Distance Education in Nigeria

Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education-TOJDE January 2006 ISSN 1302-6488 Volume: 7 Number: 1 Article: 2

Problems and Prospects of Open and Distance Education in Nigeria
Mudasiru Olalere YUSUF (Ph.D) Senior lecturer (Educational Technology) Department of Curriculum Studies and Educational Technology, Faculty of Education University of Ilorin, Ilorin NIGERIA ABSTRACT Distance education as a mean of providing access to education, particularly tertiary level education, has gained great prominence in the world. Nigeria has taken giant steps of recent to introduce open and distance education programme. This paper explores the major terms inherent in open and distance education, its potentials, possible factors that may inhibit successful implementation of the programme, and the use of low and high technological tools for its implementation. The paper recommended the use of Organisation Element Model (OEM) as suggested by (Kaufman, Watkins & Guerra, 2001) for its planning and implementation, and also stressed the need for improvement in electricity and communication services. Keywords: Distance education, Nigeria, Open and Distance Learning Blue Print, Media, Low tech, High tech, Organisational Element Model. INTRODUCTION Every nation invests in education because it can produce unquantifiable benefits for individuals, organisations and the society as a whole. Education is provided through formal and informal means. In formal settings the conventional (face-to-face school instruction) and distance education (offered with separation in terms of physical location of instructors and students) have been used to provide educational opportunities to recipients. Open education though not new in Nigeria has been given much prominence of recent. Many Nigerians benefited through the open education (correspondence) of Rapid Result College, and Exam Success Correspondence College, among others. In fact, like the Universal Basic Education (UBE), distance education is one of

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