The Challenges Distant Students Face as They Combine Studies with Work: The Experience of Teachers Pursuing Tertiary Distance Education at The University of Cape Coast, Ghana

Majority of distant students are adults. Such people have many responsibilities; they have families, jobs, social life and other commitments. The ability to manage and co-ordinate their enormous activities will determine how successful they would be in their studies. The primary role of the student is to learn. To enable the students to achieve this challenging task requires motivation, planning, and ability to analyse and apply the information being taught. The distant student who receives support from his family, friends, fellow employees, employer, instructors and fellow students is likely to successfully go through the course. At the beginning of the course distant students should be told the challenges they are likely to face. All distant students should be assigned to counsellors and they should be given the opportunity to contact them at any time either through the e-mail or telephone. The students should also be encouraged to form study groups and get in touch with their study group members through the e-mail and mobile phone whenever they are in need. The providers of distance education should give constant feedback to the students and offer them support services such as counselling and this will go a long way to reduce attrition rate.