Extending Continuing Professional Education in an Era of Fiscal Constraint.

Overview & Synopsis

The demand for postsecondary education on a part-time basis has been rising rapidly in Canada, due in part to the growing need of students to maintain full-time employment and due also to increasing requests for continuing professional education. Since part-time students are often unable to attend regularly scheduled classes and may find frequent trips to the campus from their places of work impossible (particularly when they live in remote locations such as those of rural British Columbia), the universities must seek new ways of meeting these clients' needs. For effective delivery of professional continuing education, the ideal approach might be to cooperate with professional organizations to provide requested services, to develop new services based on the needs of the educational marketplace, and to assess potential learners' skills and knowledge to help identify the needs that exist. The Division of University Extension at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, has turned to distance education, satellite transmission of educational television, and telephone hookups to provide real time interaction between instructors and distant students. Costs are met in part by providing necessary supplementary printed materials only to those officially registered. (PGD)