1. What can higher education contribute to developing skills for the
knowledge economy?
Strategies for higher education in a more open and
online world: the role of open and distance learning
OECD IMHE General Conference
17 -19 September, 2012
Gard Titlestad
Secretary General
ICDE

2. Outline
• Introduction
• Demands and system failures
• ODL Growth and disruptive initiatives
• Technology facilitates
• Impact through the knowledge triangle
• To be addressed to…..
• Conclusion

3. What is ICDE?
• the leading global membership organization for open and
distance education
• an NGO official partner of UNESCO, and shares that agency’s
key aim – the attainment of quality education for all
• member focused – ICDE is an organization which will involve
members in decision making, in cooperative action and in
cooperative problem solving.
• transparent – Members will be able to follow the activities
and decisions of ICDE.
• ICDE believes that in pursuing education as a universal right,
the needs of the learner must be central.
• senior management in member institutions is actively
involved in ICDE

4. Global need for barrier-free
access to higher education
• Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO
“Higher education: In less than 40 years,
enrolments have increased fivefold. Globally it
is estimated that demand will expand from
less than 100 million students in 2000 to over
250 million students in 2025.”

5. Students demands
Students and
learners are gaining
more influence and
increasingly
demanding quality
online, resource
based and flexible
learning.

6. Mobilising the workforce:
Mobication
• Tomorrow’s employment
policies must create
conditions to facilitate
labour mobility through Education
the lifelong learning of
the individual.
• Coordination between
the labour market and Welfare Work
education policy is crucial
for business
competitiveness and
future welfare.

7. Costs

8. School failure
– system failure
• Reducing school failure pays off for both
society and individuals. More education
attainment provides better labour market
prospects and contributes to economic
growth and social progress. The highest
performing education systems across OECD
countries are those that combine high quality
and equity.
Overcoming School Failure: Policies that Work
February 2012

9. University drop-outs (or push outs?) cost 660
million Euros per year in Spain alone
Norway – 2005 - 2010
Total drop out/push out:
12% (Health educations)- 37 % (Management and Economy)
Only health educations have lower drop out rate than 20%

10. Dr Qian Tang, Assistant Director-General for Education, UNESCO,
Flexible learning for inclusive education
• Yet all people, regardless of their sex, race, religion,
disability or national, ethnic and social origin, are entitled
to a quality education. Denying them such an opportunity is
not only an infringement of their fundamental human
rights; it is also a serious waste of society’s human
resources. Indeed, education that is restricted to certain
social groups deprives a country of significant assets and
skills that could be tapped to build prosperous
communities. Furthermore, it limits the impact of national
efforts to create peaceful, just, fair and cohesive societies.
• Inclusive education is therefore non-negotiable.

11. ODL in rapid growth
• The world’s 18 largest mega-universities are open
universities serving more than 14.3 million
students. Most of these universities were
founded after the 1970s.
• China: 1 of every 10 registered students in higher
education is a student at The Open University of
China.
• Africa: African Virtual University has signed up
with 21 countries and 28 Universities to provide
Open and Distance eLearning, based on OER and
the Internet.

12. "Going the Distance:
Online Education in the United
States, 2011"
• Almost one-third of
enrolments in HE in the
autumn of 2010 in the
USA were online
enrolments, with more
than 30% of the
students taking at least
one course online.
Allen, E. I., Seaman, J. - Sloan Consortium, 2011

13. India
25% of Indian students are now
covered by distance education
Lakh = 100.000

14. The Future - USA
• College presidents predict substantial growth in
online learning: 15% say most of their current
undergraduate students have taken a class online,
and 50% predict that 10 years from now most of
their students will take classes online.
• Nearly two-thirds of college presidents (62%)
anticipate that 10 years from now, more than half of
the textbooks used by their undergraduate students
will be entirely digital.
• The Digital Revolution and Higher Education. 2011. By Kim Parker, Amanda Lenhart and
Kathleen Moore

15. Disruptive innovation
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Disruptive innovation does not make a good product or service better,
but makes it more affordable and accessible, so more people can
purchase or use it.

16. Coursera
nanoHUB-U

17. Technology as
facilitator
The rapid development of
information and
communication technology
(ICT) offers tremendous
educational opportunities to
provide new innovative,
accessible and more affordable
ways of learning.
Mansoor Al Awar,
Chairman, Middle East e-
Learning Association.

19. Mobile:
Sceptisism towards mobile tec.
Rapid mobile delvelopment In education (UNESCO)
• There are 1.2 billion mobile • Mobile technologies not yet
internet users worldwide massive impact on
• There are 5.9 billion mobile education
subscribers (87 percent of • Carries a stigma (distracting to
the world population). young people, access to
inappropriate content,
• Over 300,000 mobile apps destructive behaviour – bullying)
have been developed in
three years. • Confuse access with
learning
• Huge potential for
education and learning • Education policies rarely
speak about the promise of
mobile learning

20. Open Educational
Resources - OER
• Any educational resources) • Hugh potential for lowering
that are openly available for barriers to HE, dramatic
use by educators and lowering costs, support
students, without an resource based teaching,
accompanying need to pay stimulate innovation in
royalties or licence fees. education.
• Impact on global economic
growth?
• Rapid growth, slow uptake
• UNESCO declaration, EU
consultation, OECD activity.
• Top down – bottom up

21. Universities:
ODL and OER can fuel
the Knowledge Triangle
High quality education Open Access
Research based education Research based OER
Resource based education Research based teaching
OER
and ODL
Innovation in education
Innovate the learning system and institutions
Knowledge supply for innovation

22. To harvest the benefits from ODL
To be adressed:
Governments: Universities:
• Optimal regulatory and • Strategies and leadership
policy framework for ODL, • Build competencies
incentives for OER • Faculty training, student
• Sector overarching policies training for ODL
for mobilising the workforce • Flip the classroom for
• Initiatives for new student-oriented and
knowledge on effect and personalised learning
impact of ODL on delivering
high quality ODL
HEI, private and public sector: Build partnerships and
agreements for knowledge supply, mobilising the workforce

23. Conclusions
A strong need for:
• A professional, policy-oriented debate throughout the
world, on the opportunities and challenges coming
from a more open and online world.
• Innovative examples to be fed into the debate, fed into
the development of the learning system.
• Research on distance, online, eLearning, in particular
to have an oversight of where are we, what do we
know, and what are the great challenges which need to
be explored and researched.
• Need to be met by a “Partnership for inclusive, high
quality open and online higher education”

24. Thank you!
titlestad@icde.org