Bright future for T.C.I.

Press, 6 September 1982, Page 29

Bright future for T.C.I.

NZPA staff reporter Big changes are looming in the field of “distance” education with the onslaught of video and computer technology. The Technical Correspondence Institute (T.C.1.). New Zealand’s biggest educational body, has the chance to remain a world leader by keeping abreast with the latest advances, according to its deputy principal, Mr Charles Callaghan. Formed from the ashes of World War H’s Army Education and Welfare Service, T.C.I. has mushroomed from four tutors teaching 600

students in 1946 to a present staff of more than 500 and 31,000 students. Its annual budget is $lO million. Sited in the former Waiwhetu Girls’ High School in Lower Hutt since 1969, T.C.I. works with the Central Institute of Technology to teach students unable to attend a regional institute. It also has sole responsibility for several national courses. From its trades-based origins, it has branched out to teach about 900 subjects in almost every vocation. It has students throughout the Pacific Basin and beyond, and has sent teaching material to more than 15 countries.

Mr Callaghan will next year take over from the principal for the last nine years, Mr Arthur Kinsella, who was Minister of Education from 1963 to 1969. Mr Callaghan saw direct satellite-home, or cable television transmission, as one potential major leap for distance education. A satellite could send educational programmes almost world-wide to households, and institutions such as T.C.I. could provide follow-up material to students on video-cassettes. Computers also had enormous potential. Mr Callaghan said. Students could

attend local technical institutes on block courses and use software packages provided by T.C.1.. he said. Already, audio-cassettes, and some video-cassettes, were fading used with written assignments. Mr Callaghan is sure, though, that new technology would not totally supersede the written word. “Television could complement our assignments, but not replace them," he said. The large capital costs involved in producing- videos would also probably limit it to only those subjects with large enough student numbers.