Shanghai, April 14-17, 1998
Summary
by
John Daniel
(General
Rapporteur)
Yesterday I spoke to you as a keynote speaker. Today I speak to you as general rapporteur for the conference.
To be the general rapporteur is an honour and a challenge. Today it is a double challenge. First, I am a substitute for Professor Wang Yibing, the chairman of this session, who has a cold.
That is a challenge because, as you would expect, I disagree profoundly with the analysis that Professor Wang gave us yesterday. I shall have to choose my words carefully.
The second challenge is the difficulty of providing an immediate summary of a very rich conference. The best statement of the challenge facing any conference rapporteur was provided by your former leader Mao Zedong when he said:
"We must teach the people clearly what we have learned from them confusedly".I do not mean, of course, that your presentations were confused. It was because your many ideas made the conference so rich that my learning was sometimes confused.
Yesterday I spoke as a visitor from the UK. As rapporteur I will take my other nationality, and speak as a Canadian.
McLuhan's most famous phrase was 'the medium is the message'. By that he meant that the channel through which a message is communicated is sometimes more important than the message itself. That is because different communication media create different attitudes and expectations. They create different psychological environments.
When I use the expression 'the medium is the message' as a summary of this conference I mean that the medium through which the conference was conducted, the Shanghai TV University, has given us a very powerful message about the three themes of this conference.
Those three themes were lifelong learning, co-operation, and technology. Simply being at STVU for three days has taught us much about those themes.
I know that all my colleagues from overseas will go away with an extremely high opinion of the work of the Shanghai TV University within China's TV University system. It is also a pleasure for us to recognise the excellent work being done in other Chinese universities, as shown in the papers that have been presented and submitted at the conference.
Our Chinese colleagues should feel proud of the enormous progress that is being made - progress that has been expressed at this conference in so many ways. The work that has been reported is a perfect symbol of the dynamic development of modern China.
I hope that Chinese colleagues will go back to your different regions and provinces of China with a new sense of purpose and a new sense that you are part of a worldwide intellectual community.
The medium has been the message for the theme of lifelong learning. In our tour of this building and in the report from STVU we have seen wonderful examples of opportunities for lifelong learning being offered to thousands of people of all ages and conditions.
For example, I found it inspiring - almost overwhelming - to learn that in the last three years one million citizens of Shanghai have gained certificates in computer literacy from STVU.
The medium has been the message for the theme of collaboration. You only have to meet President Huang and Chairman Guo to know that STVU places a high value on relationships with other institutions - and also to know that collaborating with STVU will be a pleasant experience.
I mentioned yesterday how I had been told in Beijing what an important role President Huang plays in the development and integration of the whole Chinese TVU system.
The medium has been the message for the use of technology. We have been extremely impressed by the technology we have seen in this building and by the use of technology in the sessions.
The STVU staff have shown great expertise and understanding in using modern technology. We shall leave the conference with fewer worries about a technology gap between nations.
So, the general message that we shall all carry away from this conference is that the Shanghai TVU has a proud past, a successful present and a very promising future.
It was impossible for anyone to attend all the parallel sessions. However, I have read all the abstracts, skimmed many of the papers, and had stimulating discussions with the rapporteurs for the themes.
From all this it is clear that we are at a point of transition in education and training. As in other areas of life, we see that transition more clearly in China than in other parts of the world. The organisers of the conference have given us a wonderful opportunity to think about that transition.
We have been particularly fortunate that this conference has not been dominated by commercial interests. At many similar conferences in the west it is impossible to think clearly because vendors are trying to impose particular technologies on distance education whether they are appropriate or not.
At this conference technology has been allowed to speak for itself. Sometimes it was impressive, sometimes it was not impressive.
My summary of the conference is, of course, a personal one. But then, as Professor Peters said about learning with computers, learning at conferences is partly an intuitive process. We make connections that we had not made before and we capture ideas that we had not captured before.
I shall not repeat all the points just made by my fellow rapporteurs but simply pick out a few conclusions under each of the three themes: lifelong learning, co-operation and technology.
I note first that a fourth theme has been implicit in our discussions. That theme is economics and costs. I shall address that concern too.
I shall express my conclusions in the form of suggestions for China. I do this with humility because China is perfectly capable of finding its own way forward. But I hope that expressing my reflections in this way will make the outcome of the conference seem more real.
First, an era of lifelong learning will produce a huge demand for education and training. China is an extreme example. The participation rate in university study is only 6% among young people and only one-third of those who take the university entrance exams get a place.
If you add together the unsatisfied needs of young people with those of lifelong learners you can predict a vast demand for education in the future. China will need to use every possible means to satisfy this demand. This means that it will be vital to reduce the costs of education and training.
That brings me to the second point. Professor Keegan made a very important point about the role of the taxpayer in education. At present taxpayers pay a large bill for the education of all the non-taxpayers. And then taxpayers must pay for their own lifelong learning.
We shall need to readjust the balance. The trend will be for everyone to make some contribution to the cost of all the education and training they receive after leaving school - including fees for universities. That also means that every attempt must be made to reduce costs.
I repeat again the quotation I made yesterday from Deng Xiaoping. We need education and training that is 'better, quicker, more economical and more efficient'.
My third point is that the status of institutions, like STVU, that serve adult learners, will change. Today these are seen as institutions that give people a second chance to learn. A chance to catch up on what they missed when they were young.
But in an era of lifelong learning universities like STVU will become institutions of first choice, not second chance. They will provide the best way for people to satisfy their lifelong need to learn.
Fourth, a point has been made many times in the last three days. Lifelong education will require a courses directed to individuals as well as courses directed to groups. That has profound implications because it means less emphasis on teaching and more emphasis on learning.
This is where we come to the big disagreement of the conference. We have been told that the teaching methods of open universities and campus universities are converging as campuses use more technology. That may be true.
But we have also been told that campus universities can now take over the task of opening up education by using technology. It was said that open universities like STVU are no longer needed. That is not true because it ignores the lesson of history.
The lesson of history is that new methods never grow out of old industries. The horse and carriage industry did not invent the motor car. Railways did not develop into airlines. The telegraph companies did not create the telephone industry. The telephone industry did not create radio and television.
Mainframe computer makers did not create microcomputers. Hardware firms did not become software firms. Today even the big telecommunications firms are having difficulty holding on to their data transmission business in a deregulated environment.
These examples suggest that it very unlikely that campus universities can lead the way forward. This title of this conference is open and distance education. Campus universities may be able to do distance education - although they will do it in a very expensive fashion. But they cannot be open.
They cannot be open because the prestige of campus universities is defined by the number of people they exclude. Quality, for traditional universities, equals exclusivity. Quality is measured by inputs. The ideal inputs are a large amount of government money and a small number of highly qualified students who have just left school.
This philosophy is so deeply rooted in campus universities that there is no way they can open the way to inexpensive education for large numbers of people. For campus universities more people means worse and more economical means worse.
Today's vital developments need a new approach, which the open universities are now providing. They have broken the link between quality and exclusivity. They measure their success by outputs, not inputs. And they like to operate at low costs.
There are important areas for co-operation between open universities and campus universities. However, the open universities must take the leading role because they have the right philosophy for the times: 'better, quicker, more economical and efficient'. Campus universities can help the open universities offer more programmes, but open universities must teach them how to focus on the student.
That means that open universities must be released from the regulatory constraints that some countries have placed on them. Let me give an analogy.
In England, when first motor cars appeared, the government thought they were dangerous and would frighten people and horses. They made a law that a man carrying a flag had to walk in front of each car to warn people it was coming.
That law did not last long. However, we have the equivalent today in some countries. We make someone with a flag walk in front of the open universities so that they do not frighten the campus universities.
It is time to take the man with the flag away so that the open universities can show how fast they can go. It is much easier to let open universities acquire the prestige that comes with research and doctoral programmes than it is to persuade campus universities to adopt the attitudes of open education.
I am sure that in the next century the open universities will be the core and organising principle of all higher education.
In China there is great potential for co-operation between your two types of open university. Now that Hong Kong is again part of China you have a wonderful opportunity to introduce the concept of 'one country, two systems' into distance education.
The Open University of Hong Kong has established an impressive record in distance learning courses aimed at individuals. The TV Universities all over China have expertise in teaching groups at a distance. Bring the two together and China will lead the world in diversity of distance education as well as in volume.
This means we must emphasise learning, not teaching, and the design of courses becomes very important. We must take care to ensure that technology is accessible to all by keeping costs down. As Professor Peters said, we must try to understand better the dynamics of learning with computers. Interesting questions were raised in one paper about whether excessive use of computers will diminish the emotional health of people.
Let me conclude as I began. Madam Vice-Minister, Mr Vice-Director, it has been a great privilege for both the Chinese and the overseas delegates to spend these days at the Shanghai TV University. We believe that you should be very proud of this institution and the wider TV University of which it is a part.
Whether you look at it from overseas or from here in Shanghai this University is a jewel in the crown of China's education and training system and wonderful asset for China as it tackles the challenges of the next century.
On behalf of everyone here may I express our warm thanks to President Huang and Chairman Guo of STVU for their excellent hospitality and wonderful friendship.
Thank you
Xie xie