Online students will never meet a tutor

By Jon Boone,Education Correspondent
Published: May 9 2007 03:00 Last updated: May 9 2007 03:00

Degrees that are delivered entirely online without any face-to-face contact with a tutor are to be offered for the first time in Britain by a leading US company.
The two- or three-year foundation degree courses in four areas of business studies are to be devised by Kaplan, a subsidiary of the Washington Post Company, and validated by the University of Essex.
Although the company has said it wants to take advantage of recent deregulation that in theory allows non-universities to award their own degrees, the deal with Essex gives it an immediate foothold in the higher education market.
Kaplan already awards its own degrees in the US and Ireland but in the UK only one non-university, the College of Law, has successfully bid for degree-awarding -powers.
Essex will police the quality of the course and award the degree, but the content and the technology to support it will be Kaplan's.
William Macpherson, chief executive officer of Kaplan International, said diversifying away from traditional three-year, full-time undergraduate courses would help to open up higher education to new groups.
He said: "The course will closely replicate a traditional campus classroom except that students will have far greater choice when it comes to how they study, when they study and where they study."
Students will be able to start their course at several different points throughout the academic year and teachers and students will interact with each other through an "online classroom".
Online learning is a growing element of UK degree courses. However, even the Open University, which pioneered distance learning, offers support to students in the form of the option of meetings with tutors.
In the US, online enrolment jumped from 1.98m in 2003 to 2.35m the following year, accounting for 7 per cent of post-secondary -education.
The move by Kaplan marks another step by the private sector into the provision of higher education in Britain. Laureate Online Education, another US-based company, has been working with Liverpool University to put some of its masters programmes online. Other companies have developed partnerships with universities to offer support services to international students and language provision.
The role of the private sector has alarmed the biggest higher education union, which believes the sector is at risk of "privatisation".
Commenting on the Kaplan deal with Essex, Sally Hunt, joint general secretary of the University and College Union, said there was no guarantee that standards could be maintained if a university lost control of academic provision.
"The focus of higher education should be to provide for students, not for those purely wishing to make profit. Online or distant learning should not be viewed as areas to try and make a quick buck.
"Many students not following a 'traditional' route to higher education often need more support than teenagers moving away to university. Returning to education is an incredibly big decision for many people to take and it is absolutely vital that the necessary support is in place so students complete their courses and standards are maintained," she said.
Background
Private education providers are seen by the government as key to meeting its ambition to give half of all people access to higher education. Several companies, including Laureate and Kaplan, are involved in joint projects with universities helping to produce online content, running courses with a more vocational bent and support for lucrative overseas students.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

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