ABSTRACT

The practice of education by distance and open learning methods continues to develop rapidly world-wide. It has been estimated recently that some 600 or so institutions offer one form or another of open and distance learning (Dhanarajan and Brahmawong, 1990), and of these a third are located in Asia. In Hong Kong alone there are around twenty-three providers (Castro, 1990), and in 1984 it was estimated that at least ten million adults participated in this educational innovation world-wide (Daniel, 1984). These students perhaps share one major characteristic in that they are usually not the educational élite of their respective societies, and do not necessarily have a common background of social status and education.