Distance learning is not a distant dream

Distance learning is not a distant dream

JAKARTA (JP): Distance education may be the answer to the government's quest to provide access to education for the masses in a country as huge and scattered as Indonesia.

However, using television and radio to teach students in remote areas may be a distant dream without a stronger government commitment, a senior official of the Ministry of Education and Culture said yesterday.

Head of the ministry's Research and Development Agency Sri Hardjoko Wirjomartono said many people in the key decision-making level were not fully informed about the concept and its advantages for a country like Indonesia.

Some even doubted the distance education program's chance of success, Hardjoko said during a media briefing about next week's international symposium on distance learning networks.

Skepticism arose because the learning method hinges on students' discipline and self-motivation, he said.

Director of the Communication Technology Center, Arief S. Sadimanhe agreed discipline and self motivation were crucial for the method's success.

"They (students) have to manage their own time and they must be strongly disciplined," he said. "If they can manage that it will definitely help them in the future."

Hardjoko said the National Development Planning Board supported distance education and agreed to finance its development.

The Open University is already using distance education and the government has run programs allowing junior high schools to reach pupils in remote areas.

Officials said the nine-year compulsory education program launched last year would also rely on distance education methods because the government did not have enough resources to provide teachers and new schools for all remote areas.

Arief said that because of its heavy reliance on the existence of communication facilities, the program required a bigger initial outlay but would then be cheaper to run than standard education methods.

The symposium, to be held in Yogyakarta, will involve 262 participants from more than 22 countries, including Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, India, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, New Guinea, Singapore, the Philippines, the United States, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe. (31)