BERMUDA College is considering offering online courses so some students will be able to enhance their education from the comfort of their own homes.

Talks have already taken place between College president Dr. Charles Green and officials from the Ministry of Telecommunications over the viability of the technical aspects of the idea.

And with both parties keen to press ahead, the College is now seeking feedback to judge whether there is a demand for "distance learning" from the community.

Online education will be one of the ideas under discussion at the College's Strategic Direction Initiative round table discussion next week.

Dr. Green said around 125 community leaders had accepted invitations to attend the event, which will take place on Friday, January 28, between 8.30 a.m. and 3.30 p.m.

The aim, he said, was to establish what role the community wanted the College to play and the areas where its resources should be concentrated.

Dr. Green made clear his support for education via the Internet. "The opportunities are almost as many as people can think of," he said.

"Distance learning would create opportunities for students who might not otherwise be able to get to classes and to take courses that are not offered here. People could even work on an educational course in their office during lunch hour.

"I happen to know that this is being done elsewhere and, in the past, I've been involved in doing it. Personally, I think it's a great opportunity.

"But we are trying not to get ahead ahead of ourselves. The important thing now is to determine whether the community wants us to go in that direction."

He added that he had been involved in talks last year with Kevin Anderson, senior analyst (e-commerce) with the Ministry of Telecommunications.

Mr. Anderson said yesterday that the Ministry had, over the past few years, been offering scholarships for Bermudians to take online courses in conjunction with Schiller International University.

Ten people had benefited from the scholarships, including two who were awarded them last September. Three have completed their courses, one withdrew due to work commitments and others are in the midst of their studies.

Before he worked for the Ministry, Mr. Anderson himself took an online master's degree.

"In my opinion and having experienced it myself, I believe that education over the internet is the way forward," Mr. Anderson said.

"If you're a single mother with four kids and you can't find anyone to look after the kids, this could give you the opportunity to study from the comfort of your own home.

"And think about the opportunities of education for prisoners. They have long periods of time where they could be working to improve themselves."

Mr. Anderson said the Ministry was now looking at discontinuing the scholarship programme with Schiller and possibly diverting the funds to future Bermuda College online courses.

"The scholarships started off as a pilot programme to last for three years," Mr. Anderson said. "At the time we started, there weren't many people offering online courses.

"Since then, hundreds of people have signed up with Phoenix and we have decided to no longer continue with the scholarship with Schiller.

"Instead we hope to participate with Bermuda College in helping them to put their educational programmes online. We believe this would be more effective than simply giving two people scholarships.

"I met with the College president, Dr. Green, and we both agreed that this would be a good thing to do."

He added that significant preparations would be needed for the College to make the idea happen, such as technical training for teachers, an area where the Ministry of Telecommunications could help.

Dr. Green said next week's seminar would be wide-ranging and that distance learning would be one of around 17 items on the agenda.

College committees had been working hard over the past four months to draw up a list of issues to be tackled, he added.

"For example, we will be looking at whether we want the College to be developed as a telecommunications centre," Dr. Green said.

"Should we invest taxpayers' dollars in those kind of facilities and will having online courses save us from having to invest in more buildings? We'll also be looking at the role of the College in supporting senior citizens. Now we have a seniors' learning centre, where people are learning subjects like languages and wine tasting. As more of us are older, should we be expanding that?

"Another issue is what the College should do about under-prepared students. There are some students who have matriculated through high school but we find they are not yet ready to go to college.

"We often take them on and some of them come through and succeed. Is that the right thing to do? Re-training is a very expensive venture. But human capital is at stake here."

Other major topics will be whether the College should be concentrating on particular industries and whether there should be more of a focus on technical training.

The College will shut down next Friday in order to host the discussion, which will include top local business people and politicians from Government and the Opposition.