Search results

A major factor stimulating the development of correspondence education was the elitist conception of higher education which denied higher learning to all but a select few. Hence, as the higher educational sector grew and developed rapidly, many expected to see correspondence education wither away. In fact the contrary is proving the case. With the emergence of the concept of permanent education, there is a renewed interest in this form of study.

Approximately five years ago, when he retired, Mr Claude Gill delivered a paper to a conference of librarians and it was very clear that he was pessimistic regarding the standards of distribution from publishers to booksellers. After the traumas of early computerization and decentralization away from London and five years later, I think that there are now grounds for believing that the situation has improved for the better. It is not ideal. Many publishers are still too slow and too many mistakes are still being made. The Director of the Booksellers Association recently said that: ‘In an outside world of increasing congestion and high labour costs it may be regarded as an outstanding achievement for a service nowadays to be no worse off!’

With this theme, the thirteenth Conference of the International Federation of Training & Development Organisations was held in Sydney, Australia in August. ABE was privileged to have three representatives there: Lyndon Jones (Chairman), Dr. Alec Martin (Education Consultant), Denys Page (Council Member and regular contributor to Education & Training).

Lyndon Jones and Ken Cropper paid a successful visit to Hong Kong in November 1983. Among the educational centres visited were:

Lyndon Jones reports on the latest developments in correspondence courses.

I was glad when ABE Chairman Lyndon Jones suggested that I should write this series. Within and between business organisations, communications are the integrating force which enable them to act in a co‐ordinated manner. There is no organisation without communication, and where communication is lacking or is of poor quality people involved in operations soon suffer. At various times I have heard them make many bitter complaints, of which the following are a sample; the English is not always to be emulated, but the annoyance expressed was undeniably justified:

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a demonstration by a model is probably worth several thousand. For example, take the man who visits a Chinese restaurant and is unable to use chop sticks. He tries to learn on a trial‐and‐error basis but, after dropping food all over the table, asks for a fork and spoon. Yet if the same man was accompanied by a Chinese friend, who effectively demonstrated the use of chop sticks, he may use them with some degree of success.

Lyndon Jones on the worsening relations between the colleges and the regional advisory centres.

‘A good course is like a suitcase …’ Lyndon Jones offers some advice on arranging short courses.

In this chapter the authors point out the necessity for a careful analysis of the pinpointed and tracked (charted) behaviour in terms of its antecedents and consequences, as a prelude to attempting to change its incidence.