The "DISTANCEducation" section of the Georgia Center Quarterly On-Line is designed to provide a forum for discourse and comment about the practice of distance education -- its administration, operation, programs, and activities.This past October, Jerry L. Hargis, associate director for communication services at the Georgia Center, was invited to present a keynote address at the first "International Workshop on Distance Education in the Multinational Regions," which was held in Kosice, Slovakia. Hargis's reflections on the conference are featured below.
On October 28-30, 1995, the Technical University of Kosice in Kosice, Slovakia, hosted the "International Workshop on Distance Education in the Multinational Regions." This event, the first of its kind for that region, drew about 50 participants from the nations of Eastern Europe.
Keynote addresses were provided by representatives from Hungary, Slovakia, France, the United Kingdom (UK), the Czech Republic, and the United States.
The overriding impression from the conference was one of a new dependence on, and high expectation for, distance education as a method of addressing national agendas of education, economics, and employment. The next major impression was the need for regional cooperation.
The regions included in the conference are vast. The perspective of scale was provided by Alan Tait, from the Open University (OU) of the United Kingdom, when he described the area in his presentation as follows: "... the dimension of regional cooperation with which I am familiar is that of the Europe of the European Union, comprising 15 countries with a population of some 370 million, using 13 languages with at least four or five secondary national languages in addition used by a part of the population like the Basque and Welsh."
The political, economic, administrative, and educational concerns represented by this territory are such that electronic delivery becomes critical for the development of central service linkages that are not dependent on geographic or political boundaries. Partnerships must, and perhaps will, develop to address the critical needs for education, communication, and understanding between and among these diverse groups.
The representatives to this conference spanned the scale of knowledge and experience from little or none to those with years of experience in managing successful distance education operations. The number of different groups, councils, organizations, and partnerships that have developed around the distance learning idea in this region is overwhelming. What, it appears, is needed now is not another organization, but real cooperative program development by institutions and organizations.
One telling indicator in terms of distance education opportunities was reported by the director of the National Center for Distance Education of Slovakia. That center commissioned a national survey of educational needs and found that the overwhelming first preference for learning opportunities was for classes in English.
The development tasks facing the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union are enormous. Distance education techniques will assist in the delivery of learning packages that support national agendas as well as individual educational development plans, but the level of detail and coordination required to provide an efficient interface between the populations of the various countries is such that it may be necessary, initially, for each country to take its own approach.
The current alternative of having such activities as Open University (OU) team with some national organization and deliver that university's regular packages at that location may not serve the needs of each location, nor be affordable for those countries which are behind in economic development.
Another concern discussed was the expense and extent of available technology. One speaker in the conference stated that computers were available to only about 10 percent of the population of the region. Such lack of access to technology will make widespread use of distance education difficult at best.
The conference provided the opportunity for a number of institutions and organizations to describe their programs and plans and also led to discussions on how cooperative ventures might be developed internationally. The conference hosts at the Technical University of Kosice were most gracious in their facilitation of the event, and the event will likely be continued at other venues in the coming years.
This region of the world is working hard to develop economic and social sustainability. It would be wonderful if, in the years to come, we could look back and recall that a significant step in enabling that development to occur came through the application of distance education practices.
For more information about the "DISTANCEducation" section of the Georgia Center Quarterly, or if you'd like to submit an article for consideration, please contact Editorial Services, Georgia Center for Continuing Education, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-3603, 706-542-1223, FAX: 706-542-5990. E-mail can be sent to shoresj@gactr.uga.edu.
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