**Part 1**

**Distance Education Management** 

**1**

K. O. Ojokheta

*Nigeria* 

**Re-Engineering Open and**

**Distance Learning Institutional**

*Department of Adult Education, University of Ibadan,* 

**Development for Knowledge Society in Africa** 

In the contemporary world, the major task of all countries is to raise higher-level employment skills so as to sustain a globally competitive research base and to improve knowledge dissemination to the benefit of society. This was long observed by Drucker (1994) that "the knowledge society will inevitably become far more competitive than any society we have yet known for the simple reason that with knowledge being universally accessible, there are no excuses for non-performance. There will be no poor countries. There will only be ignorant countries". Therefore, if countries are to raise higher-level employment skills, it simply signifies that there is the need for substantial reforms in tertiary education policy since tertiary education is the major driver of economic competitiveness in an increasingly knowledgedriven global economy. These reforms in tertiary education policy must essentially concentrate on the production of more educated persons which, obviously, the conventional tertiary institutions, cannot achieved single-handed. Besides, an educated person, according to Drucker (1994) is "one who has learned to learn and will continue to learn throughout his or her life, especially in and out of the formal education system. This is continuing education. This is lifelong Learning". The implication of this is that a truly educated person is produced through a lifelong learning process and not through the formal education process. This is

where open and distance learning becomes imperative. Drucker further observed:

... in the knowledge society, clearly more and more of knowledge, and especially of advanced knowledge, will be acquired well past the age of formal schooling, and increasingly, perhaps, in and through educational processes which do not centre on the traditional school, e.g., systematic continuing education offered at the place of

Drucker's argument is simply that learning all the knowledge available to us today will not take place in the confines of the classrooms alone. This is why open and distance learning (ODL) continues to receive wider and greater recognition and acceptability as an important and standard component of educational delivery. In essence, if ODL is to play an important role in this ever increasing knowledge-driven global economy, its scope and importance have to change significantly. This paper is, therefore, written, as an awakening call for open and distance learning policy makers and practitioners in Africa to begin the re-engineering

**1. Introduction** 

employment.
