EADTU Conference Academic Co-operation in Europe "Stregthening Academic network within EADTU"
The NETTUNO Model - Network for the University Everywhere - towards an Integrated Open Distance Teaching-Learning Process" (English Version)
:
M. A. Garito
Place/Date:
Milton Keynes, 11/11/1999
Abstract
New Social Contexts and New Training Needs
Telecommunication and satellite technologies have made many training courses available.
These courses make way for learning and acquiring new skills even outside traditional educational and training facilities; everyone can learn thorough the Internet and television media. Within the information society, the development of an open and extended educational system presents both possibility and risks. Institutions in charge of education and training can not ignore today’s new setting.
They can not remain indifferent to the issues it has raised up nor to the need to bring teaching and learning into this new context. They can not ignore that the most important fact today is the "innovationdevelopment-growth-occupation" dynamic that has come into difficulties and that determines the need for continuing education. Today, people need to be prepared to be able to constructively fit into a constantly evolving society. It is no longer enough to just brush-up on one’s own skills, but rather, one needs to take on new skills and to become qualified in new professions. Therefore, education must:
- reach everyone
- be diversified and adapted to people of all ages
- constantly innovate what disciplines and study programs cover
- create new guidelines for those professions most in demand on the job market
- one that’s marked by strong dynamism.
For years the university has been able to satisfy the needs of higher education. But, in this new context, if the university wants to be able to play a key role in political, economic, cultural and social development, it must single out new solutions and take on effective strategies in order to respond successfully to education’s new needs.