Keywords

Introduction

This chapter explores the challenges and opportunities for expansion of open, distance, and digital education (ODDE) in the global south. The discussion begins by defining the terms as used in the chapter and explains why such approaches are of relevance to the diverse countries involved. The chapter provides examples of current practice in schooling and post-schooling contexts and how these practices have been adapted in response to external factors such as climate, financial, and pandemic crises. The chapter then discusses the challenges and opportunities indicated both by current practice and by current research into issues such as open pedagogy, technology-enabled learning, and educational financing. The discussion draws heavily on the experience of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) in its efforts to support sustainable development through learning.

Definitions

The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) was established in 1987 by Commonwealth Heads of Government to promote the development and sharing of open learning and distance education knowledge, resources, and technologies. It is the world’s only intergovernmental organization solely concerned with the promotion and development of open learning and distance education.

In an internal discussion document, COL defines open learning as an approach and distance education as a set of methods which can be combined as open (and) distance learning:

“Open and Distance Learning (ODL) is the provision of distance education opportunities in ways that seek to mitigate or remove barriers to access, such as finances, prior learning, age, social, work or family commitments, disability, incarceration or other such barriers.” (COL internal discussion document).

COL does not have a definition of digital education but has proactively promoted technology-enabled learning (TEL), which it defines as follows:

“Technology-enabled learning refers to the application of some form of digital technology to teaching and/or learning in an educational context to support and facilitate student learning.” (COL internal discussion document).

When the term open, distance, and digital education (ODDE) is used in this chapter, it is informed by the above understandings.

Context

As Mahler (2017) and Clarke (2018) observe, the term “global south” may be interpreted variously. However, this discussion focuses on an understanding of the term as a mix of geographical, historical, and socioeconomic variables which typically challenge the dominant views and practices of the “global north” countries, many of whom were former colonial powers in the “global south” and whose influence is often still strongly felt. This discussion accordingly privileges the experiences and voices of countries indicated in red in Fig. 1 while also considering some of the key trends in the “global north” which influence practice in the global south.

Fig. 1
figure 1

A geographic depiction of the global south (in red). (Source: By Kingj123 – Wikipedia; This file was derived from: BlankMap-World6.svg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6603483)

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As observed by the United Nations (n.d.), the world’s population continues to grow, with China and India accounting for 61% of the world’s population and with Africa being the fastest growing continent whose population is expected to double by 2050. However, as noted by the International Monetary Fund (2020), most of the countries in the global south are experiencing zero or negative real growth in gross domestic product (GDP). With an increasing population and decreasing GDP per capita, we can anticipate increased challenges for education provision, with the threat of overcrowded classrooms leading to lower retention, lower attainment and higher dropouts from schooling, and increasing numbers of not in employment nor in education and training youths unable to progress. As argued by Kanwar and Daniel (2020, p. 2), in response to the campus closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, governments should move from simply responding to challenges to developing more resilient education systems by “having open and distance learning (ODL) arrangements in place.” Through appropriate ODL, or ODDE, provision, it is possible to increase access, success, and quality of educational opportunities in economically sustainable ways (Daniel, Kanwar, & Uvalić-Trumbić, 2009), but this does not necessarily mean going fully online (Hülsmann, 2016). There is evidence of a growing trend towards use of blended approaches which make use of digital and online learning complemented by some face-to-face contact.

Examples of Practice

Bwalya and Hamaluba (2020) observe that ODL is well established in sub-Saharan Africa with examples of well-established open universities in Botswana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe and open schools in Malawi, Namibia, and Zambia, among others. Due to the wide range of contexts in which ODDE provision is needed, it is not uncommon to find different generations of provision (e.g., print-based correspondence, broadcast media, interactive ICT, and online learning) all being used simultaneously to address different needs in the same country. It is argued that some of the challenges for expanded ODDE provision include the limited investment in digitization, lack of appropriate policy frameworks, inadequate funding, limited skilled personnel, commercialization at the expense of public provision, and the high cost of hardware and the Internet as well as limited technical support. Some regions also lack agreement on a common language that would more easily enable provision to be scaled.

Reflecting on the provision of ODDE in Asia, Kharbanda (2020) notes that Asia in general has moved strongly into the digital realm, with growing use of open educational resources (OER) and massive open online courses (MOOCs). There are very large-scale examples of ODDE provision at both university and schooling levels in Asia, for example, over the last 5 years, the National Institute of Open Schooling in India has reached more than 3.5 million learners. Despite this, and despite impressive reductions in the number of out-of-school children at the end of the twentieth century, the trend in the reduction is leveling off, suggesting the need for expansion of ODDE provision at the schooling level if education for all is to be achieved.

In the Caribbean region, Samuels (2020) notes that the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), comprising 20 countries and representing about 16 million citizens, is a key role-player. Although all CARICOM members met the Millennium Development Goals for primary education provision, there was mixed success at the secondary level, and in 2012, the Caribbean Regional Policy Framework for Open and Distance Learning was developed to address this and other challenges experienced by the traditional education system. Many of the countries in the region offer curricula developed and examined by the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), which leads both curriculum development and reform processes and promotes the use of OER which can be adapted for context. Samuels also cautions that there is no one-size-fits-all model for ODDE provision noting that depending on context, after-hours face-to-face classes, blended, and online learning may all be appropriate. An important post-schooling role-player in this region, the University of the West Indies not only has four campuses located in four different Caribbean countries but also has an open campus, and these facilities collectively cater for the needs of about 50,000 students.

In Latin America, Torres and Rama (2018) indicate that while distance higher education has been offered in many countries since the 1970s, its overall reach remains “marginal” (p. 5), although in the larger countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico, distance provision was reaching 10–20% of students largely through the private sector offering technical and graduate programs. However, Romero (2021) observes that in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been increased interest in exploring the potential of distance online learning, though access to the Internet and to devices varies widely between and within countries in the region and mitigates against widespread adoption.

In the Pacific region, Hollings and Naidu (2020) report that open education provision is well developed in New Zealand but less so in the smaller Pacific Island countries. For example, Te Kura was established more than one hundred years ago as the Correspondence School of New Zealand. More than 22,000 students are enrolled annually, including those who are enrolled at other state education providers and students beyond compulsory school age. In response to COVID-19, Te Kura made its content and a copy of its LMS, open to all secondary schools in New Zealand.

Along with nationwide delivery, another institution, the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand (OPNZ)‘s approach to open learning and access includes maintaining a program portfolio designed to ensure entry points for all learners, irrespective of prior educational background. Fee-free work and life skills programs are offered at foundation and certificate level, and OPNZ’s learner base includes significant numbers of people who are unemployed and/or have no high school qualifications. The Polytechnic also delivers courses in prisons.

New Zealand is also the home base of the OERu, which is coordinated by the OER Foundation and provides free access to recognized university learning and affordable credentialing through its growing network of partner institutions.

Also at the higher education level, the University of the South Pacific is a unique regional university, owned by and serving 12 island nations of the southwest Pacific region: Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. It has established an extensive ICT infrastructure and has used this to accelerate online provision in response to the closure of campuses due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

At a national level, the flexible, open, and distance education (FODE) division within the Ministry of Education in Papua New Guinea made use of a combination of digital resources, tablets, and limited physically distanced face-to-face contact sessions at decentralized centers to try to ensure continuity of provision during the pandemic.

In Vanuatu, ODDE is being explored to support open schooling provision. The geographically dispersed population (Vanuatu comprises an archipelago of some 83 islands) means it is not financially viable to offer traditional brick-and-mortar, face-to-face schooling for all learners.

Insights from Research and Literature

Several recurring themes can be identified by an examination of the literature. It is worth noting that many of the issues currently being researched and debated in the literature related to online learning have also been the focus of research and discussion previously in the distance education literature, which covers a wider spectrum of provision.

Diversity of ODDE Models

There is a growing diversity of possible distance and online learning and blended models like “flipped” classrooms (Fresen, 2018; Olelewe & Agomuo, 2016). Different tools may be used for different purposes and levels, but the trend is increasingly digital, connected, cloud-based, and mobile across diverse contexts, disciplines, and education levels (Firdhouse, 2016; Imhonopi, Urim, Onwumah, & Kasumu, 2017). In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, access to mobile phones has widely outpaced access to computers, and so mobile platforms like M-Omulimisa are now being used to support learning and development even in rural communities (Kalibwani, Kakuru, Carr, & Tenywa, 2021). There is increasing use of distance and blended approaches but also some recognition that decisions about how best to mediate learning must be based on some contextual understanding (Vaa, 2015). In the Caribbean, for example, open and innovative schooling provision has unfolded differently in the three countries with which COL has recently been working – Belize (where there is a high degree of decentralized autonomy and consequently different models being used in different communities by a variety of institutions and organizations), Guyana (where COL is working with the Adult Education Association to blend contact and online provision), and Trinidad and Tobago (where provision is increasingly moving online with the support of UNICEF).

Policy Support

The need for policy to guide developments in a rapidly changing education environment has been long recognized as has the diverse ways in which policy may be understood. Specific policy guidelines are required for distance and online learning models in single, dual, mixed, and flexible modes of provision (Kanwar, Carr, Ortlieb, & Mohee, 2018; Naidu, 2017). One of the more interesting initiatives from a policy perspective is the Virtual University of Small States of the Commonwealth (VUSSC) which is a network of small states which collaborate to develop and share free content and which has developed a transnational qualifications framework to facilitate sharing of programs and recognition of credentials across national boundaries.

Language

It has long been recognized that a key issue that needs to be addressed in all learning models is the language of learning and teaching. The more open the access, the more diverse the language learning support needs will be. In an African context, for example, it is likely that at the senior schooling and post-schooling levels, the language of learning and teaching will be a colonial language and not a local or home language. Therefore, the learning resource design team should ideally include people with expertise in supporting the teaching of speakers of other languages, supporting learners through the process of acquiring academic literacy in the target language of learning and teaching and working from an informed understanding of the extent to which schooling has prepared learners for learning in another language. In addition, reading on paper is not the same as reading on screen, and so new techniques may be required. It may be necessary to adopt strategies such as development of multilingual glossaries, multilingual captions for video materials, or even full translation of some resources into other languages, as well as the development of a related set of more general digital literacy skills (Daniels & Richards, 2017; de la Fuente & Comas-Quinn, 2016).

Quality Assurance

Concerns about the maintenance (or improvement) of quality across different modes of provision (Abrahams & Witbooi, 2016; Council on Higher Education, 2014), in specific contexts (Raturi, 2016; Simui, Namangala, Tambulukani, & Ndhlovu, 2018), and across borders (AAOU, 2017; SADC, 2012) are shared concerns of both traditional distance and emerging online provision.

In similar vein, the more open the access, including access that transcends national borders, the more investment that will need to be made in program design, learning resource development, and learner and learning support if institutions are to ensure a quality learning experience for all learners offering a reasonable chance of turning access into success. This requires both a pedagogic (AAOU, 2017; Amory, Bialobrzeska, & Welch, 2018) and an agile regulatory perspective (CHE, 2014; UNESCO, 2005). Increasingly, student satisfaction will be a key indicator for judging quality as students progressively take greater control of their own learning (Chen & Yao, 2016; Tufue-Dolgoy, Vaai, & Suaali’I, 2016). As noted above, CXC, OERu, and VUSCC all provide examples of models which might be considered for assuring quality across multiple institutions and countries.

Assessment

In both traditional distance education and more recent online provision, assessment plays a critical role, with a strong emphasis on its formative function in recognizing prior learning and in providing feedback both on student achievement and also on how students can improve on authentic assessment tasks mediated in authentic ways using a variety of tools (Franklin, Li, & Jamieson, 2015; Ng, 2016). Many of the guidelines for good practice in assessment of older forms of distance provision equally well apply for online provision, but of course the growing use of technology also opens opportunities for new approaches and tools for assessment as well.

Ethical and constructive tracking of student online engagement and achievement, including checking of authenticity, should make it possible to provide critical, targeted, and personalized feedback, although the assessment of student online activity requires a credible set of metrics to be established first (Kim, Huang, & Emery, 2016; Zhou, 2015).

Continuous Professional Development

It seems clear also that there is a need for significant investment and support to help teachers manage and use appropriate technology to mediate learning and then to use information from student engagement and achievement to improve practice (Hennessy, Haßler, & Hofman, 2015; Macharia & Pelser, 2013). Careful consideration must also be taken about changes to staff working conditions, workload, and remuneration in moving between modes of provision (Gregory & Lodge, 2015; Kennedy, Laurillard, Horan, & Charlton, 2015) as well as the impact on students and the support that they might need (OECD, 2015).

Digital technologies may allow more flexible learning student-centered learning, as well as opportunities to learn in very different spaces, when designed for use in these ways, thus blurring the boundary between physical and virtual presence on the part of teachers and encouraging more collaborative and cooperative approaches (Orr et al., 2020).

However, Trotter and Hodgkinson-Williams (2020) observe that while there is growing use of OER by both teachers and learners, the possibilities for inclusive co-creation and collaboration in the adaptation and creation of OER, along a continuum of access, participation, and empowerment, are currently more often seen among higher education teachers than learners and much less so at the schooling level. In addition, much OER that is available and being shared and used is in English, whereas it is estimated that there are some 7,102 living languages in the world with the global south being particularly rich in languages with an estimated 2,301 in Asia and 2,138 in Africa alone (Noack & Gamio, 2015).

Finance and Sustainability

All the above issues raise questions about how education provision should be financed, and the relative contributions of individuals, the state and institutions themselves in this regard (Murangi, 2020).

Notwithstanding reservations raised by Kanuka and Brooks (2010) that when using technology we may achieve any two of improved access, quality, and cost-savings but not all three concurrently, two experts in the field of financing distance education suggest that it should still be possible to scale the use of ICTs; for example, Rumble (2012, p. 41) notes: “The most important finding is that mass-media-based distance education could achieve economies of scale and could be designed so that the average cost per student (and to a lesser extent, because of higher dropout rates, per graduate) could be lower than similar costs found in face-to-face education.” Although having considered the matter, Hülsmann (2016, p. 37) concludes: “… in developing countries a combination of traditional mass-media-based instructional approaches with the intelligent use of mobile technologies appears to be more promising than imitating an online class model while having to increase class sizes to an extent that compromises the original instructional intentions of the model.”

Open Questions and Direction for Future Research

While there is a clear potential for greater use of ODDE in the global south, there is a need for continuous research into contextualized lessons of experience in the following areas, among others, and the generation of appropriate new theory:

  • Curriculum design, development, implementation, review, and improvement

    • How do we respond to continuously emerging learning and development needs in ways that ensure learning programs of quality that are both scalable and sustainable?

  • Content/open educational resources (OER) development

    • How do we encourage greater use of OER and develop the skills of learners and teachers to find, adapt, and share back OER?

  • Teacher training needs

    • What are the continuous professional development needs of teachers as they move into ODDE provision, and how can we address those needs at scale in ways that are both affordable and flexible?

  • Manager training needs

    • As campus-based institutions migrate increasingly into blended learning and multi-mode ODDE provision, what are the training needs of managers, and how can we best support them?

  • Technology-enabled learning

    • How do we keep abreast of the rapid developments in technology and ensure that learners, teachers, and managers all have access to the devices, connectivity, and skills training to maximize the potential of technology-enabled learning?

  • Monitoring and evaluation

    • How well are we monitoring and evaluating ODDE provision and ensuring that we close the feedback loop into enhanced practice?

  • Financing

    • What are the most appropriate ways to finance public education and enhance the offerings of the private sector and public-private partnerships?

  • Gender equality

    • How do we ensure that ODDE provision helps us to reach the most marginalized learners and works towards attaining gender equality?

  • Policies and models

    • What policies and models exist which might be used to inform increased engagement with ODDE provision?

  • Quality assurance

    • With an increasing number of stakeholders offering increasingly flexible forms of ODDE, what quality assurance measures need to be in place? And how do we manage the tension between assuring quality and also being nimble to address constantly emerging needs in the most flexible and affordable ways?

Implications for ODDE Practice

As observed in a recent COL briefing note (2020), to manage the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world were compelled to restrict travel and impose physical distancing norms. This meant finding alternative ways, using distance education methods, to ensure that school learning could continue without requiring teachers and learners to be in the same space at the same time. Even very remote learners can be reached via distance education. In the past, it has been used to reach children from the Australian outback to the Canadian prairies, and it currently supports millions of learners in Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Developing approaches for more flexible provision of schooling opportunities can also help education systems meet the needs of numerous other learners who have been unable to access schooling, are in school but are not learning effectively, have dropped out of school, or need a second opportunity to improve their schooling outcomes to access employment or further education and training opportunities. Responding effectively to a short-term crisis can therefore help education systems develop more flexible and resilient approaches for the longer term, as illustrated in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2
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A resilient schooling system (COL, 2020, p. 8)

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As illustrated in Fig. 2, face-to-face schooling will likely remain at the heart of the schooling system and is probably the preferred option for very young learners as well as learners with special educational needs that parents/caregivers may not be well equipped to address. However, hybrid (some face-to-face, some distance, some online, some broadcasting) and blended (face-to-face and online) provision could conceivably become the norm for older learners.

But for the approximately 300 million children unable to get to a physical school, an open schooling model, using ODDE approaches and methods, should be an essential element of an integrated schooling system.

It is possible that learners could move between models as needed. For example, learners attending face-to-face schooling who encounter certain barriers (e.g., ill health) might continue learning from home through distance learning; learners struggling with some subjects through distance learning might be integrated for a time into more structured blended or face-to-face learning.

As noted by Hollings and Naidu (2020, p. 243), however, learners who successfully complete schooling or schooling-equivalent programs through open and online learning will likely find new employment and educational opportunities open to them. In addition to obtaining a recognized qualification or credential, they will have developed the independent study skills and dispositions that make it more likely they will choose open and online learning for any further technical or vocational education and training or higher education they may pursue during their lifelong learning. So there is a need to extend ODDE provision at both further and higher education levels.

Conclusion: Challenges and Opportunities

Although there is a clear potential for the expanded use of ODDE, there are several challenges. UNICEF (2020) notes that two in three children do not have Internet access at home, and those without such access are found in the lowest-income countries, mostly located in the global south. In addition, Internet data costs remain high relative to salaries in many global south countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and the Pacific (Cable, 2021; Hülsmann, 2016). As noted previously, addressing challenges such as lack of guiding policies, limited funding (especially for digital infrastructure), limited technical support for educators, diverse language needs, and increasing commercialization requires a constructive partnership between the government and civil society partners. There is also a need for extensive investment in the continuing professional development of teachers (Mays, 2020).

However, the combination of digital technology, a more collaborative relationship between teachers and learners, and the ability to disseminate information quickly in support of change have certainly opened up new opportunities to support deep learning (Fullan & Langworthy, 2014) in affordable, scalable, and sustainable ways (Bates, 2018).

Contact programs, despite the often stringent conditions for entry, often experience very high failure and dropout rates in the first year but then subsequently tend to result in relatively high rates of retention and success (DHET, 2020). However, expansion of numbers in traditional contact provision requires expansion of facilities and staff, and hence costs, if quality is to be maintained. Appropriately designed and costed, ODDE provision can offer the potential to retain some of the cost-savings of provision at scale, by amortizing design and development costs over larger numbers while retaining some of the individual and group support processes that are associated with quality in more traditional contact provision (Hülsmann, 2016). The key issue would seem to be to find the right balance between real- or near-real-time human individualized support by institutional staff, creating the conditions for more peer collaboration and support than was ever possible in traditional distance provision and providing access to high-quality learning resources that maximize the potential for individual and peer learning. The issue to be explored, then, is how global south distance education providers are making informed choices about what teachers and managers do, what learners do, and what resources are made available in the online environment to balance the otherwise potentially competing concerns of access, quality, and cost.

As Mishra and Panda (2020) observe, technology has the potential to enable greater access to and success in learning, but it requires that we create appropriate national policy and development frameworks, that we learn from practice and that we continue to conduct research and evaluation into what works.

If we can ensure access to appropriate devices and Internet, we can use the new possibilities to work towards more open educational practices which provide training and support to staff in sharing their intellectual property and experience, making more constructive use of videos and discussion forums, and guiding and supporting learners towards self-regulation and engagement with authentic assessment tasks (Karunanayaka & Naidu, 2020).

Cross-References