OPEN AND DISTANCE LEARNING:An Alternative University Educationfor Women At The Zimbabwe Open University

Abstract

The study examined the extent to which open and distance learning(ODL) is analternative university education for women at the Zimbabwe Open University (ZOU).it explored 50 ZOU staff , that is , 12 female academic and nine clerks- and 1 7 maleacademic staff and 12 clerical staff who were all purposively sampled. The study was aqualitative in nature. Its research strategy was a case study. Data were gathered usingopen-ended questionnaires. The study found out that most women had been deprived ofuniversity education because of the absence of ODL university education before 1993.Cultural and historical factors used to elbow women out of the conventional universityeducation. The study concluded that lack of university education for women could be adrawback for the production of the human capital. It also concluded that lack ofuniversity education for women was a letdown to national development. The studyrecommended the need for Ministry of higher and tertiary education stake holders toallocate recourses to ODL university education for women. The study could be extendedto other ODL tertiary education institutions in the Southern African DevelopmentCommunity (SADC) countries for the sake of comparison using other researchmethodologies.