Abstract
<p>A field enquiry in French distance education allows us to analyze the evolution of a specific institution towards new public management: Parallel to a trend of free courseware and open education, there is a paradoxical reality of distance education monetization. Whereas history shows how traditional French education is a state controlled public good, a new policy is changing the organization’s culture towards a commercial and industrial activity. From inside the institution, we describe the cultural changes, with its human resources, accounting, and marketing dimensions. We relate debates about the institution’s business model within the economy of knowledge – selling either services or contents, focusing on the learner’s experience. Lastly, we analyze the notion of value underlying this monetization of a distance education institution: both the computing of a specific training’s value and the shared values of the workers binding up their collective identity.</p>
Highlights
From Participatory Observation to Education Sciences AnalysisCollection of DataSince 2011 I have been conducting a participatory observation within a French national distance education institution, occupying training engineering and management functions within the organization
I want to take some distance to rethink my ethnographical data in order to place it within the long run evolution of French national distance education
The fieldwork in a major French distance education institution led to an education sciences analysis
Summary
Since 2011 I have been conducting a participatory observation within a French national distance education institution, occupying training engineering and management functions within the organization. Every training course is competing in a distance learning market where there are many universities and schools, as well as private companies, investing in e-learning tools like learning management systems It is in this context that we conducted our ethnographical study: The organization is under pressure and has to reinvent its business model. The distance learning institution’s higher education service recruits state teachers in order to manage its training courses and programs They come from high schools or universities and are recruited for a job that is slightly different from what they are used to: They focus on the administrative part and don’t have to teach any longer. Unions and old employees are criticizing this possible change of status, arguing it would betray the spirit of French public education After this glimpse of everyday life micro evolution, let’s consider how the institution is rethinking its business model. If it is widely admitted that training involves money, there is not yet a consensus on what is to be sold
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