Role of the Institution Administration in Open Distance and eLearning
Introduction:
In
unit 1, we learned about the nature of distance education and its challenges.
One of
the challenges cited was student dropout due to a myriad of factors
such as feelings of abandonment. Raisman (2013), in his review of multiple
institutions and thousands of students in USA, found out that students blamed
a lack of institutional support for their drop out. Specifically, they blamed
the perceived lack of concern for students and poor services. Many other studies
have blamed the lack of LSS for learners’ withdrawal from ODeL (Tait, 2003; Kamau,
2012).
Tait (2003), for example, attributed the low success rates at the University of Southern Africa (UNISA) to a lack of LSS. In addition, he reported admission policies that were too open, inadequate course materials, and insufficient formative assessment and feedback processes. In a similar study of the external programs of the University of London, Tait attributes the low success and poor completion rates to lack of LSS.
In a different study to determine the relevance of LSS at the National Teachers' College in Nigeria, Barrett, et al (2006), reported that students valued the administrative, academic, and counseling support they received. Kamau (2012) asserts that academic, advisory, administrative, counseling, and infrastructural support, all elements of LSS, could be termed effective if they helped to sustain distance Learners in their studies, and improve retention and completion rates.
From the foregoing, it is clear, that the success of any distance and eLearning program goes beyond the support of a course tutor as we had seen in unit 2. It starts from admission policies, provision of learning resources, and counseling services which fall under the purview of the administration.
In this lesson, we shall look at administrative support as part of LSS. Specifically, we shall look at its role to provide policy guidance on learner support, academic support beyond the course, and infrastructural support. In the next lesson, we shall continue and look into social support or counseling and health and wellness support for the learner.