Avoiding to Fit a Square Peg into a Round Hole: A Policy Framework for Operationalising Open Distance Education in Dual-Mode Universities

Overview & Synopsis

Although education policies in many African countries refer to the need for distance education to widen participation in universities, they have not articulated guidelines on how they plan to develop systems and structures that will support it. The purpose of this study was to develop a policy framework specific for distance education provision in conventional universities. A two-step approach was utilised to guide the process of the development of the framework. The first step was to analyse national education policies, which provide the educational vision of the country. The second step was to analyse distance education policy frameworks in order to provide specific criteria that need to be met when providing distance education. Futures research methodology was employed to look at policy interventions with the aim of identifying probable development in education that may influence distance education practices within the conventional university context.