One of the 17 global goals of the United Nations is “Quality Education” [1]. The goal is described as
“Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”.
Today, access to quality education varies depending on factors like where you live, your gender, your parents’ wealth, or your functionality. There are obstacles such as lack of qualified teachers, tuition fees or poor knowledge of accessibility among education providers. As internet access is improving around the world, can digital learning contribute to solving these problems and reach the Quality Education goal?
Global Online Courses in Higher Education
Focusing on higher education, the development of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) has given the opportunity to provide education on a global scale. MOOCs are free courses offered by universities online. They give access to education which isn’t available where you live, but also contribute to lifelong learning since a more flexible study scheme makes it easier to combine studies with other parts of life such as family or work.
However, there is also a growing market of paid online courses outside of the academic system, for example Udemy [2] and Udacity [3]. I think the potential of global online courses to contribute to the Quality Education goal depends on their business model. If the model relies on high tuition fees or that teachers should develop and maintain courses for almost free it won’t be sustainable and accessible for all.
Credibility
Global online courses raise questions of credibility. In the video below, David White from the University of Oxford discusses how we judge knowledge from different sources. He says “When we’re told don’t use Wikipedia, what everyone hears is don’t cite Wikipedia”.
I think this is an excellent example of the discrepancy between good knowledge and what we consider being good knowledge. The openness of Wikipedia means that information provided there might actually be better peer-reviewed than if it had been published in a scientific journal, but still it is valued less.
How do universities ensure the quality of the MOOCs they offer so the courses fulfil the expectations we have on university education? And how will employers value degrees given completely online by education providers outside of the academic system?
Accessibility
Another aspect to consider is accessibility. One part of this is designing an inclusive online learning environment by following the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) [4] to make the education accessible for people with disabilities. To offer a course on a global scale however also come with additional accessibility aspects, such as internet restrictions in different countries and different laws for data protection such as GDPR [5] in the European Union.
References
[1] The United Nations, https://sdgs.un.org/goals
[2] Udemy, https://www.udemy.com/
[3] Udacity, https://www.udacity.com/
[4] W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), https://www.w3.org/WAI/
[5] European Commission, “EU data protection rules”, https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/eu-data-protection-rules_en