Distance education for national development: The case of the university of mauritius

Knowledge has become an increasingly important determinant of the wealth of nations and access to knowledge, coupled with the ability to disseminate it, have become a major source of competitive advantage: “Higher education can help developing countries use the economic transformation being brought by globalization to leapfrog stages of development.” (Bloom, 2002: 2) According to Porter (1990), for nations to be competitive, it is important to have a highly performing higher education. Education is a great catalyst for national development, especially when competing in a globalised world where others have reached higher stages of development, as having a richer heritage of higher education, research and development. “Catching up” or rather ‘coping’ with such giants is impossible if we keep thinking in a linear and traditional way. It calls for an overhauling of old paradigms so as to cope with the new issues, through innovative solutions. In the context of higher education, we need to move beyond the traditional audience (eg, schools leavers) and address emerging niches: those who used to be rejected because they did not meet the minimum entry requirements but who still need to be trained to meet the challenges of the global economy, those who require retraining to recycle themselves, and those who need further specialisation, amongst others. However, these cannot be tackled simply by increasing enrolment, as the resources of tertiary institutions are already strained and overstretched. There are also budget cuts looming all the time above local private Tertiary Education Institutions (TEIs).

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

masters

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Université TÉLUQ

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Rampersad, Rubina Devi

Language dc:language

fr