远程教育经济学关键议题与未来关注重点

Key Issues and Future Focus on the Economics of Distance Education

远程教育是一种历史悠久、形式多样、能够为大量学习者提供"任何时间和任何地点"学习服务的教育类型。远程教育中蕴含着丰富的经济学问题值得研究者深入挖掘。慕课的崛起使得远程教育受到该领域以外的学者和民众的关注,为远程教育经济学研究提供了重要的时代契机。综观远程教育自诞生以来的经济学议题,集中体现在成本与效率、私人收益、社会收益、交互与社会资本、辍学等方面。具体而言,远程教育不仅具有成本优势,而且具有效率优势;远程学习者的私人收益体现在获得的收入更高、健康水平更高、更容易实现城乡迁移;远程教育的社会收益体现在能提高普通大众尤其是弱势群体的受教育机会;远程学习者虽然存在社会资本的劣势,但其交互成本的逐渐降低正在弥补这种劣势;辍学率高虽然是远程教育的常态并可能带来诸多损失,但远程教育机构依然应积极采取措施进行干预。未来远程教育经济学研究应重点关注远程教育对经济增长的贡献、远程教育生产函数分析、远程教育的财政问题、公平问题和培训等。

Distance education can provide learning service for a large number of learners anytime and anywhere with a long history and diverse forms.Plenty of economic issues in distance education is worthy of in-depth research.The rise of MOOCs has made distance education gain attention from scholars and the public outside the field,and has given an important epochal opportunity for the study of economics of distance education.The economic issues,since the birth of distance education,are concentrated in these aspects:cost and efficiency,private benefits,social benefits,interaction and social capital,as well as dropout and etc.Specifically,distance education not only has cost advantage,but also has efficiency advantage.The private benefits of distance learners are reflected in higher income,higher health level,and easier migration from rural to urban areas.The social benefits of distance education are reflected in the improvement of educational opportunities for the general public,especially for the disadvantaged groups.Disadvantaged social capital as distance learners may have,the gradual reduction of interaction cost is making up the gap.While the high dropout rate in distance education is a normalcy and may bring many losses,institutions should actively take measures to intervene.In the future,research on economics of distance education should focus on the contribution of distance education to economic growth,the analysis of distance education production function,the financial problems of distance education,and equality issues and training,etc.