Online Education in Developing Nations
September 25th, 2008
Universal education in the United States is no longer a novel idea; in fact, K-12 education has become something most Americans take for granted. Even with issues of access and affordability in the world of American higher education, the possibility of obtaining a college degree is not out of the question for most Americans. For many in the world, however, education is far from a “given;” millions of children in developing nations never see the inside of an elementary school classroom and the concept of achieving any level of postsecondary education seems as likely as sprouting wings and flying to the moon.
One UNESCO report estimates that “only about 3 percent of young people in sub-Saharan Africa and 7 percent in Asia attend some form of postsecondary education.” Compare these statistics to postsecondary education statistics in industrialized nations (approximately 58 percent of the population in industrialized nations pursue some form of postsecondary education) and for the United States alone (60 percent) and it becomes clear that a large sector of the world’s population is not able to access the valuable skills gained through higher education. In the United States, we have had 150-200+ years to develop our three tiered system embracing community colleges, four year colleges, and research universities. The fixed costs of opening physical campuses, particularly in areas of large geographic expanse, often exceed the limited budgets of developing countries. Even China’s successful and rapidly expanding economy cannot keep up with the infrastructure involved in building college campuses.
