The aim of the Voctade study is to contribute to the development of knowledge in the field of Vocational Education and Training (VET) at a distance in the European Union.
Among the methods used to achieve this goal is a census study of the European Union distance training industry market .
A few days before the conclusion of the research in 1997, the rigorous methodologies employed threw up in Nijmegen, in the Netherlands, the European Union's largest provider of VET. It was quite unknown in the European VET documentation.
Earlier research in the project had identified the French Ministry of Education's Centre National d'Enseignement à Distance as the European Union's largest government provider of VET.
Between them in 1997, these two institutions offer vocational training to 1,050,000 trainees. All these trainees study at a distance. The CNED enrols 400,000 annually and the Nijmegen college, Charkov Beheer 650,000.
It is disconcerting to have 650,000 new trainees arrive into a survey and analysis project a few days before its completion . It skews the statistics and upsets the analysis. But it demonstrates the richness and complexity of this form of VET.
The Voctade project commences by analysing VET at a distance in the European Union in its global context. The study shows that there are four models of provision:
The importance of this lack of knowledge of the dimensions of the field of training at a distance is that in the United States of America there is today a vibrant field of group-based distance education for part-time students. This is based on the application of the new telecommunications technologies of the electronics revolution of the 1980s to distance education.
Characteristic of these developments are satellite-based systems, videoconferencing-based systems and an active listerv, Distance Education Online Symposium on a server at Pennsylvania State University, which provides the theoretical think tank, leading seamlessly to web-based provision.
There is little doubt that the World Wide Web is the most successful educational tool to have appeared in a long time. It combines and integrates text, audio and video with interaction amongst participants. It can be used on a global scale and is platform independent. While largely an asynchronomous medium, it can also be used for synchronous events. It is not surprising therefore, that trainers, lecturers, distance education providers and teaching institutions at all levels are increasingly using the Web as a medium for delivery.
The Voctade report then proceeds to identify the four sectors in which VET in the European Union is normally studied:
The Voctade report then divides the provision of VET at a distance in the European Union into four categories, each with its characteristic didactic and institutional model:
Each of the 64 European cells is then the subject of an intensive study to ascertain the precise number of institutional providers; the precise number of enrollees in each of the institutional providers in each of the 64 cells; the extent of the contribution of each cell to the European distance training industry market; the forms of evaluation, testing, certification provided; the transferability of qualifications from one cell to another and outside the European Union to Central and Eastern Europe.
The results are remarkable. No fewer than 874 institutional providers were identified. No fewer than 2,600,000 European Union citizens were tracked who chose to enrol in a distance training programme in the year beginning 1 January 1997, creating an annually recurring distance training industry volume of more than Ecu/Euro 1,000,000,000 (one billion Ecu/Euro) .
The study of evaluation and testing theory and practice of distance systems in the Voctade reports leads to the striking conclusion that it is the creation of an education environment for students studying at a distance that is crucial for the success or failure in this form of provision. It follows that it is the building of systems for students studying at a distance that is central rather than project-funded materials development.
The conclusion of the report on the transparency and transportability of qualifications won at a distance across 64 cells is pessimistic. There are no specific regulations for qualifications won at a distance and the problem of distance programmes taught in more than one country at the same time, by satellite or by videoconferencing or on the web, does not seem to have been addressed .
The government distance training institution model is shown to have been developed by the government of France since 1939. The model is traced through Australia, New Zealand, Wallonia, Flanders , Spain and the United Kingdom and is claimed as a major European contribution to distance education. In 1997 the model has 35% of the European distance training industry market, in terms of number of citizens actually enrolled in a vocational programme.
The proprietary distance training institution model has its origins in the 19-th century and examples are still to be found in nearly every European Union member state today. The major providers are Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom. These institutions have 39% of the distance training market in 1997.
The foundation of distance teaching universities in the early 1970s by the governments of the United Kingdom, Spain and the Land of North-Rhine Westphalia gave European distance education global leadership in this field. Foundations followed in The Netherlands and Portugal with more recent foundations in Barcelona (Spain) and Patras (Greece). 1997 enrolments are 19% of the European market.
The provision of university degrees at a distance, or parts of degree courses, goes back to the late 19th century in the United States of America and (in the model of individual-based distance provision without preprepared courses) to about 1840 at the University of London. This is the normal form of provision of university degrees at a distance in countries that have chosen not to found an open university: Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy Sweden, or which chose a model in which conventional universities compete with an established open university for the market, like the United Kingdom. These programmes have 7% of the market.
The study shows that distance training is an important area of VET in the European Union because it is the chosen form of training for nearly 2, 600,000 European Union citizens per year. It is normal from of training provision for many citizens who are isolated, for those who are too distant from the institution that provides the particular course they need, for those in full-time employment and for all those who cannot meet the time-tabling of lectures, classes, training sessions, practical or workshop sessions that are characteristic of other forms of VET provision. It is the only form of provision for many prisoners, hospitalised, disabled, disadvantaged, shiftworkers and homemakers.
The study accepts the conclusions of a recent thread of the Distance Education Online Symposium listerv that, on a worldwide basis, over 60% of distance students are women.
The study breaks new ground by claiming that distance training is the normal form of training for taxpayers. It states that taxpayers pay with their taxes for the education, of the 5-25 age cohort in a society; but who pays for the education of taxpayers. For many decades that role has fallen, in the main, to distance training.
The growing literature on Vocational Education and Training in Europe already contains important volumes:
The Voctade study is timely. It comes as the four sectors of virtual and distance training in Europe, with their major annually recurring market volume, face extensive challenges as they face into the 21st century. There is evidence too, that a lack of a realisation of the global richness of virtual and distance systems and a lack of ability to harness the electronic and WWW-based distance training technologies of today, may be ceding the initiative elsewhere, in a form of VET in which the European nations were once leaders.