Financial Times: Online learning comes of age

New technology allows institutions to take the distance out of remote learning, comments Ray Irving, head of learning resources for the MBA at Warwick Business School in the UK. Certainly, the raft of innovations now available means that e-learning tools make distance learning a viable – and for some a preferable – alternative to more traditional face-to-face, classroom-based learning.International Data Corporation estimates that S$25.31m was spent on e-learning in Singapore alone in 2004 and this figure is expected to triple by 2008. [...] E-learning is also thriving in the US. The research report Growing by Degrees: Online Education in the US 2005 says that online enrolment in the US increased from 1.98m in 2003 to 2.35m a year later, a growth rate more than 10 times that predicted by the National Center for Education Statistics for the general post-secondary student population. More...