I’m sure that everyone who is thinking about his/hers future nowadays knows that constant education is a necessity that can’t be avoided. It doesn’t matter if you have a college degree (or even a higher title), or you are a humble high school graduate with no work experience, you will need to educate yourself in order to be competitive in today’s world.

The days of «I’ve finished my college and I’m done with learning!» ARE GONE FOR GOOD! Today especially in the light of the world crisis that is going on.

Every skill, every special knowledge, every bit of information and education that you have can be your crucial advantage over other people that apply to the job you’re after. Do you know how to write a great travel column, or can you say that you are educated to work with disabled students, or would you describe yourself as a person who is well trained in using various computer programs (Microsoft Office, Photoshop, Premiere… or any other program needed in today’s modern way of doing business)? What about speaking foreign language?

Of course, not everybody can afford to pay high dollar investment in a regular education. So does that mean that the doors are closed for you? NO! You have a chance to use the greatest thing that is constantly changing our lives past decade – the Internet. Beside all the rubbish and all the useless things that we can find in the “great web”, we can also use it to our advantage. How?

Very simple and almost effortless. You need a place where you can get the information, where you can decide what level of education you need in the area of your interest, the place “where the knowledge is at home”. So it can be your place of relaxed learning. Of course, the prices have to be as low as possible so you can afford the courses.

The place I will recommend is called Ed2Go.com, and there are many good reasons for me to do so.

First of all, it’s a place that’s here for over a decade now, and it’s still the leader in the field of online education. In this world where everybody is trying to sell you something (or even offers it for free) and claims to be the best, it is very hard to “stay above the water”. But, the quality and the quantity of courses offered in the Ed2Go is still unreached by others. And it is constantly growing…

Second thing is that Ed2Go provides the highest-quality continuing online education courses. This means you get the best education and it can go much deeper in the subject than a regular online course you can find somewhere else (which mainly contains of tutorials with general information and no value in real-life situations)

Third, ed2go provides outstanding online courses that are delivered through over 1,800 top colleges and universities. If it’s good for all these universities and theirs students, there is no doubt it is of high value for you also.

Fourth, the intensity and speed of your learning is yours to choose. You are the boss of your time!! If you are a working mother with no time to travel 1 hour to the other part of the city to sit in a class for 45 minutes and drive 1 hour back home, you will love the fact that your lesson is just a click away.

Fifth, the amount of courses is so big, you will probably never need to search any other place on the Net. From Creating Web Pages to Accounting Fundamentals, Speed Spanish to Grant Writing, Medical Terminology to Real Estate Investing, and much, much more. There is almost 300 online courses !

Sixth (and my favorite because I think this is the most important aspect of learning): your learning is mentored by real people. You will not just be given the information and left alone. Oh no, every course includes an instructor. That means your way through the knowledge is watched over, and there is always the possibility to ask questions and get real answers from real people. You won’t find any tutorials here!

Last, but not the least, the courses are affordable. How much would you pay to have your personal mentor available to you every day, all the materials (books, scripts, real-life examples and tests proven in many real-life situations)? It would cost you well over a 1000$, but not here. The prices are set around 100$ per course, so it is really great value for your money. Where else can you have all the above mentioned things for this kind of money?

Let me come to a conclusion: If you are a person in need of affordable, easy to follow, mentored and high quality online education, the place for you is Ed2Go.com. In our world of overwhelming information overload, it is very important to find a good system of learning, a system designed and led by highly educated teachers and professors with many years of experience.

I hope that my article helped you with information it offers. I try to give on objective information, based on facts that are easily provable in just a few clicks.

Will these developments serve the interests of developing countries? There is clearly much need for caution. We need to moderate the developments reported above with concerns for access to the education both in terms of the students’ own prior knowledge and cultural perspectives, and in terms of access to the technology through which to access the education. We also need to be concerned about the impact upon the local culture that may be matte by imported materials and the developed world’s culture that these embody.

National Distance Learning Programs

In developing countries there is a natural desire to extend educational provision to the whole population.

Online education at the schools’ level began in both countries during the colonial era in the 1950s and 1960s, partly through voluntary organizations and partly through government support as `a palliative for the colonial conscience’. The provision has taken various forms -correspondence schools, radio programs to supplement normal provision, radio and poster campaigns to promote literacy, health and other issues, as well as more formal online education programs. These programs have continued in the post-colonial era, with 70,000 students involved in Tanzania, and 42,000 in Zimbabwe. There has been a major focus on teacher training. Programs in both countries have suffered from inadequate funding (10% and less than 5% of the educational budget, respectively, in Tanzania and Zimbabwe). Neither country has established their own open university. One was advocated in 1989 for Tanzania, with use of radio and television broadcast, but not the full use of IT. In 1993 the University of Zimbabwe established its Online education Centre which now has some 1,500 students. We believe that this uses the conventional correspondence approach based on text.

Online education saves the need to build university campuses with teaching facilities, and for students to travel and to be accommodated centrally. IT and networking further helps this, but requires access to the technology – and as Zindi and Aucoin have pointed out for Tanzania, even something as basic as electricity may not be available within the community that you are wishing to serve. Such infrastructure problems are not faced by developed countries, though sometimes, as in Russia which is also seeking the use of online education to meet an educational need, there can be infrastructure difficulties: thus in Russia conventional postal delivery can be problematic while delivery electronically via satellite to the best of current equipment could be perfectly feasible.

Transnational Programs

We have seen that a large provider of education like the OU is already reaching out beyond its national borders, helped by IT and networking, to provide education globally. Geography is no longer a barrier.

This means that local students could subscribe to courses that may be supplied purely on the networks, and through this would obtain qualifications from the suppliers in the developed world. Presumably these qualifications would be recognized locally, and could indeed have some special standing.

It is worth noting that one motivation for Zimbabwe to establish its own national programs was to reduce the 163 million dollars flowing out of the country from the 40,000 students annually enrolled on online education courses. Developing countries may, just not be able to finance transnational educational programs.

The language of teaching is not the only concern. Teaching materials often draw upon case studies and examples, and these may not make any sense in other contexts. An example from the training materials for a database tool was the use of baseball, which was, of course, incomprehensible outside the US – a translation into football made the training much more widely acceptable.
The transnational and trans-cultural use of educational materials must be viewed with caution