Letters

Online Benefits

I disagree with the writer of 'Qualification scrambles' (Letters, 27 May) when she says e-learning students lack opportunities to study with 'practitioners from a variety of settings and cultures'.

I have been studying with the Open University for six years to obtain a degree in early years and have learnt huge amounts about early years practice from online forums, as well as through well-designed courses using film and audio footage of different settings and cultures.

Through such footage, we have been able to gain insights into, for example, the Reggio Emilia approach, Forest schools and Mosaic research projects designed to improve child participation and practice linked to the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child.

My present course has social workers, health visitors, people who work with children in the legal system, as well as those in education, broadening my knowledge further.

It is the quality and content of the course (for which the Open University is outstanding) that is the issue, so it is wrong to assume all e-learning courses are failing to produce good practitioners.

Some of the courses I have studied have stipulated that you need to work with children, others not, but all have been equally challenging. E-learning not only allows those who live in rural areas to study, it also allows flexibility for those juggling work and families and provides opportunities for practitioners to access quality, thought-provoking materials and lively, reflective online debates that can lead to changes in practice from research-based learning. This is surely a good thing.

Pippa Ensor, early years practitioner, York

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