Appraissal of Student Support Services in Distance Education at UCC

Abstract

The introduction of the distance education programme at UCC has over the years widened access to higher education to many, especially those who hitherto would not have had the chance in the conventional education system. Student numbers have grown tremendously to about 30,000 in the 2012/2013 academic year. To ensure the effectiveness of the teaching and learning process, some student support services are being operated. Common support services for students include face-to-face tutorial, learning materials, guidance and counselling as well as administrative support. A multi-staged approach comprising purposive, stratified and simple random sampling techniques was used in selecting respondents from the UCC DE programme. This was done to ensure that the results were more representative of the target population. The instrument used for collecting information from respondents was the questionnaire. In all, 144 students and 20 tutors were interviewed at three study centres located at the Accra High School, OMESS and Holy Child College. Findings from the study revealed that generally, while support for students in terms of face-to- face tutorials and learning materials were seen as satisfactory, there was more room for improvement with regards to guidance and counseling and administrative support. Recommendations for supporting students effectively were made and they included the following; i. Tutors should ensure that marking of assessment tests and quizzes are done more quickly, especially with regard to tests which are not in the multiple choice format. This was brought to light when some students indicated their preference for multiple choice assessment formats because their scripts were marked and returned earlier. ii. DE students find classroom furniture to be uncomfortable and therefore UCC should introduce suitable furniture to reduce discomfort among distance students. This challenge arises because the furniture in the classrooms are specifically made for younger students in the rented premises and therefore not suitable for these older DE students. iii. To create awareness of the availability of guidance and counselling services and to increase patronage by students, offices should be designated at all study centres for such purposes. Additional classrooms or offices can be rented to serve such purposes on tutorial days. Also, posters can be put up on notice boards or at vantage points on tutorial days to publicise the availability of such services iv. Since study centres are located at rented premises, it will not be advisable to put up permanent library structures there. Therefore, a mobile library service can be introduced to cater for the library needs of distance students. Also, collaborations with local libraries or libraries in host institutions can be made to provide such services. In sum, it was evident from the study that the role of support services in facilitating learning by distance students helps in ameliorating the challenges they face and that, UCC’s provisions are satisfactory in terms of face-to-face tutorial support and learning material support but inadequate with regards to guidance and counseling and administrative support to students.