Session A: Changes in University Organisation and Structure
Yves Epelboin: Approach to new technologies of Information and Communication for Higher Education: the Cultural paradigm

1. New technologies for Education: what for?

Reed Midem who created the MIPCOM, the MIP TV world fair in the field of Multimedia, has organized the first world education market in Vancouver (Canada) in May 2000. More than 56 countries were represented. It is thought that education business will approach 90 billions of US dollars in 2005. In North America as well as in Australia Higher Education is now considered as one of the most important business for the new century and a number of universities, either public or private, are very active in this field. These universities try to extend their business not only in their traditional territory but also in other continents. The industry is also coming into this business, not only because they need permanent education for their own employees but also because the job market now requires more skills than diploma. Who would have thought a few years ago that CISCO, Microsoft, General Electrics and other major brands would deliver their own education and diploma? Is education becoming a business as others? What will become of universities? The new technologies are causing a big turmoil and universities will not go through without trouble.

This new market is primarily aimed toward the “mobile student“ thus requires the use of all means, which may permit to study from anywhere, from home, from work, from a hotel or an airport... In 2002 70% of all students enrolled in American Universities will be also engaged in professional life and Internet has been a tremendous boost in this direction. At this point one must be very careful about what education means. Most of the time industry means the learning of a technique or ways to appropriate new skills when academic professionals think about the learning of a basic knowledge or a culture. Recent studies presented at Tech Learn in Orlando (Florida) in November 2000 have shown that the efficiency of e learning is rather poor when aimed towards primary education. Studies presented at EDUCAUSE, last October, confirm this point. There is not too much enthusiasm from students living on the campus to use the new technologies. They prefer the traditional system. Thus there is more motivation to use the new technologies for information and communication (NTIC) when the teaching is intended for professional skills than when it is intended for a personal development. The relationship between the industry and the academic world must be taken into account to understand the interest of the University in the use of e teaching.

At the same time a number of deciders and politicians are making optimistic predictions on the potential impact of the Internet to transform the Education process and to solve the economical aspects of the growing problem of mass education. Although education professionals agree with politicians on the potential impact of NTIC on Higher Education, their objectives are not the same. Professors are looking at means to enhance the quality of their teaching, ways to change the attitude of the students toward education from a quite passive one to a more active one, tools to facilitate the personal work of their students. They are sharing the view that Internet may facilitate access to Higher Education but believe that there is still a place for traditional education on a campus with a direct contact between the instructors and the students. This difference of view is quite understandable. Politicians must answer to the demand of the citizens “more for less“ and try by any means to enhance the productivity, which means for them, to spend the same amount of money for a more efficient teaching aimed towards a greater number of students. Teachers are submitted to this pressure. The influence of politicians on Higher Education depends on their influence on the local organization of the universities. This varies from one country to another according to the institutional organization of the universities. The academic world must answer at the same time to the demand of the students and to the politicians.

The development of NTIC, the motivations to use it and the pressure to change the old ways of teaching are thus depending upon a number of factors: the structural organization of Higher Education, the needs of the students and how it may influence the system, the relationship with the industry and its demand... It orientates the politics and the choice for the solutions.

The use of NTIC is far ahead in the American Higher Education institutions and there is a natural tendency in Europe to look at the American model and to follow it. The question that we want to address is the validity of this model for our countries and its limits. We are very well aware that it is a very political subject and our intention is not to judge the opportunity and the interest of changing the classical way of teaching in European Universities but just to address the question of the efficiency in copying a model which has been invented and developed in another country with a rather different cultural model and background.



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