Student support services are essential components of a good distance education system because they seeks to support disadvantaged students who have potential to meet the challenges of higher education by strengthening and developing their academic and self-management skills. In other words, learners and instructors do not share the same physical environment and in a distance learning settings there are more intrapersonal interactions rather than interpersonal ones.
In fact, due to geographic and transactional distance, some students in distance learning programs experience a sense of isolation. Also, some students may struggle to experience a feeling of belonging to the institution due to a lack of self-management abilities, low levels of motivation, and a desire for socialization, which makes them more likely to fail or leave an online course. As a result, support services have evolved as a crucial component for an efficient and long-lasting distance education system in order to address all of these issues.