Overview

The Department of Distance Education, School of Continuing and Distance Education of the College of Education began as the Correspondence Unit of the then Institute of Adult Education in 1973. During this period the Unit was concerned with the production and facilitation of learning materials for the General Certificate of Education (GCE) Ordinary level in English, Economics, General Science and Mathematics among others. The Unit was later christened the Distance Education Unit to correspond with the changing trends. This continued until the GCE was phased out in Ghana.

After the West African Distance Education Conference held at GIMPA in 1995, a new concept of how to operate distance education was mooted. This was for public universities in Ghana to offer specific academic programmes. University of Ghana was thus mandated to concentrate on the Humanities. As a result, Prof. W. A. Assumaning of the Chemistry Department was appointed the first Coordinator to organise the Distance Education Centre for the Distance Education Programme in 1995. During this period, four Departments namely English, Sociology, Political Science and Religions agreed to offer their courses through the distance mode. Later on, Prof. Elom Dovlo was appointed coordinator to continue the programme.

In 2006, the programme was brought to the then Institute of Adult Education to be managed by Mr. Reuben A. Aggor. It was at this stage that a University of Ghana Distance Education Implementation Programme was established under the Pro-Vice Chancellor Prof. Kwesi Yankah. The committee reorganised the programme and started training new course writers in Economics, Geography and Resource Development, Sociology and Linguistics.

In 2006, Dr. Samuel K. Badu-Nyarko was appointed Co-coordinator. During this time, History and Social Work were included in the Humanities as well as BA (Administration). The Bachelor of Arts Degree programme by Distance Education was eventually launched in November 2007 with the first batch of 907 students admitted and matriculated in February 2008. The programme has grown to 10 programmes in the Humanities and five in the Business School including Accounting, Organisation and Human Resource Management, Operations and Management Information Systems, Health Services Management, Banking and Finance, and Public Administration as well as B.Sc Information Technology. Student numbers have also grown to around 13,000. Plans are far advanced to admit students into three BA Teacher Education programmes; Lower Primary, Upper Primary, and Junior High School specialities respectively. The Department will also roll out its first home-grown programmes; Diploma, BA, MA and MPhil in Educational Technology in the not-too-distant future.

The Department has remained the front-runner in the deployment of the University’s SAKAI learning management system (Sakai LMS) for course delivery, assessments and training purposes. This is augmented with face-to-face tutorials in its 11 learning centres namely Accra, Bolgatanga, Cape Coast, Koforidua, Kumasi, Sunyani, Takoradi, Tamale, Tema, Tsito and Wa.Currently, the Department has positioned itself towards Distance Education research and created an enabling environment where research conceptualisations and results are presented in its well subscribed monthly seminars and its journal, Multidisciplinary Journal of Distance Education Studies (https://mjdesjournal.com/index.php/mjdes). Again, the Department is strategically partnering international collaborators around the world to promote and achieve the internationalisation strategy of the University as a leading University in Ghana and beyond.

Vision

To become a global leader in providing accessible and innovative technology-mediated learning, bridging the gap between learners and knowledge.

Mission

Our mission is to achieve our vision through strategic goals that include widening access to the University of Ghana's academic programs using technology, offering marketable academic programs, leveraging cutting-edge educational technology, and providing robust student support systems to maintain high retention rates among our distance learners.