The virtues of an `Open-Virtual' university

Malaysian Business, Jun 1, 1999 by J Jaafar

AT WHAT price an education?

Students nowadays have my sympathy as they face innumerable challenges in getting a good education. I refer to those who did not make it into the roughly 35,000 places offered by State-funded institutions of higher learning. What are these prospective students to do?

Your Focus on Education (MB, April 16 issue) went some way in addressing this situation. I was particularly impressed with what is being offered by Universiti Tun Abdul Razak (Unitar), which claims to be the region's first virtual university. The potential offered by the World Wide Web should be exploited to the maximum if we are to benefit from the advent of information technology. This opens whole new vistas in `distance learning' - something which has been shown to be both workable and popular in the United Kingdom with its `Open University' concept. The full potential of the Web should be harnessed fully for the benefit of prospective students. Merge the concept of the `Open University' with that of Unitar's `Virtual University' and one gets the best of both worlds. The university, however, should not merely introduce technology but should still expect to operate like a traditional institution of higher learning. Classes and lecture halls could be cut down in frequency, so the onus to acquire information will fall largely on the students. This will save on infrastructure cost. Of course, technical subjects would still require the provision of laboratories and `hands-on' tutor-student interaction, but the burden on resources could be shifted from other courses that can go `cyber'. The initiative needs to be State-driven with participation from the private sector. Dangers abound in the rush by private corporations to cater to the growing need for places in academia. Within the past few weeks, one private college offering diploma and degree courses in technical disciplines ran into funding problems. What will happen to these hapless students whose education is interrupted mid-stream? An 'Open- Virtual' university could be the key. J Jaafar Hulu Kelang