ABSTRACT
It can be argued that in almost all educational institutions student, or learner support, whether it is academic, administrative or personal, is regarded as less central and more peripheral than the provision of teaching. The terms teaching (and learning) and student/learner support undoubtedly overlap. The broad hypothesis of this article however, is that, perhaps especially in the context of open and distance education, teaching (i.e. the production of learning materials) tends to take precedence over learning and student support.
