Paris, 29 May 2002 - Distance learning is one way of training the millions of new teachers that are needed to achieve basic education for all by 2015. Every day, planners in education ministries and teacher-training colleges are called upon to make hard choices about when and how distance education can be used successfully to expand and upgrade the skills of the teaching force. How effective is it? What technologies should be used? At what cost? Answers to these questions can be found in Teacher Education Guidelines: Using Open and Distance Learning, just published by UNESCO.

The handbook describes how to plan for distance learning, how to choose the appropriate technologies, how to fund them, how to teach classroom skills and how to assess them. It focuses on new and old technologies; radio and television, and computers as well as print. It also suggests other reports and websites that provide information and help.

"These guidelines don't tell education planners what to do," says Richard Halperin, Chief of UNESCO's Section for Teacher Education, Division of Higher Education. . "They set out, in plain language, the choices that need to be made if distance education is to work effectively."

The need for using distance education is particularly important in developing countries that need to train large numbers of new teachers and upgrade the skills of their in-service staff, many of whom are unqualified.

"Developing countries need to tackle technology in education now," says Komlavi Seddoh, Director of UNESCO's Higher Education Division. "This kind of practical technology is not a luxury that can be waited for, or endlessly imported.

The global teacher shortage is most acute in Southern Asia and much of Africa, but countries in all regions - rich and poor alike - are reporting a shortfall. AIDS is reducing the life expectancy of teachers and further increasing the numerical demand. Unless an estimated 15 million more teachers are hired over the coming decade, numerous countries will fail to meet the 2015 education for all goal.

The guidelines draw on a set of eleven case studies carried out for UNESCO by the United Kingdom-based International Research Foundation for Open Learning (IRFOL), an independent non-profit institute affiliated to the Commonwealth of Learning, and published in 2001 under the title Teacher Education Through Distance Learning: Technology, Curriculum, Evaluation and Cost. The countries studied are Brazil, Burkina Faso, Chile, China, Egypt, India, Mongolia, Nigeria, South Africa (two studies) and the United Kingdom. The new practical guidelines logically follow the earlier, more descriptive study, applying these national experiences to a much wider audience. Both studies were done under the leadership of Hilary Perraton of IRFOL.

*******
Both documents are available free of charge from UNESCO's Documentation and Information Service, Education Sector. Email: oai@unesco.org They are also available in PDF format on the UNESCO Education website:

Teacher Education Guidelines: Using Open and Distance Learning and Teacher

Teacher Education Through Distance Learning: Technology, Curriculum, Evaluation and Cost

*******
For more information on this publication contact:
Richard Halperin, Education Sector, UNESCO Paris
Tel: + 33 1 45 68 08 23;
Email: rw.halperin@unesco.org

*******
More on UNESCO's education programme