The computer has the potential to revolutionise the learning process for adults and children, and is probably the most important educational development in history.
‘Distance Learning' in today's high-tech world utilises a computer modem linked by telephone to the child's computer at home or school, whence any area of specialised education can be undertaken. This enables exceptionally advanced young students to participate in teaching programmes which, through lack of equipment and/or trained staff, would not usually be available in conventional education systems. A further advantage is that students can fast-track at their own specific pace. Only with distance learning can exceptional tutors educate exceptional pupils regardless of age or location. This is the way that all people, young or old, can be educated to their personal best.
Young people of superior intellectual ability in Third World countries as well as remote locations in the West, can potentially access the finest standards of education simply by supplying them with a computer and modem linked to a central tutor in the subject (s) at which they excel.
When one considers how much money world governments waste on bureaucracy and armaments, just a fraction of this expenditure utilised to assist exceptionally gifted people in any geographic zone, could be far more beneficially applied. In the long run, distance learning students could repay society with interest - via personal taxes and future leadership roles. They might also further the cause of international harmony and understanding.
Governments of the world, the United Nations, UNESCO, commercial companies, should be persuaded to fund distance learning projects so that able pupils emanating from any financial or geographic background could access superior standards of education.
More than ten years after the first published edition of this book - which advocated the merits of Distance Learning - two major computer software corporations donated a hundred million dollars to fund computer literacy in schools worldwide. Better late than never. It will be highly profitable to the company's future bottom line as well as the world community. It is illogical that ‘chalk n' talk' systems of learning still predominate in the age of IT.
Distance learning is a truly egalitarian system which could help Planet Earth become a better place.
Unfortunately, far too many governments offer little more than soundbite support to the concept, and fail to do much in practical terms. This is probably a contributing reason why a growing number of parents in the UK and USA are educating their children at home. It is also catching on in certain South East Asian nations where state funded education is less than perfect in some locations.