ABSTRACT
Distance education has had an important place in the education of teachers in Australia throughout the twentieth century. This has been especially the case for primary-school teachers wishing to obtain further qualifications through part-time studies. Central to this chapter is a discussion of the results of a research project with a group of primary teachers pursuing such studies in the late 1980s in the state of Victoria. These results are discussed against a background which provides details of the development of distance education for teachers in Australia, recent trends in higher education in the country more generally, and specific proposals for the use of distance education for both award courses and in-service education for teachers.
