File:VISCED Final Report 2013.pdf

The overarching objective for VISCED was to identify and understand virtual schools and virtual colleges across the world, focussing mainly on Europe and to some extent on other countries in the world which are often seen as relevant to Europe, such as the more prosperous nations (e.g. the non-European OECD and BRICnations) and/or those with linguistic, cultural or political links to countries in Europe such as North America, Latin America, la Francophonie, the Commonwealth of Nations (and other Anglophone nations) and much of Africa.

By doing this, and studying some virtual schools in great detail, we wanted to understand the reasons why some countries foster virtual schools, others discourage them and a third group (including many countries in Europe) seem unaware of them, though somewhat more aware of virtual colleges.

Since we focussed on countries not dissimilar to many European countries, we aimed to provide evidence to European ministries and policy advisors to help them analyse which of their educational challenges are susceptible of partial solution using virtual schools and colleges - and in such cases, what type of virtual schools and colleges they should encourage.