Study Centers: Requirements and Settings

2. Study Centers:
Requirements and
Settings

3. No formal Education (NFE) is any
organized educational activity that takes place
outside the formal educational system. Usually it
is flexible, learner-centered, contextualized and
uses a participatory approach. There is no specific
target group for NFE; it could be kids, youth or
adults. There is a debate on the exact definition of
NFE and what activities it includes and what it
excludes. NFE is differentiated from Formal
Education and Informal Education.

4. Study center in distance and non
formal education refers to any center in
which tutor or teacher manage meetings
with their learners. It may have some
requirements such as, availability of seating
arrangement, shelter, electricity, drinking
water, internet and all other facilities those
are necessary to complete the process.

5. Kirkup, & Von Prümmer, (1990) presented
students with a list of the following facilities
available at most, although not all, study centers:
•Tutoring in the subject matter
•Counseling in general
•Information and study material
•Literature and video cassettes
•Chance to meet with other OU/FeU students
•Facilities for organizing and convening study
groups

6. Study Center: Component of Support Systems
The diversity of support systems for
distance education in Australia which may range
from totally centralized to a mix of centralized
and decentralized systems has been discussed
elsewhere in this report. Furthermore, study
centers as a means of providing decentralized
student support are by no means a feature of the
support provided by the majority of distance
education providers.

7. Computers and New Technology for
Student Support
A whole range of enhanced communications and
computer technology are being introduced for
distance education in Australia and elsewhere.
This has the advantage of giving students greater
independence and autonomy over their learning
environment through improved access to
resources and persons that were previously
affected by distance and time delays.

8. Readiness to Learn
People become ready to learn something
when they experience a need to learn it in order to
cope more satisfyingly with real- life tasks or
problems. Thus study material should be relevant
to the learner's own needs and encourage the
learner to discover the need to know

9. Orientation to Learning
[Adult] learners see education as a process
of developing increased competence to achieve
their full potential in life. They want to be able to
apply whatever knowledge and skill they gain
today to living more effectively tomorrow.
Accordingly, learning experiences should be
organized around competency-development
categories.

10. Study Centers as Component of
Support Systems
The alternative, using study materials that
require greater dependence on ongoing academic
support should not be rejected. Academic support
can be provided through an increasing number of
avenues, a number of which are very cost
effective. Support through study centers or
extended campus networks can now be extended
through two- way communication using
teletutorials and teleconferences and more
importantly using electronic mail and student
access to data

11. Role of Study Centers
Based on the foregoing sections and the cited
literature, this section presents a model of student
support based upon: student and institutional
perspectives, requirements and needs current
trends and directions for the provision of distance
education, the future extensive use of
telecommunications and computers. Student
perspectives, requirements and needs that should
be accommodated for in the design of a student
support system are as follows: Access to
academic support and other students.

12. Student learning characteristics
Independent and self-paced learning does not
suit all learners, nor do all learners need a high
level of academic support and other forms of
interaction. Thus the study package needs to
accommodate a range of learning styles and
interaction between students and academic staff

13. Library and other Resources for
Learning
Some students, because of isolation,
physical handicap etc., have difficulties
regarding ready access to library resources,
computers needed for study. This requires the
provision of independent study materials

14. Types of Study Centers
Many distance teaching institutions consider that
a comprehensive system of decentralized student
support is a vital component of their teaching
strategies. The Open University, UK, has for
instance a network of 260 regional study centres
staffed with tutors, counselor’s administrators
and containing a wide variety of educational
facilities (Sewart, 1981). The OU-UK model has
influenced many institutions, but few have
adopted the model without modifications.

15. Australia
In Australia distance teaching institutions show a
wide divergence in their commitment to study
centers. There is no shared philosophy about
student support and each institution has gone its
own way. In New South Wales and South Australia,
institutions emphasize direct interaction between
teachers and students and scarcely use study
centers.

16. Great Britain
The British Open University has set up
some 260 regional study centers, using local
colleges, schools or other educational
establishments. These centers are open weekday
evenings and sometimes on weekends, providing
a local contact place for enrolled students and
their tutors/counselors. However, students often
use mail or telephone to contact their tutor, rather
than attending the local study centre.

17. Africa
In Botswana study centers were set up to
provide quiet study facilities that most students
were unable to find at home, and to provide local
tuition to ensure that students who were having
difficulty could be assisted before they dropped
out of the course. Existing secondary classrooms
are used in the evenings and staffed by part-time
tutors, markers and administrators who are often
principals and secondary school staff. In Nigeria
the Open Studies Unit at the University of Lagos
used existing educational facilities to set up its
network of study centers.

18. University of the South Pacific
The U.S.P. belongs to and serves all
independent countries: Cook Islands, Fiji,
Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Solomon Islands, Tokelau,
Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Western Samoa. The
University has a centre in each of those countries
with the exception of Tokelau. A Tokelau Officer
caring for university business with that country
works out of the Western Samoa Centre.

19. Allama Iqbal Open University
(AIOU)
Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU),
Pakistan boasts to be the 4rth largest
university in the world in terms of number
of students. The number of students enrolled
in AIOU has crossed the gigantic number of
700,000. There are some more than 30,000
tutors and its study centers are present
across the country.

20. Allama Iqbal Open University
(AIOU)
Quantity-wise AIOU may be counted
as one of the top university in the world, but
quality-wise, it’s only churning out out-right
plain professional idiots, who don’t know a
thing from other. Knowledge, skill,
professionalism, discipline and ethics are
the things which are rare in the AIOU’s
study centers.

21. Thanks A Lot