Origin and trend of distance education in Uganda

Abstract

Distance education has been in existence in Uganda since the 1960s, and it has grown steadily since that time. It is however a neglected area in terms of data collection and research. The courses that were running between 1960 and 1980s have scanty documentation. What can be traced include the upgrading course for teachers which upgraded 1000 teachers from vernacular teachers to grade 1 and grade II teachers. This was repeated with 789 more teachers. There is hardly any documentation on correspondence courses Ugandans took with the various British based correspondence institutions like Rapid College Correspondence School. In the following section this study takes you through the historical development of distance education in Uganda and through the various donor funded programs of which, some have ended already, but which do offer great lessons to learn from. It also takes you through distance education at higher levels of learning, as well as distance education in non-formal education. In conclusion the study discusses some of the challenges Uganda faces in its attempt to offer modern distance education, the rather scanty achievements so far reached in that area, and proposes a way forward in form of some indicative recommendations.