacities of Commonwealth member countries in developing the hum