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I must be Ok. Look at my associates! |
Fit (for purpose)
Learners can be unsure about distance learning. It's unfamiliar.
Often the provider is not a household name; there are no buildings to see, and no cohort of local students to talk to.
So they look for reassurance, for those unmistakable marks by which you may know, wheresoever you go, the warrented, genuine course.
Hunting for the Mark
Of course, that's just what the ODL QC quality mark provides. But some providers, unwilling for whatever reason to seek our accreditation, use other marks - three, four, five, even eight and more in some cases, nestling together on the notepaper.
Who are those bodies? And what do those logos mean?
Seals of Approval?
Bodies exercise differing degrees of control over the use of their logos. Some give detailed instructions, and threaten to go to law if their rules are broken (though privately admitting that they never have, and probably never will).
Some let others use their logo almost without restriction.
There may be an assessment process underpinning the link (though what is assessed is a different question). But often there is not. Some let members join with few, if any, checks, let alone inspection, and then use their logo.
Even bodies with a declared commitment to quality enhancement still allow their logo to be used in this way. Do learners understand these subtle distinctions?
And what of the body whose logo is used? There is a plethora of such organisations in the UK. Often, only an expert can distinguish the impeccable and the influential from the boastful and the bogus.
Yet inventing organisations to offer a phony veneer of respectability is a well-known trick. Have you heard of the Society of Distance and Local Learning?
What does its logo imply?
Government Blessing
Perhaps the government can help. After all, this government has done more to expand open and distance learning than any in recent times, through learndirect, UfI, ILAs and other initiatives.
But, alas, they are only compounding the problem.
Right from the start, it has been an issue for UfI.
Establishing learndirect as a quality brand without imposing yet another quality system is a Chinese puzzle they have yet to solve.
So the brand name appears liberally in learning centres and providers' literature, without anyone knowing quite what it means, or which services it covers.
Or take the learndirect helpline. It's not that those running it are insensitive to issues of quality.
Nowadays, many of the calls we receive at ODL QC are referrals from learndirect, from learners concerned with quality issues.
But learndirect is charged by Ministers with providing a comprehensive, all-inclusive database.
learndirect cannot exclude a provider without a reason. Whatever fears they have in private, without proof those courses must go in the database.
The situation with Individual Learning Accounts is even more confusing, at least for the learner.
Government policy, as one civil servant put it to me, is that
ILAs are not and have never intended to be (sic) a seal of quality for learning or learning providers.... Key to the design was not to limit the learning that is eligible; this enables people to take responsibility for learning.
But are learners enabled? Or is the government just passing the buck?
If a door-to-door salesman, (a new and worrying feature of distance learning) tells you his courses come with a government grant, you feel re-assured.
Indeed, you assume that the course has government approval. After all. they wouldn't put taxpayers money into suspect courses, would they?
Beware of Boojums
Alas, governmental intentions do not match learners perceptions. And quantity without quality is not the answer. The public needs clear and reliable information on quality as well. Our new Buyer's Guide should help.
Education, education, education, intones the Prime Minister again as another election looms. And, as the Bellman says, What I tell you three times is true.
But what is the substance behind the rhetoric? learndirect and ILAs have stirred the pot. Let's match the increase in volume with a renewed commitment to clearly labelled quality.
Or the mark may be Boojum, you see.
David Morley
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