Edtel: Access to education and training

Background

School of the Air supplemented mail delivered correspondence material. Use of communications to supplement correspondence material has now extended to all levels of education, including tertiary and beyond, and utilises the whole gamut of communications media including broadcasting, narrowcasting, radio communications and telecommunications.

Communications can be utilised to deliver education and training as a supplement to both correspondence and face to face teaching, and can be applied not only in the obvious case of students who are in far distant locations, but also city people who are isolated for any reason such as being house bound or institutionalised, or who simply prefer to work from home. It can be used for cost avoidance through creation of electronic rather than bricks and mortar classrooms. It can give both teachers and learners greater productivity and satisfaction by overcoming the constraints of time and place.

There is a very long time scale between recognition that modern communications can be used to increase access to education and training and the whole hearted adoption of such techniques. In Western Australia a forward looking group of officials from the various education and training institutions formed an informal group named WASEAG (Western Australian Satellite Education Advisory Group). Their enthusiasm, energy and understanding of the issues resulted in successful Ed-TV broadcasts commencing in 1984 from the regional town of Bunbury, and later extended by satellite to all of Western Australia except Perth. Although this series of education programmes is continuing, it has always enjoyed much less than enthusiastic support from the institutions who provide its content and manage its production.

In 1986 a cross sectoral working party developed the Wesnet Report (Western Australian Educational Satellite Network) which would have put Ed-TV onto an official footing, expanded its reach, and extended applications to include staff development and training for public sector employees throughout the state. Analysis of why Wesnet did not proceed showed that the main factors were

• the continuing perception that use of communications for education delivery was only applicable to peripheral activities such as distance education and not a component of mainstream education delivery, and

• unwillingness of senior management in the various institutions to commit even modest resources to meeting what were then unmet needs.

The key element in the action plan was the formation of a voluntary cooperative to be known as Edtel (Education and Training Telecommunications Cooperative). The Premier agreed to the action plan, including the formation of Edtel in April 1990.

Policies

• increase the number of students completing Years 11 and 12;
• improve participation in maths, science and technology studies;
• enhance opportunities for women, girls, Aborigines, rural and remote residents;
• provide greater education and training at all levels through award restructuring and the training levy.

There are strategic advantages in linking these techniques into mainstream education. Production of expertly prepared multimedia packages which promote interaction between students and staff at a distance, will enable staff to teach more students more effectively and allow the timing and method of delivery to be tailored to the needs of industry on a "user pays" basis.

Available communication technologies

• telephone conferencing;
• audio graphics (teleconferencing with pictures);
• video conferencing;
• television broadcasting;
• radio broadcasting;
• radio narrow casting (FM sub carrier);
• talk back radio and television;
• electronic mail and bulletin boards;
• data cast (broadcasting of computer data);
• two way radio.

• extend scarce teaching resources state wide (between buildings on campus, between campuses, between towns, to isolated properties, and to avoid building new buildings);

• improve learning opportunities of external students (through interaction with teachers and with other students);

• increase course offerings in small schools (through interconnection of small classes in neighbouring schools);

• enhance learning opportunities of all students (eg bringing outside experts into the classroom).

Need for a cross sectoral approach

Education	Training
early childhood	vocational skills training
primary	professional development
secondary and prevocational	industrial training
higher education	public sector training
continuing education	skills upgrading
recreational education

Edtel is designed to have a three tiered structure. A Board of Management will comprise the heads of the major education and training agencies, and will set broad policies and goals. An advisory committee will consist of key personnel in those agencies with responsibilities for course design and delivery. A small secretariat will run the day to day operations of the cooperative.

It is not designed to take over or duplicate the existing functions of its member organisations. Each of the institutions involved will continue to deliver its own product to its own client groups. In doing so, they may wish to use a mixture of technologies in which there will be common requirements for particular types of communications channels.

There are significant cost benefits in institutions sharing the cost of acquisition and use of communications channels. This is the fundamental advantage of a co-operative arrangement. For any given type of communication channel there will be one or two major users, and a number of potential minor users who could not afford to use the technique if they had to pay for it alone, but who can take advantage of it by purchasing time at cost from major users. This clearly also enables the major user to reduce its costs by selling its unused capacity.

Benefits of Edtel

• collating and analysing the rapid advances in both the underlying technologies and in their applications;

• capturing the breadth of experience overseas and interstate;

• coordinating the market for sale of products developed here;

• ameliorating high development costs and shortage of instructional designers;

• exploiting the opportunity to share both capital and operational costs;

• sharing scarce expertise required to negotiate the best contracts for supply of communications equipment and services in a market rapidly becoming more complex and sophisticated;

• keeping abreast of knowledge of the continually changing communications regulatory environment, and maintaining the capacity to influence changes in it for the better delivery of education and training;

• improving links with industry;

• enhancing the public perception of education and training institutions.

In these ways, it is to be hoped that Edtel will provide the enduring mechanism to achieve the objective of improved access to education and training by all West Australians, regardless of their circumstances or geographic location.

Author: Phillip Skelton was appointed the inaugural Director of the Office of Communications, established in 1985, within the then Department of Computing and Information Technology. The Office's mission is to facilitate improved communication services for all Western Australians. In 1990 the Office and other functions of DOCIT became part of the Department of State Services. Please cite as: Skelton, P. (1990). Edtel: Access to education and training. In R. Atkinson and C. McBeath (Eds.), Open Learning and New Technology: Conference proceedings, 294-298. Perth: Australian Society for Educational Technology WA Chapter. http://www.aset.org.au/confs/olnt90/skelton.html