What are the issues relating to technical and vocational education at a distance?

Two main factors have led to an explosion of interest in and use of distance learning in technical and vocational education:

• The growing need for continual skills upgrading and retraining
• The technological advances that have made it possible to teach more and more subjects at a distance.

Distance teaching has been developed for initial training, upgrading, and retraining of skilled workers. Workplace training is one of the fastest growing areas in distance teaching.

Distance education programs also have frequently been used to meet the growing need to help teachers in the field increase their instructional rather than their technical skills.

More on technical and vocational education

Kawai, A. 2002. "The role of radio programmes in Japanese post-war agricultural and rural development: A lesson for vocational education and training". Paper presented at the 15th Annual Conference of the Asian Association of Open Universities, New Delhi, India, February 21-23, 2002.