Invest in Clicks, not Bricks!

Abstract

Projections indicate that the world’s higher education system must accommodate nearly 80 million more students by 2025. To do so in conventional campuses would require the opening of three large (30,000 students) campuses every week for the next 13 years. Some of these campuses will be built but most will not. Capacity can be increased more quickly and economically by investing in distance and eLearning opportunities. In particular, higher education systems should invest in the creation of open educational resources (OER). This will create a global pool of high quality material that can be adapted and versioned for individual countries and institutions, all of which should engage in this important collective effort to widen access and improve quality.