Abstract
D.Ed.
You all know about population growth. When Oxford University was founded in
the 13th Century there were about 500 million people in the world. When the
Open University was set up there were 3 billion and when we celebrate our
thirtieth anniversary at the end of this century there are likely to be 6 billion. To
situate the same phenomenon ... in Africa you only have to note that in 1960 there
were only three African cities with populations of over half a million. Now there are
28. In many countries population is increasing faster than gross national product.
The conclusion is simple. By the next century the world will not possibly be able to
train and educate its people by conventional means. We shall face the challenge
of mega-education and mega-training. By the year 2000 half of the world's
population will be less than 25 years old and half will live in the cities. In the
developing world one third of the population will be under 14. The response to this
challenge will determine the future of the world and we, as distance educators,
have the nearest thing to a solution for educating and training the people of the
21st century" (Daniel, 1992:4).
Seligman (1992:13) continues the above line of thought when he states: "We
need a class of modern educators who are Ghandian in their commitments and
concerns but who are at the same time highly modern in their technological
competence and sophistication in the field of communication. This means they
combine social sensitiveness with the technical capability to bend modern
technology for a mass orientated education".
The researcher in this study is therefore of the opinion that within the context of
South African education, training and development of the workforce conventional
training methodology as well as conventional delivery of programmes would
futuristically not be appropriate if we consider the changing nature of local and
global economies.