Improving Junior and Senior Open Learning Classes for “Push Overs” (Drop-Outs) in Zambia

Abstract

Open and Distance Learning has over time been given paltry attention at all levels of education administration and management in Zambia. In the Ministry of Education the Directorate for Open and Distance Education (DODE) is responsible for four major types of educational programmes: • Providing Junior and Senior secondary courses to over 30,000 students envisaged to be enrolled in the National Correspondence College; • Organizing and managing open secondary schools where more than 19,000 students study, under the supervision and learning-materials produced by National Correspondence College; • Organizing and teaching evening classes at primary and secondary levels for more than 15,000 students most of them adults; • Training in specific skills for more than 1,250 recent school leavers and adults in Schools for Continuing Education. The above bullets indicate the categories and students who are “pushed out” of the conventional school at various levels. // The main focus of the programmes offered by DODE is the provision of formal schooltype education for those who had not have an opportunity to undertake or complete formal school. For many of the students, the programmes provide the second chance to obtain formal qualifications that they were unable to obtain in school and colleges. // Paper ID 440