Leadership in Open and Distance Learning at the Namibia University of Science and Technology to Ensure Competitive Advantage and Optimum Benefits

Abstract

This paper reports on the changed nature of the role of universities in the 21st century. Specifically, the author argues that the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST), while remaining a university of academic excellence and creative thought, was prepared to transform its conventional role of creating and transferring knowledge. NUST, as a very young university, through its Centre for Open and Lifelong Learning (COLL), has become within a short period an institution that seeks to provide knowledge and academic expertise to a much wider community than could be reached through on-campus teaching. NUST can now, through distance learning techniques and open learning philosophies, reach out to the entire community in which it serves, through its footprint across all corners of the country. This required not only new initiatives and approaches to teaching and delivering methods, but also an acceptance that the most sophisticated concepts can be taught in formats that off-campus students can understand. NUST transformed into a truly dual-mode university, recognising the equal importance of ODeL programmes to the more conventional programmes of full-time on-campus studies and research. // Paper ID 337