An unquestionably positive step forward: distance education.

The idea that teaching and learning can successfully take place through electronic communication between teachers and students who are widely separated by space and time is a concept that has inspired both hope and dismay, as well as excitement and fear. In advanced industrial countries with high rates of literacy and school attendance and with abundant post-secondary educational opportunities, we find a burgeoning literature, most of which touts the "unlimited" possibilities of this "revolution" in education.

At the same time, distance education has its passionate critics, even in societies in which universal access to computer technology is an attainable goal. Far less controversy has attended the projections of the wide use of electronic means to bring educational materials to resource-deprived countries in the developing world. Indeed, a general assumption that distance education represents an unquestionably positive step forward has framed almost all discussions of the use of this technology in education.

However, while there is only limited critical literature focused on the developing countries that would be comparable to the broad critique of distance education that has emerged in North America, a careful analysis of the prospects for the application of electronic technology to education may show that many of the already identified shortcomings of distance education with respect to industrialized countries also apply, or indeed are likely to appear in even more dramatic forms in developing countries. Moreover, there is a significant range of concerns about its impact and effectiveness in developing countries that would not be an issue in wealthier countries.

Some of the potential benefits for distance learners in both developed and developing countries include the greater access to education that distance learning offers (above all to what is increasingly referred to as the "nontraditional student"), flexibility of scheduling, the possibility of proceeding at one's own pace, and the opportunity to study without having to travel, indeed without leaving home.

In addition, for institutions that manage to persuade or oblige instructors to "bring their course online", the opportunity to reach distance students holds out the hope of great savings in the construction of classroom buildings, student housing, parking lots and other physical infrastructure, as well as substantial potential savings in teachers' salaries.

The advantages of distance education for the developing world are framed in terms of less expensive computer technology and the increasing speed and capacity of computers in relationship to their cost. In the face of the pressure on developing countries to join the global information economy, distance education appears to provide the opportunity to train more people better and at lower cost. At the same time, it has some serious drawbacks, even in its application in advanced industrial countries. These include cost and capital intensivity, time constraints and other pressures on faculty, isolation of students from instructors and peers, instructors' enormous difficulty in adequately evaluating students they never meet face to face, and drop-out rates that are far higher than in classroom-based courses.

Many of these fundamental problems are reproduced when distance programmes are exported to developing countries. As is known, the social impact of technological change is difficult to predict or foresee and, oftentimes, far from improving the quality of life or expectations of the powerless and the poor, the application of technology functions in strange and unexpected ways to reinforce the worst problems of inequality. The "digital divide" that polarizes the technological "haves" and "have-nots" separate the "wired world" from those without access to this technology, and within the developing world separate those who have the requisite levels of literacy and computer skills to make use of the Internet and other forms of communication from those who have not. Income, education, age, ethnicity, language and gender also separate the citizens of developing countries who have a reasonable hope of making use of electronic communication from those who have little or no hope whatsoever.

There are various ways to count the costs of providing distance education in developing countries. One problem is that most calculations based on "per-student" costs fail to take drop-out rates into account. Since there is a huge outlay of funds involved in producing new courses, some planners propose that the creation of course materials for developing country students could be offloaded onto some institution with more abundant resources in the industrialized world. But the "packaging" of courses for distribution in developing countries raises serious problems of creating culturally appropriate materials and approaches.

It may also exacerbate existing problems of what is perceived to be cultural domination by Europe and North America. Moreover, because resources for education in the developing world are not limitless, the channeling of scarce resources into computers as opposed, say, to in-class teacher training represents a choice that is made and an opportunity foregone.

If face-to-face instruction is a more effective way of reaching (and retaining) students, particularly the most marginalized, then planners at some point may have to set aside their romance with technological solutions and return to the basic task of building a corps of qualified and dedicated teachers who can reach those, according to signs we already see, who will inevitably be left behind in the computer revolution.

A presently conceived, the demotion of the teacher to an "equipment monitor" who throws the switch to bring someone "better informed", or "more expert" or "more entertaining" into the classroom represents a deskilling of the profession at a time when teachers everywhere, particularly in developing countries, are suffering a decline in prestige and respect in their communities, not to mention a drop in real wages. Obviously this problem can only be exacerbated by the use of material generated in the industrialized countries. Thus, deskilling of teachers is a social cost that must be taken into account when determining the appropriate disbursal of funds for education in developing countries.

For more information, refer to the UN Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) report, "The Riddle of Distance Education: Promise, Problems and Application for Development", Technology, Business and Society Programme Paper Number 9, June 2003.

Judith Adler Hellman is professor of Political and Social Science at York University (Toronto), and editor of the Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. She has written articles on new social movements, European feminism, international migration and political transitions in Latin America.