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Australia's large size and scattered population made it a prime location for the development of correspondence education in the 1920s, and the country is still in the forefront of distance education. This article is based on an extensive interview with Terry Evans, professor at Deakin University in Australia, who reflects on the history of distance education, its current situation, and also shares his thoughts about the future of distance education in the 21st century.
INTRODUCTION
Since the formation of its constitution in 1901, Australia has grown to be the 53rd largest country in the world, with over 22 million people spread out over 4 million sq. km (Central Intelligence Agency, 2012). Its diffused population made it a prime location for the development of distance and correspondence education. Initiated by the state of Victoria in 1909 at the secondary level, distance learning began to spread throughout the rest of Australia (Stacey, 2005). Distance education continued to flourish and in 2002 the Australasian Council on Open, Distance and E-Learning was formed to support distance and e- Learning opportunities in most universities in Australia and New Zealand.
Evans and Smith (2011) evaluated the rise and fall of distance education in Australia and revealed its change of focus, as it turned from providing a service to a population in need to becoming more of an educational enterprise led by economic incentives. We sought Terry Evans's expertise to precisely explore the evolution of distance education in Australia; to understand how the growth of online media has redefined it, and to evaluate how this evolution may have affected distance education nationally and globally.
Evans supervises doctoral candidates at Deakin University. He was one of the founding directors of the master's of distance education program in collaboration with the University of South Australia in the late 1 980s (Deakin University, n.d.). He has authored Understanding Learners in Open and Distance Education (1994) and A Gender Agenda (1988), and coedited other books such as International Handbook of Distance Education (2008) and Shifting Borders: Globalisation, Localisation and Open and Distance Education (1997). His extensive published research spans the range from primary to doctoral education with a focus on distance education, educational technology, and online education.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF DISTANCE EDUCATION IN AUSTRALIA,...