Current Challenges and Prospects facing Distance Education in the Philippines

Abstract

In today's globalization and rapid technological advancements, dramatic changes have been happening in higher education, e.g. the dearth of resources for classroom-based instruction, the development of the open and distance learning philosophy, the need to service the needs of adult learners and many other factors which are the reality in the Philippines today. As a consequence, higher education institutions have been increasingly flexible to adjust their delivery system in an effort to respond to these changes. Distance Education (DE) has emerged as a legitimate alternative learning system (ALS) to the more traditional educational system in a number of higher education institution (HEIs) in the Philippines.

Under the 1987 Philippine Constitution, Article XIV mandates that quality education at every level should be made accessible to all Filipinos, including self-learning, independent, and out-of-school youth programs. Thus, the Open University systems and distance education ideology has proliferated in the Philippines over recent years especially in the last two (2) decadesw. This is considered as one of the most rapidly growing fields and means of education; such that it changes the approaches used; the delivery system; faculty requirements; and the need to respond to the rare breed of students which are being catered to by this type of educational arrangement. The objective of this paper is to assess how distance education/open learning evolved in the Philippines and see how it responds to making education accessible and flexible to many Filipinos. The laws/issuances given by the government will also be looked into to determine how the government supports this new educational philosophy. Further, this research will look into the characteristics of learners studying in some distance education institutions. Generally, this paper will look into current trends, challenges and prospects in DE in the Philippines.