On-line Education

As with the rest of the world, the Caribbean has been plunged into a crisis in the delivery of education in a world that is changing so rapidly that the knowledge necessary to just keep abreast is expanding exponentially while the traditional infrastructure and human resources can only be increased arithmetically. That traditional method entailed bringing students from their homes into classrooms in schools and universities, where they were lectured to by teachers and professors. This is as it has been with Plato in Greece or at Taxila in India 2500 years ago.
In Guyana, for instance, the University of Guyana has been all but paralysed over a dispute between the staff and the administration over funding, salaries and the quality of education being delivered. But with the revolution in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the last decade, a solution has presented itself that needs to be adopted at a much faster rate than at present – on-line education.
The most obvious benefit of on-line education is the leverage that it offers in teacher-student ratios. While an optimum classroom might accommodate 35 students, even doubling or tripling that number as occurs in the typical third world educational institution, pales in comparison to the hundreds of thousands that a taped on-line lesson can reach. The cost-per-student falls dramatically as a result and institutions can hire the very best teachers in each field to deliver the lectures. The best way to improve the quality of education is to increase the number of students taught by the very best teachers.
The on-line technique allows the teacher to use aids and other supplementary tools most effectively. The teacher can be less repetitive also since the student can always pause or rewind the lesson.  Lessons can also vary in length depending on the complexity of the topic. Unlike in the classroom, the mistakes of the teacher will certainly be caught by the brighter students and force corrections – unlike what typically occurs in classrooms.
As it is today, the mediocre teacher receives the same salary as that of the best in the field at the same level and we are being drowned in an ocean of mediocrity. On-line teaching does not mean that the classroom and off-line teachers will become obsolete. It ought to be acknowledged that there are some subjects such as say, experimental physics and dance, which will still demand a physical environment. But it ought to be acknowledged also that much of the information transmitted in classrooms – all the way up to advanced college courses – can be delivered more effectively than by talking heads whether in front of a classroom or in front of a camera.
There is the criticism that the classroom experience delivers something ineffable but that is probably true in only a small number of classrooms by the better teachers and lecturers. Those same “better” teachers can be recruited to deliver the on-line courses. To the criticism that the students may have questions, the present technology can make the on-line lessons as interactive as is necessary with questions allowed at any point in the lesson. There is also the possibility of peer-to-peer learning and teaching.
One of the most exciting vistas opened up by on-line education is ‘computer adaptive learning, assessment and testing’.  Incorrect answers are not random but betray specific assumptions and patterns of thought. Analysis of answers, therefore, can be used to guide students to exactly the lecture that needs to be reviewed and understood to achieve mastery of the material. Computer-adaptive testing will thus become computer-adaptive learning.
At the primary and secondary levels, as has been successfully tried at schools in Silicon Valley, California, the regular routine can be “flipped”, where the on-line lessons are absorbed at the students’ pace at home, and ‘home-work’ is done in the schools. Welcome to a brave new world.