The Mexico–Canada Distance Education Project (Telesecundaria)
Background
Telesecundaria
was started in 1968 by Mexico’s Ministry of Education as a way to
reduce the shortage of trained teachers willing to work in remote rural
areas of Mexico and to deal with the lack of schools to accommodate secondary
students in smaller communities (e.g., less than 2,500 population).
Apparently, the individual who influenced the creation of Telesecundaria
was Carlos Fuentes, who described Telescundaria as “…the new
way of teaching as opening a window to the world for the children of the
poor in Mexico.” Telesecundaria’s model was and still is based
on broadcast television, a model that was very popular in the 1960’s and
1970’s as a way to address the educational needs of the world. Basically,
any community that wanted their children to have access to a secondary-school
education (e.g., Grades 7 to 9) could get together, find a building,
and buy a television. Para-teachers were hired to run the telesecuelas,
providing facilitation with the majority of instruction delivered through
educational television broadcasts and print-based materials. Telesecundaria’s
model was initially quite unique, as it delivered a comprehensive
junior program with only one teacher involved. The same subject areas are
covered as the traditional classroom-based schools. They initially began
delivering educational programming to 6,500 students living in rural parts
of seven states near Mexico City. In its early days it grew 20% per year,
to 800,000 students thirty years later.
Current enrolments are estimated at just over one million. There are approximately 17,500 + schools and 53,900 teachers involved. They cover Grades 7 to 9 and have plans to expand to cover full high school programs.
Staffing
The Telesecundaria Unit (Unidad de Telesecundaria) is comprised of teachers, communications experts, and production staff. The staff provides the educational grounding in the design of the materials (e.g., instructional design to ensure that the learning outcomes are met, assessment is appropriate, etc.), production of all print-based materials for students, and oversight for teacher training. The staff at the Telesecundaria Unit works closely with TV producers at another organization called the Educational Television Unit (Unidad de Television Educativa, UTE) and staff from the Latin American Institute for Educational Communications (Instituto Latinamericano de la Comunicacion Educativa, ILCE). UTE produces the TV component of the Telesecundaria model. ILCE provides a broad range of services and programs for distance education in Mexico, including Telesecudaria. ILCE works under contract with the Ministry of Education to operate distance education programming, of which Telesecundaria is one component. The Telesecundaria staff is part of the Ministry of Public Education and ILCE.
Future plans/vision
Telesecundaria continues to grow with more new schools opening every year. New schools will contain video libraries. There are plans (if not already implemented) to offer Grade 10 to 12 programs as well. In 1996, ILCE implemented Red Escolar (Mexico’s SchoolNet) that uses computers and the Internet in various schools and teacher centres within Mexico. This project will (if it has not already done so) include Telesecundaria schools, although bandwidth is one of the technical issues to deal with. In addition, Telesecundaria’s model has been adapted for use by other countries within Central America.
The Challenge
In 1996 Open School British Columbia, as part of the Open Learning Agency, became involved in a three-year project with Mexico’s federal government to assist in the modernization of Mexico’s educational system (as part of the Distance Education 1995–2000 activities in Mexico). The main goal of the Mexico–Canada Distance Education Project was to collaboratively design and implement exemplary models of technology-based education at the secondary level and improve overall quality of education. Although Telesecundaria was at the time (and is still) considered a successful example of distance education in Mexico reaching thousands of students in remote areas, the Mexican federal government requested that Open School BC review the existing model in order to enhance it through the use of technology and incorporate progressive educational techniques.
A feasibility phase of the Mexico–Canada Distance Education Project was conducted in the summer of 1996 in order to establish specific recommendations to enhance the existing Telesecundaria model. The following recommendations were presented.
An Enhanced Instructional Model
Open School British Columbia proposed the development of new course materials to facilitate student-centred learning strategies. These strategies included a more integrated use of print, broadcast TV, and VCR enabling the production of more flexible, relevant, and pertinent student learning materials and strategies, including new assessment models (e.g., authentic assessment techniques).
A Collaborative Course Development Model
Open School British Columbia recommended that Telesecundaria implement a more collaborative model for instructional development between the course writers from Telesecundaria and the staff of the TV production and broadcast service (the Educational Television Unit [Unidad de Television Educativa, UTE]). Open School British Columbia proposed the introduction of communication strategies to encourage Telesecundaria staff and TV staff to work together in the early stages of development to produce better-integrated TV and print components.
A Scaleable Model
Open School British Columbia proposed that Telesecundaria develop a scaleable implementation model that would reflect the processes, procedures and outcomes of the project. The evaluation of the model would provide baseline data for implementing broader changes in Telesecundaria’s system based on research findings from the pilot project.
The Solution
Working closely with core staff at Telesecundaria (Unidad de Telesecundaria), a new curriculum area was identified as a suitable pilot to incorporate the recommendations. Part of this work involved Open School British Columbia delivering a two-week workshop in Cuautla, Mexico, on instructional development techniques. This workshop brought together Telesecundaria staff and TV staff of the Educational Television Unit (Unidad de Television Educativa, UTE) and provided them an opportunity to learn about progressive instructional design techniques and methodologies for closer collaboration. Participants were formed into groups with one TV producer assigned to each group. Over a two-week period each group produced an instructional design plan and developed complete print and TV resources for one lesson as part of the pilot.
The Result
The workshop allowed participants to apply key instructional design techniques such as effective planning, new instructional strategies, progressive assessment approaches, and effective integration of print and television. In addition, participants from both organizations learned about each other’s processes in terms of educational requirements for designing print and requirements for producing TV programs. The end result of the two weeks was a collection of lessons that incorporated the majority of the recommendations (e.g., authentic assessment, rubrics scoring, more effective integration of print and TV, use of a VCR). An instructional designer from Open School British Columbia and a senior TV producer from Knowledge Network (Open Learning Agency) facilitated the workshop. Follow-up to the workshop included the development of a planning document to outline the design and development of the entire pilot curriculum.