Press room

Distance, virtual and continuing education has to use the economic and financial crisis as an opportunity to demand that institutions offering such education gain a more important role in the higher education system. Over 80 open and distance university presidents, rectors and chief executives from around the world met up over two days at the SCOP 2009 in Barcelona.

The annual meeting focused on how to maintain and increase the level of quality in university services in the context of the economic and financial crisis, while contributing to overcoming the economic difficulties that society is facing. Thus, the leaders agreed that the international university community is not responding to students’ needs and they see this as an opportunity for open and distance universities to lead the changes. The university heads believe that these changes have to be based on flexibility and innovation, which is what society is currently calling for.

“Open, virtual and distance education has to use this crisis as an opportunity. We have to demonstrate that we are part of the solution, leading the changes and taking advantage of our pioneering the use of new technologies” they declared in the preliminary conclusions, which stressed the importance of finding innovative formulas to maintain levels of quality in a context of increasingly reduced funding. They also highlighted the importance of bringing down the borders to distance education, no longer restricting institutions geographically.

The ICDE Standing Conference of Presidents, SCOP, organised by the UOC and the ICDE (International Council for Open and Distance Education), involved over 80 rectors, presidents and chief executives, and took place as part of the celebrations for the UOC’s fifteenth anniversary.

University heads from countries as diverse as China, Israel, USA or Nigeria spent two days debating how to respond to the challenges facing open and distance education, a sector which is expanding rapidly and seen as a vital tool for educating the people of the 21st century.