Shifting Paradigms in Education and Training: What is the Connection with Telecommunications?

Abstract

The main argument in this short paper is that distance education will not only be used more in the future, but it will eventually become the principal mode of higher education, continuing education, and human resources development, some time soon in the 21st century. If this will indeed be so, then we had better have effective and efficient means of education at a distance. The predominant correspondence‐course model has limitations which have so far reduced the overall use of distance education methods both in overall quantity and to certain types of content. Advances in telecommunications will be both the driving force for more use of distance education and the provider of methodologies and models for its more effective use. The important role of computer‐mediated‐communication methodologies, as the result of the synergy of telecommunications and information technologies, will be emphasised.