D. Other Recommendations to the EU Commission

1. Use of MIT public domain course materials by institutions, individuals and groups

In an unprecedented move a few months ago, an institution known all over the world for its high quality university level teaching and research, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) decided to make nearly all of its course materials available over the internet to people everywhere. The teaching material for a large number of courses on many subjects both related and unrelated to technology are already available on the MIT web site free of charge, and much more will be added in the next few years.

By putting its course content in the public domain, MIT was among other things making a statement that valuable and paid educational services do not consist merely in the transmission of information but more importantly of a number of other services such as the personal intervention of a teacher; the facilitated interaction among students; the setting of assignments as well as their assessment and related feedback information to the learner; and so on. Nevertheless, the course content information from MIT that is now available freely on the Web constitutes a priceless resource that may be used by various kinds of groups, individuals, and institutions in any country. Formal tertiary education institutions in Europe could use this material to extend their range of course offerings both with and without certification to persons studying on and off campus both with and without certification.

Conceivably, some of the newly released MIT material could also be used by individuals without a parent institution, for example career changers or persons who are led or constrained towards re-training or upgrading or updating their level of professional knowledge. Co-operatives of learners may make the utilisation of such knowledge more practical as regards purchase of expensive books, and as regards mutual support and study assistance.

2. Exchangeable Learning Credit in the Community

There are in societies across Europe many persons within the community that have skills or knowledge that are in demand and that they can teach to others, especially if they receive public acknowledgement or economic value in return. There are many potential learners who would appreciate the opportunity to learn some of this knowledge or skills in a semi-formal or informal context, and although they may not need formal certification, they would appreciate a semi-formal record of what they have learnt. If these two hypotheses are correct, then a solution for meeting the needs of potential teachers and potential learners in the community would be a method of community-based exchangeable learning and teaching credits. Such a scheme would have a formal name, would be recognised, supported, or sponsored by some social actors, could be administered through local councils, and would have a central channel of information such as a national web page.

Such a scheme might work in a manner somewhat similar to the following. Persons would register through local authorities as potential teachers in a specific subject, and there would be a record of their names and subjects offered, on the web page and possibly on other media. Persons may also register as potential learners under the scheme. A public forum such as a Web page and a respected body such as the local authority could be the platform for carrying signed testimonials from previous students or professional colleagues of the teacher testifying to the expertise of the teachers and the value of the course.

The local authority or other administering body, or failing that the teachers themselves, organise the time and place for the lessons. For teachers and students registered under the scheme, a number of teaching credits and learning credits would be publicly assigned at the completion of each course. Depending on a number of factors, the whole scheme, or parts of it, could establish a rate of exchange between the credits and money. The teaching and learning credits would remain equivalent to money at an established rate of exchange; in this manner, for example, a teacher would be able to teach a skill or subject, and through the credit system this person would be able to either receive money or use the earned teaching-credits to purchase learning-credits enabling him or her attend other courses that interest him or her as a student.

One variant or adjunct to such a scheme would be a one-to-one scheme with one teacher and one student, for cases where special tutoring or mentoring is required. One additional feature of such schemes could be the encouragement of the use of teaching and learning credits as equivalent to goods and services in a recorded bartering system.

It is being recommended that the EU Commission promotes such a scheme.

3. Serving communities in less developed countries through the lifelong learning process

It can only benefit any European country morally if the process towards lifelong learning is accompanied by an interest in one or more developing countries and a search for methods of being of service to communities in those countries, whose learning needs may be more severe and critical than its own. Compared to many countries in the world today, European countries including Malta are comparatively very rich in monetary and educational terms in many ways.

Persons and institutions taking part in the lifelong learning revolution can profitably generate, as a counter balancing influence to such ethos, although the profit may be in terms of moral fibre and wider perspectives rather than financial. They can do this by generating public concern about how they can be of educational service to communities in less developed countries and communities, for example through offering suitably adapted teaching, mentoring, and study-assistance to learners over the internet, through interactive web pages, email, and non-localised tele-classrooms and even through course design and adaptation.

Besides sharing some of the human and educational resources of one's country with communities that need them as a matter of economic survival, such a strategy can promote healthier attitudes of giving as distinct from getting, and of producing and taking creative initiatives as distinct from consuming and conforming.