The History of Distance Education in Australia

Australia’s widespread development and use of distance education has been in the main caused by its geography and low population. Though covering an area as great as the United States of America, Australia’s population has only just reached 20 million at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and most people live on the fertile coastal fringes primarily around major cities. As much of the inland area of the country has insufficient water to sustain many inhabitants, centers of population can be scattered across large distances, particularly in the outback, the most remote inland areas of Australia. With such a distributed population, the education of school-aged children initially spurred the growth of distance education and, as teachers and other professionals in these scattered areas needed further education, government education agencies and postsecondary educational institutions began to provide this through distance education. Any new technology that could ease the isolation of distant students has also been put to use and the history of innovative uses of technology has been intertwined through Australia’s history of distance education, impacting on today’s developments in education in all educational sectors.This article will examine the response to these conditions within an Australian educational system that has its state governments providing school and vocational education and both federal and state governments sharing governance of the university system. The impact of government policies as both responsive and directing of distance education in Australia will be discussed.After Australia became a federation of hitherto separate states in 1901, this former British colony with a short history of only 200 years provided schools in major towns and small bush schools in more settled rural areas, often with one teacher teaching all ages. Many of these teachers were minimally trained and were reliant on correspondence education for further professional development. Correspondence education, depending on a reliable postal service, was the first form of Australian distance education, beginning in the state of Victoria at secondary level in 1909 and at primary level in 1914 and soon followed by the other states.Reporting on the correspondence education system that educated 1.5% of all elementary school aged children in 1931 (5-12 years of age or in some states until 14 years), Cunningham (1931) wrote that “Australia can claim to be the first country to have shown in a systematic way, and on a large scale, that it is possible to provide by correspondence a compete elementary education for children who have never been to school” (p. 9). Teachers, usually based in cities, taught invisible classes of children who were sent printed lessons and who sent work back to their teachers for assessment and feedback. Correspondence classes were organized like normal schools with some specialization of function according to the expertise of the teachers.Correspondence courses for teachers to complete their qualifications were also possible within Australia by 1910. The need for education for teachers indeed drove the establishment of external studies (as distance education was known) in institutions of higher education. Until 1982, external studies was provided by different educational authorities “as a matter of necessity or advantage” (Johnson, 1996, p. 90). Johnson describes the establishment of teachers colleges, later expanded to colleges of advanced education, (CAEs) as state-run institutions established for political advantage to politicians. Conservative politicians sponsored establishment of colleges in country centers while Labour politicians sponsored establishment of institutions in cities, the site of their political support. During the 1970s, when an economic downturn and high unemployment meant fewer students enrolled in higher education, the countrybased colleges, also answering a need for teachers in service requiring an additional year of qualification, expanded their external studies to answer a need for part-time distance education of teachers. This demand was bolstered when tuition fees for higher education were abolished by the Federal Labour government of 1972-1975 and demand for enrollment grew, particularly in external studies from women either because of their geographic location or their family commitments, which made studying at a distance more feasible.By 1975, there were over 17,000 external students in higher education, 6% of total national enrollment, and by 1982 the distance education sector was the fastest growing sector in higher education, with total enrollment of 334,000. Forty-three higher education institutions offered external studies, mostly in teacher education and business studies (Johnson, 1996). At university level, each state had ensured that a university in its establishment took responsibility for provision of distance education, including Deakin University in Victoria, the University of Queensland in that state, the University of New England and Macquarie University in New South Wales, and Murdoch University in Western Australia (Holmes, 1977). In the Technical and Further Education (TAFE) sector, each state offered colleges of external studies, though in Victoria a TAFE off-campus coordinating authority produced materials, but the tutorial process took place through its colleges. In 1976, there was a total enrolment of nearly 60,000 in these TAFE organizations (Holmes, 1977).The needs-based growth of the distance education sector in Australia resulted in a range of duplication of courses and resources, and from 1973 the Australian Commonwealth government expressed interest in nationally coordinating distance education in higher education. A committee was appointed to advise the Universities Commission on open education at university level, later extending to include advanced education, and in its 1974 report it drew attention to the need for lifelong learning in the workforce and to the need for equity of access to higher education. There was a rejection of the establishment of a single-mode distance university such as the Open University in the United Kingdom, and dual mode institutions, teaching both on-and off-campus students, became the norm in Australia. A national coordination body for organizing and advising distant education offerings in Australia was also recommended (Deakin University, 1988). This recommended body was not established at this time, and after further duplication and fragmentation in external offerings, this was again investigated in 1982 (Johnson, 1983), with a similar recommendation for a national overview of policy on distance education to oversee credit transfers, library access, sharing of courses, study centers, and advice on external studies.A federal election in 1987 brought a new national education minister, John Dawkins, who proposed a number of reforms in higher education and responded to the 1986 Hudson report that recommended a way of rationalizing course duplication in distance education through establishing a limited number of distance education providers to six (later expanded to eight) Distance Education Centres (DECs). Inglis (1999) writes of a period of “winners and losers” in distance education (p. 21) when non-DEC providers had to justify their involvement in the field. The DECs were, however, funded to collaborate as specialists with all non-DEC providers of distance education, and this helped to raise the quality of distance education materials and the provision of electronic technologies to students (Johnson, 1996, p. 99). However, after 4 years when DECs collaborated with non-DECs to ensure an ongoing distribution of funded distance education was available to all institutions, another review and a new education minister resulted in the disbanding of the DEC system in 1993, and all institutions were free to offer courses in whatever mode they chose.This period of federal government investigation of the potential of distance education and of government proposals for national coordination of distance education provision had a long-term impact on distance education in Australia. Some institutions abandoned provision of distance education but, in the main, the widespread collaboration between institutions acted to reduce the replication of courses that had been occurring, and began to raise the quality of distance education provision. The federal government has not again attempted to limit institutions providing distance education and, with the advent of the Internet and online education, has instead funded innovative projects to develop effective technological support for distance education with the premise that innovations be shared collaboratively among universities. Major reports on the effectiveness of technologies have been commissioned (National Board of Employment, Education and Training, 1992, 1994; Taylor, Lopez, Yetton, 1997), and these have influenced universities as they review the potential of multimedia, electronic learning, and the Internet in both on-campus and off-campus provision. As well, systems of quality audits of universities have been Instituted at the federal level and these also act as an audit on the quality of distance education, particularly online offerings (Inglis, 2005; Oliver, 2003).National collaboration between distance education providers has also been encouraged through the establishment of national associations of universities involved with distance education since 1993. As all universities embrace online education and cope with the issues of open and distance education, their interest in related policy and practice is shared. The eight government distance education centres formed into the Australian National Council of Open and Distance Education, and when they offered fee-paying membership to all Australian universities, 31 of the 38 accepted (Le Grew Tennant, 1999). Both vocational education and higher education institutions established rural outposts to link teachers and students (Northcott, 1986; Macpherson Stacey, 1994).The response of institutions and sectors experimenting with new technologies and sharing knowledge of their possibilities is reflected in the distance education literature. Peter Smith (2004) analyzing the themes of articles in the Australian journal Distance Education, the first academic journal established to publish research in this field, found that:In the twenty-first century, the federal government’s role has become one of ensuring provision of the infrastructure to support new technologies as all sectors and institutions become distance providers. Again, the geography of Australia is a challenge in this provision, but technology developments such as high-speed Internet connection through twoway satellite connections (O’Neill, 2005) are bringing interactive distance education to all areas. Australia is expanding its international provision of education as more stable technologies make interactive teaching at a distance possible and acceptable to students in other countries, particularly with our closest neighbors in Asia.Australia’s history of distance education has provided lessons in successful organization and administration as well as establishment of student support that has ensured a level of quality and commitment to quality in distance provision. As with all countries, this basis of knowledge and skill is not always considered, as the Internet has made distance providers of all sectors and institutions; but with a small population, the ongoing success of this provision remains with those who learn from this history.As influential scholars of and commentators on this period of distance education history, Terry Evans and Daryl Nation (2003) have written: