This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book describes the history, structure and institutions of open and distance education in six countries: China, India, Russia, Turkey, South Africa and South Korea. It describes how open and distance education is evolving in a digital age to reflect the needs and circumstances of the national higher education systems in these countries. It also explores the similarities and differences between how their open and distance higher education systems are managed and structured. This book is the second in a series, following Open and Distance Education in Australia, Europe and the Americas (Springer 2018). Both books compare and draw conclusions about the nature of open and distance education in the context of various national higher education systems. In a digital era characterized by the growing use of online, open and distance education, this book will prove particularly valuable for policy-makers and senior administrators who want to learn about establishing or expanding open and distance education services. In addition, it offers a valuable reference guide for researchers, academics and students interested in understanding the different approaches to open and distance education. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

Access to higher education in South Africa poses a number of challenges. First, South Africa is said to be one of the most unequal societies in the world, with an estimated Gini coefficient that ranges between 0.63 and 0.69 (Human Sciences Research Council, 2014; Statistics South Africa, 2014). The wealth gap between the countrys rich and the poorest of the poor is both growing and getting worse. Second, UNISA is an open distance learning (ODL) institution that seeks to intervene and manage the above challenges by offering access to higher education opportunities to millions of South Africans, the majority of whom are descendants of sections of society that were denied opportunities to access higher education by a myriad of institutionalised apartheid policies and legislation which were racist and discriminative. With these concerns in mind, the author compiled Open Distance Learning (ODL) Through the Philosophy of Ubuntu, which is a sequel to the authors previous publication, Open Distance Learning (ODL) in South Africa (Nova Publishers: New Nork, 2015); it explores the potential for the philosophy of Ubuntu to meaningfully shape UNISAs ability to deliver its ODL mode of teaching and learning. The philosophy of Ubuntu, which is also known as humaneness and/or human dignity, is an African worldview or normative concept that encapsulates moral values and principles such as kindness, generosity, compassion, benevolence, respect for persons, care and concern for others, as well as human dignity. The book draws on the philosophy of Ubuntu as a guiding conceptual framework to explore ways in which UNISAs vision of an African university in the service of humanity might be meaningfully driven and realised. This collection of fourteen chapters that constitute the book grapples with a wide range of critical questions such as: How might embracing the philosophy of Ubuntu impact UNISAs ability to meaningfully deliver a humane, open distance education to its students in South Africa, on the African continent, and on a global scale? How, for instance, would grounding UNISAs curricular offerings in the philosophy of Ubuntu turn the university into a uniquely African ODL institution? How would embracing the values and principles of Ubuntu shape UNISAs inclusive focus, research and innovative conceptual framework and impertaives, ODL teaching and learning, assessment and quality assurance, communication and public relations profile, among others? Finally, Open Distance Learning (ODL) Through the Philosophy of Ubuntu explores the plausibility of a radical change of mindset from business as usual to business unusual by re-imagining and recasting UNISAs ODL mission through the values and principles of the philosophy of Ubuntu. The book is the second offering of the planned trilogy of books on ODL in Southern Africa. The final volume, Assuring Institutional Quality in Open Distance Learning (ODL) in the Developing Contexts will complete this thought process on ODL.

Distance Education for Africa (DeAfrica) is a non-profit educational organization based in the United States of America and in Nairobi, Kenya. The objective of DeAfrica is to alleviate poverty by improving access to efficient and effective world-class training and education courses by poor communities in Africa. By providing technology, pedagogical experience and methodologies, as well as up-to-date content, DEA extends quality education to people who would not otherwise have access to any educational resources. This book is about the impact of DeAfrica's courses on students' lives in Africa.

Distance Education for Africa (DeAfrica) is a non-profit educational organization based in the United States of America and in Nairobi, Kenya. The objective of DeAfrica is to alleviate poverty by improving access to efficient and effective world-class training and education courses by poor communities in Africa. By providing technology, pedagogical experience and methodologies, as well as up-to-date content, DEA extends quality education to people who would not otherwise have access to any educational resources. This book is about the impact of DeAfrica's courses on students' lives in Africa.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book describes the history, structure and institutions of open and distance education in six countries: China, India, Russia, Turkey, South Africa and South Korea. It describes how open and distance education is evolving in a digital age to reflect the needs and circumstances of the national higher education systems in these countries. It also explores the similarities and differences between how their open and distance higher education systems are managed and structured. This book is the second in a series, following Open and Distance Education in Australia, Europe and the Americas (Springer 2018). Both books compare and draw conclusions about the nature of open and distance education in the context of various national higher education systems. In a digital era characterized by the growing use of online, open and distance education, this book will prove particularly valuable for policy-makers and senior administrators who want to learn about establishing or expanding open and distance education services. In addition, it offers a valuable reference guide for researchers, academics and students interested in understanding the different approaches to open and distance education.

Open and distance learning has been used in many ways in the recent past to provide both primary education and adult education. The Commonwealth of Learning works with governments, schools and universities with the aim of strengthening the capacities of Commonwealth member countries in developing human resources required for their economic and social development. Many existing policy documents link distance education with new information and communication technologies, portraying them as a promising universal access and exponential growth of learning. This book answers the key questions to these issues and assesses the impact and effect of the experience of basic education at a distance all over the world and in a wide variety of forms. This is the first major overview of this topic for twenty years.

Distance education includes the use of correspondence courses, the work of open universities, and education in-school and out-of-school based on broadcasting by radio or television. It is defined as an educational process in which a significant proportion of the teaching is conducted by someone removed in space and/or time from the learner. Within Africa, it has been used for teacher training, and for primary, secondary and tertiary education. Many African countries have been offering in-service training to teachers using correspondence courses. In primary education, the most important application of distance-teaching techniques has been in interactive radio, where radio is used for direct classroom teaching. At both secondary and tertiary level, "equivalence" courses have been developed offering an alternative route to formal qualifications for students outside school or college. Cost data are presented on all these applications, showing a reduction in costs at all levels. It is argued that distance education's potential to increase access to education and reduce costs justifies further investment along with other strategies for education in Africa.