Distance Education in China and India: Collectivism and Connectivism

Deborah Joy Carter

doi:10.19173/irrodl.v10i3.722

Abstract

In the last decade, China and India have seen large increases in their literacy and graduation rates and an increasing emphasis on distance education and training initiatives. They are examples of nations in which economic and technological initiatives have been aligned in order to produce outcomes that ensure the population will thrive in the 21 st century. However, no country can simply equip its distance education system with updated technologies and expect to be fully prepared for 21 st century economic challenges. This report outlines the consonances and dissonances of distance education (DE) in China and India and the policy alignments required for its stable development.

Highlights

China and India have the most extensive networks of open universities and distance education (DE) institutions in the world, which provide a continuum of education from kindergarten to higher education and a nontraditional holistic view that supports lifelong learning and remediation strategies for adult learners
It is important to maintain, if not increase, information technology literacy and to find ways of applying information technologies that maximize each DE community’s strengths and abilities, whether their members reside in western China, urban India, or northern Canada (Baggaley, 1999)
Since the early 20th century, the governments of China and India have maintained national policies to ensure that their vast populations, each numbering over a billion people and together representing approximately one-third of the world’s population, are educated for the 21st century

Summary

Introduction

China and India have the most extensive networks of open universities and DE institutions in the world, which provide a continuum of education from kindergarten to higher education and a nontraditional holistic view that supports lifelong learning and remediation strategies for adult learners Their adult learners include full-time urban workers and rural and farming communities. In India, parents regard their children’s education as more important than their own, and they view education as an opportunity to improve the family’s economic status, especially if it includes the study of English (Crichton & Childs, 2008; Chen, Wang, & Chen, 2009; Jamtsho et al, 2009) Both countries actively use a far broader range of DE technologies than is used in the West. An economic difference between these two patterns is that the poorer regions in China are likely to experience more impact than the poorer Indian regions if their governments reduce economical support for educational development

A Flaw: Collectivism without Connectivism

Findings

Conclusion