Presented by Dr Tony Mays, Director: Education, Commonwealth of Learning, at the First Botswana Open University International Conference on Open and Distance Learning Gaborone, Botswana on 8 May 2024.

Most Commonwealth countries have large and growing numbers of young people not in employment nor in education and training. Open and distance learning is one way in which we can help such learners to re-engage. This presentation will explore cost drivers in ODL provision and ways in which costs can be contained. The issue will be explored from a pragmatic perspective and will draw both on classic theory related to the interplay between access, quality and cost (e.g. Rumble, Perraton, Daniel et al.), more recent research (e.g. Hülsmann, Murangi) as well as practical experience. Many countries are struggling to support the rising costs of education provision following the economic downturn post-pandemic, but the costs of not making such provision will likely be even more extreme. There is growing use of distance education and online methods in formerly contact-only institutions but there is concern in some quarters that low-budget and poorly supported online provision might be used to cross-subsidise full-time traditional contact provision which is ultimately not sustainable. It can be argued that over the years, two dominant pedagogic models have developed in both traditional and online provision which might be loosely termed instructivist and constructivist and two dominant business models have emerged which could be loosely described as economies of scale and activity-based costing.