PROBLEMS OF OUSL CENTRE NETWORK IN 2007 AND 2017
Abstract
The Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL) is highly concerned about the student satisfaction. One major reason for the concern is that dissatisfaction leads to dropping out of students. Undoubtedly, high rates of dropouts mean high wastage of resources. Therefore, these institutions are concerned about student satisfaction and a common approach to ensure satisfaction is to provide Student Support Services (SSS). The expectation of the institutions is to increase student satisfaction so that success rates would increase. A strategy adopted by the OUSL similar to many other Open Universities is to operate a network of centers in order to facilitate the provision of SSS. At the same time, the centers themselves face problems in the provision of SSS and these in turn can affect student satisfaction. The main aim of this study is to compare the problems faced by the OUSL network of centres in the provision of SSS in 2007 and 2017. The study also aimed to identify the SSS currently provided by the OUSL network of centres, the current problems faced by them in the provision of SSS and to make suggestions to minimize the problems. In 2007, there existed only 4 regional centres and 17 study centres in the centre network while now the number of regional centres has gone up to 8 and the number of study centres has increased up to 27. The instruments used to collect data were a questionnaire and an interview schedule. The analysis of data was done qualitatively. The findings revealed that although some of the problems that existed 10 years ago were solved some still existed may be to a lesser degree. Additionally a few fresh problems currently faced by the centres of the OUSL centre network were also identified. Suggestions were given to minimize the problems.
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejes.v0i0.987
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