QUALITY OF SERVICE IN HIGHER DISTANCE EDUCATION. A PERSPECTIVE FROM MEXICO

What constitutes good education or quality service in distance higher education? It should be the same as for conventional education. The quality of institutional education does not depend on the mode of delivery; rather, it refers to the quality of the processes that are lived and learned. In Mexico the so-called "new educational providers" have yet to be regulated. Many of the socalled new providers of higher distance education are not required to obtain official recognition of studies (REVOE). While higher education teachers identify with "modern" concepts of quality, their administrators identify with "traditional" concepts of quality. The conceptions of quality of these two groups and the actions that reflect these conceptions point to divergent ways to attain good education.