Promoting access to post graduate distance education and development impact through collaboration, scholarships and appropriate use of technology in Africa

Jon Gregson
Imperial College London Distance Learning Programme

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     Last modified: August 4, 2006
     Presentation date: 11/01/2006 11:45 AM in NT Portland A
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Abstract
Since 2002, the Imperial College London Distance Learning Programme (DLP) has been the recipient of over one hundred scholarships, awarded by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission for postgraduate masters level courses offered through distance learning. The scholarships were awarded to students based in Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) countries and Ghana.

The DLP courses taken by students are all relevant to development challenges. There is also value added locally through collaboration with local University partners: University of Pretoria and University of Ghana. This paper provides an account of the experience and development impact of this programme to date, and draws on results from a recent survey that invited feedback from the scholarship students.

The paper will also focus on some of the interesting and unforeseen impacts not only in the development of partnerships but also in the ways to sustain and support them. For example in the SADC region there has been close collaboration with the University of Pretoria Department of Educational Innovation, which has lead to recent collaboration on a two year mobile learning (m-learning) research project funded through the University of London Centre for Distance Education.