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Journal of Distance Learning, Vol 12, No 1, 2008 © Distance Education Association of New Zealand 
 

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Reviews 
 

 
 
BURGE, E. J. (2007). Flexible higher 
education: Reflections from expert experience. 
Maidenhead, England: Open University 
Press (pp. 172). 
 
This book reports on an ambitious      
two-stage research project designed       
to capture the experiential knowledge     
and pioneering tales of early distance 
educators. In the first stage of the project, 
44 distance educators who are deeply 
involved in distance education and are 
spread across the world (including in 
New Zealand) were interviewed. This 
first part of the book is, as Sir John  
Daniel says, like “walking through 
familiar territory in comfortable shoes” 
(p. 102). However, there is still much in 
the first section to prompt thought and 
provoke reflection. 
 
In the second stage of the project,     
seven expert commentators were asked 
to undertake a meta-level reflection on 
the chapters that had been developed 
from an analysis of the interview data. 
The guiding questions they used were 
broad, so comments in this section of   
the book are a mix of personal recounts, 
reaction to the themes, and advice to 
current practitioners and researchers in 
distance education. There is, in effect,      
a third and final stage to the project.    
The author’s own reflections are woven 
into the text and allowed a place as       
the final chapter. Her familiarity and 
interaction with the data place her           
in a unique position to provide supple-
mentary commentary. In addition, as    
an experienced distance educator herself, 
she brings a valuable lens to bear on      

the data. All in all, there is a rich mix of 
wisdom, experience, and advice. 
 
The book captures the experiences of 
many key leaders and early innovators   
in distance education. Their experiences, 
summed up in themes such as “having no 
prior experience,” “access, respect, and 
responsiveness,” “managing technology,” 
and “learning from [their] achievements,” 
are brought to life through their words.  
A picture is built up of pioneer distance 
education researchers and practitioners 
and their work. It is a picture that many 
will still recognize. I see the book as one 
that will appeal to the broad range of 
educators who are involved in open, 
flexible, and distance education. All will 
find links to areas in which they work. 
 
The book makes a contribution to the 
field of distance education in three broad 
ways. First, it reaffirms the value of 
distance education and reminds us that 
distance education is a different and 
evolving form of education that requires 
teaching, management, and leadership 
that recognizes those differences and 
builds new practice on established 
strengths. Second, the book reminds us 
that key issues such as access and quality 
still need to be addressed. Finally, the 
book helps address gaps in knowledge 
about the history of distance education. 
This contribution is important. Any field 
of study needs to understand its history 
and draw on that. This understanding is 
particularly important in the present 
context, where the advent and use of  
new technologies in distance delivery 
have brought people to the practice        
of distance education who have little or 



 

Journal of Distance Learning, Vol 12, No 1, 2008 © Distance Education Association of New Zealand 
 

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no knowledge of the foundations they 
build on and the past experience that can 
inform their practice. 
 
As well as looking back, Flexible Higher 
Education also looks forward. The expert 
commentators highlight the continuing 
importance of course design in times 
when we acknowledge the changing 
nature of our learners and the design 
challenges new technologies bring us. 
They also note the challenges associated 
with the blurring of boundaries between 
face-to-face and distance modes. There 
are reminders to not overlook the hard-
won battles, particularly the acceptance 
of distance education, and to emulate the 
qualities such as resilience, persistence, 
and doggedness that the pioneers 
brought to their work. Concerns about 
the variability of online learning and  
how to continue to ensure quality and 
flexibility are identified as critical current 
challenges. There are also suggestions for 
research and guidance for young and 
inexperienced distance educators. 
 
The final section of the book provides      
a valuable resource. There is a list of 
publications that participants provided  
in response to the request to offer 
readings that would be of interest to 
readers. Those readings also had to        
be easy to locate and retrieve. The result 
is a reading list that could provide           
a firm conceptual underpinning for 
practitioners in the field of open, flexible, 
and distance education. 
 
An acknowledged gap in the book is the 
absence of voices from countries where 
English is not the first language. That 
experience waits to be captured. The 
focus of the book is higher education,    
so experience in school-based distance 
education has not been captured. That 
experience would be of great interest     

to distance practitioners in Australia and 
New Zealand in particular, where there   
is rich experience in compulsory sector 
distance education. Another small point 
is that the book’s title does not reflect its 
focus on distance education. 
 
This book celebrates the work of early 
innovators and leaders in the field of 
distance education, reminds us about the 
achievements in distance education, and 
provides a rich picture of people who 
have made significant contributions to 
this field. The book starts by suggesting 
the interviewees “pushed conventional 
limits to create extraordinary learning 
opportunities” (p. 3). Technologies and 
times have changed, but the challenge 
has not. That challenge needs to be taken 
up by those currently working in distance 
education. Part of the challenge for us 
must be to place innovation alongside 
established understandings of distance 
education, to draw from experience, 
acknowledge the lessons learned, and 
then to continue to build. This time, we 
have prior experiences on which to draw. 
 

Mary Simpson 
University of Otago 

Dunedin, New Zealand 
 
 
GORINSKI, R., & FRASER, C. (2007). 
From targeting problems to tailoring 
solutions: The Wairoa West Cluster Schools 
success strategy. Wellington, New 
Zealand: Research Division, Ministry of 
Education  (pp. vi, 43). 
 
In an evaluation of rural schools in    
New Zealand earlier this decade, the 
Education Review Office (ERO) noted: 
 

Parents living in rural areas share 
the same educational goals as their 
urban counterparts. They want to 



 

Journal of Distance Learning, Vol 12, No 1, 2008 © Distance Education Association of New Zealand 
 

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know that their children are in a 
safe environment, they want them 
to reach their academic potential, 
and they want them to emerge from 
the school system well prepared   
for the world of work or tertiary 
study. . . . However, for parents in 
many rural areas, the range of 
options available is limited. (ERO, 
2001,  p. 1) 

 
The ERO has identified an international 
problem facing governments in countries 
where some people live beyond the  
major population centres. How can 
young people and their families in    
small schools in rural communities be 
provided with opportunities that are 
comparable to those expected by their 
urban counterparts?  
 
The Wairoa West Cluster Schools Success 
Strategy provides information about   
how school clusters can improve the 
education of young New Zealanders.     
In examining this cluster of five small, 
remote primary schools, with a combined 
roll of 120 students, Gorinski and Fraser 
chronicle changes in student achieve-
ment, teaching practice, governance,    
and management, together with the 
development of a professional learning 
community between 1998 and 2004.    
They conclude: 
 

The initiative yielded some 
extremely successful outcomes     
for the Wairoa West communities          
. . . including enhanced student 
academic and social achievement, 
improved staff retention, improved 
governance practice, a more   
clearly delineated interface between 
governance and management, the 
implementation of a more effective 
and reflective style of teaching 
practice and, significantly, the 

development of a strong and 
effective professional learning 
community. (p. 2) 

 
Rural and distance educators will be 
familiar with the electronic networking  
of schools in New Zealand into regional 
intranets, although after almost two 
decades there is not yet a substantial 
body of research about these structures 
and the processes within them. The 
qualitative research undertaken by 
Gorinski and Fraser may, therefore, be   
of interest to educators searching for 
outcomes of aligning schools with one 
another, whether in clusters, as in this 
study, or in Internet-based networks in 
other parts of rural New Zealand. 
 
The schools in the Wairoa West cluster 
were all geographically isolated and 
ranged from decile one to decile seven. 
The subjects of Gorinski and Fraser’s 
research were overwhelmingly Maori 
(ranging from 58 percent to 100 percent 
of school enrolments), and large numbers 
of the students in the five primary 
schools were the sons and daughters of 
farm workers and seasonal employees. 
Students’ families were characterized     
by low levels of education and low levels 
of household income, and the schools in 
the cluster “shared a generalised history 
of student under-achievement” (p. 1). 
Outcomes of the clustering of these     
five schools included improved student 
achievement and staff retention, as well 
as improved governance. 
 
For almost two decades, and preceding 
the advent of the Internet in schools       
in New Zealand, regional networks of 
schools have provided extended learning 
opportunities for rural New Zealanders, 
based on academic and administrative 
integration between sites to facilitate 
collaborative teaching and learning. As 



 

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anyone involved in teaching in these 
linked schools will attest, there are 
different demands on teachers in these 
structures than in traditional face-to-face 
classrooms. Gorinski and Fraser provide 
useful information about the specific 
professional development requirements 
in the schools in the Wairoa West cluster, 
many of which will be familiar to New 
Zealand rural educators who teach in 
networked environments. 
 
This Ministry of Education report is a 
positive study of educational change in   
a small cluster of rural New Zealand 
schools that provides insight into an 
aspect of education that has not received 
a lot of attention from researchers. The 
question distance educators will likely 
ask after reading From Targeting Problems 
to Tailoring Solutions is whether the next 
step should be to electronically network 
the Wairoa West cluster, to enhance the 
sharing of educational resources in      
this region. 
 
REFERENCES 

 
Education Review Office (2001). Rural 

education, education evaluation report. 
Wellington, New Zealand: ERO. 

 
Ken Stevens 

Memorial University of Newfoundland 
Newfoundland, Canada