The ucdm sector in most developing countries is the most neglected sector, which ought to be the sector with the lion share of the budget. The reason for this anomaly is more political than technical as most of the leadership in these countries devoted more fund to perpetuate themselves in power than development of the economy. Principally, most developing countries devote less than 20% of the national budget to education which is the minimum recommended by UNESCO. Most developing countries whose economies are developing fast that have left that category like Singapore, South Korea, devoted much to education and human resources development.
The advent of the internet and the information age has help much to the delivery and cost effective access to the education contents from the fundamentals to the highest emblems of education you literally source for any education contents on the information superhighway. The resources and human capacity development requirements for developing the work force for a developed economy can be found on the internet. It s no wonder then than most developed economies have most of their tertiary education enrollment online – online education in most advance economies have their more than 40% of their tertiary education online.
They leverage on the internet and distance learning technologies to deliver quality education contents for most of their populace especially the working force. The economy becomes more fluid and mobile as the working force have access to education and retraining without necessary taking leave of their work. The purpose of distance learning anyway, is o remove the distance barrier from the access of education. However in this age, it is removing the barrier to both space and cost,. It is known that online education reduce the cost to access more than half.
The readily and noticeably constraint in developing countries are in the border of the following
- Inadequate access to education opportunities, such inability to exploit the leverage and opportunities to human capacity development distance and online education afford economies in this information age.
- Lack of trained education workforce in education for development in the 21st century especially in online and distance education in this information age
- Poor funding, especially on
- Primary, Intermediate and Tertiary Education,
- Teacher emoluments, Training and Re-training,
- Pedagogical and Instructional materials,
- Basic Educational infrastructural facilities conditions,
- Educational technology system
- Institutional autonomy
- Poor quality assurance mechanisms and inadequate maintenance system to sustains the self preservation of national education policies and plans.
One main readily observing and dynamic aspect of education in this information age is the use of digital technologies for learning. These have evolved over the decades from adjoining electronic, information, communication and telecommunication technologies that have made online and distance education today a veritable tool for developing human resources both on the short and long term. Adopting these technologies which are very cost effective than the traditional mode of education will help these developing countries to leap frog and advance their economies.
