Gideon Polya, “Accredited Remote Learning, Free Education & Global Salvation”, MWC News, 22 February 2006. .
Accredited Remote Learning, Free Education & Global Salvation
Everyone has the right to education (as set out in Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948): http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/eng.htm).
Education should be free. Illiteracy kills. It is no accident that the countries of the world with the lowest avoidable mortality (excess mortality) and lowest under-5 infant mortality are those with adult literacy levels of about 98%. High excess mortality and infant mortality is associated with low adult literacy in Central American countries subject to decades of egregious US violence and interference and is also rampant in numerous African and Asian countries similarly subject to First World violence, occupation and deprivation. Thus the post-1950 avoidable mortality (excess mortality) has totalled 1.3 billion in the world, 1.2 billion in the non-European world and 0.6 billion in the First World-ravaged Muslim world – a Muslim Holocaust 100 times greater than the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (6 million victims) or the “forgotten” WW2 man-made Bengal Famine in British-ruled India (4 million Hindu and Muslim victims and a 1941-1951 demographic deficit of over 10 million). Education of children and university education to produce teachers and other professionals is crucial to halting the Third World Holocaust that currently involves about 45,000 avoidable deaths and 30,000 under-5 infant deaths EACH DAY.
Everyone has the right to education. Education should be free. Education CAN be free. Every country needs a "national scholarly complement" but general taxpayers and NOT circa 20 year old students should pay for it. Accredited Remote Learning (ARL) permits maximum access from ANYWHERE off-campus and at minimum cost to electronically delivered teaching materials, tutoring and accrediting examinations IDENTICAL to that provided to fee-paying on-campus students doing top quality lecture-based university courses (see: http://www.whitepage.com.au/GideonPolya/).
While university education is essentially free in much of Germany and Scandinavia, the increasing cost of academic staff, research and infrastructure has seen an increasing burden around the world of huge fees placed on domestic students and international students. This is an immense rip-off sustained by Establishment-preserving media lying - circa 20 year old students are not expected to carry the burden of paying for defense, medical services or other critical government instrumentalities and NOR should they have to pay for maintenance of the "national scholarly complement" of scientists, social scientists, humanities scholars and other professional experts necessarily involved in top quality research-informed university teaching.
After 40 years associated with university research and teaching, I finally became "formally qualified" to teach at a university level (better late than never) through gaining a postgraduate qualification in higher education teaching and learning from a leading Australian university. The research components for me during this course involved REVIEWING "distance education" systems throughout the world and then DEVISING a system for providing maximum access, minimum cost and top quality university teaching and learning to off-campus students that would be essentially IDENTICAL to that provided in lecture-based courses to fee-paying on-campus students.
The truth is that my Accredited Remote Learning (ARL) system has in essence been routinely practised for years by postgraduate professionals and indeed by many fee-paying undergraduates students. The reality for many courses taken in Australian universities is that after the first few weeks of lectures and receipt of extensive teaching materials, as many as half the students skip formal lectures in order to work to pay for their onerous tuition fees i.e. these full-fee paying ON-CAMPUS STUDENTS effectively transform themselves out of acute economic necessity into OFF-CAMPUS STUDENTS - but, of course, remain subject to payment of huge fees (as well as on-going constraints on course access).
IMMEDIATE IMPLEMENTATION of the Accredited Remote Learning (ARL) for ANYONE ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD can occur through simple Government injunction: that ANY lecture-based university course (or indeed any senior high school course) taught in State institutions be made available AT COST to ANY off-campus candidates via provision of requisite, detailed TEACHING MATERIALS, facilitation of access to TUTORS (from a huge pool of graduate professionals) and PROVISION of accrediting examinations.
THE TEACHING MATERIALS would include things such as a detailed syllabus; a detailed summary and "teaching and learning" guide (to set the student on a reasonable path to productive "deep learning"); a reading list (specifying the didactically most effective books); detailed lecture notes; and worked past examination and tutorial questions (to give the students an idea of standards and expectations).
THE LEARNING PROCESS could simply involve the student and the outstanding textbooks and their didactically outstanding authors but could ideally also include "add ons" (at cost) such as relatively inexpensive electronic or face-to-face student-student and student-tutor interactions (and readily available in excess of that obtaining in actuality on-campus at very low cost from a large pool of graduates) and initial WRITTEN guidance about absorbed DEEP LEARNING and HOW TO LEARN effectively.
THE ACCREDITING EXAMINATION processes (depending upon the demands of the student, the teachers and the subject) could range from continuous assessment by examinations and assignments (allowing for continuous correction and feedback on progress) to the extreme scenario of the terminal 3 hour examination.
This ARL system can provide an off-campus, accredited, high quality, lecture-based course identical to that offered on-campus but at a cost of, say, about $100 per semester course - as opposed to the "full fee" on-campus cost that could range up to $10,000 per semester course. The ARL system permits ready access to ANYONE who is disadvantaged by poverty, dislocation, disease, disability, family care responsibilities, full-time employment or geographical location. This system of maximum access, maximum quality higher education can also be applied with “full cost recovery” for the benefit of ANYONE in the world, whether a prosperous Westerner or ANYONE in the developing world with basic access to BOOKS and the WEB (see: http://www.whitepage.com.au/GideonPolya/).
University graduates are crucial as teachers to general adult literacy, which in turn is CRUCIAL for low infant mortality and low avoidable (excess) mortality - as confirmed by the appalling, utterly avoidable, continuing tragedies of Africa and South Asia that are linked to unacceptably low adult literacy. Even in a prosperous First World country like Australia, illiteracy kills – thus low literacy among indigenous Australians is associated with life expectancies 2 decades lower than for White Australians and the avoidable deaths of 6,000 aboriginal Australians EACH YEAR.
ACCREDITED REMOTE LEARNING (ARL) can be implemented IMMEDIATELY everywhere to ensure that maximum access, minimum cost, top quality university education (and excellent secondary school education) can be essentially free for all anywhere in the world.
Dr Gideon Polya
Melbourne, Australia
ACADEMIC CREDENTIALS: Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific and academic teaching career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003), and is currently editing a completed book on global avoidable mortality (numerous articles on this matter can be found by a simple Google search for "Gideon Polya" and on his websites: http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gpolya/links.html