It is generally accepted, particularly in countries with limited natural resources, that socio- economic growth relies on the development of the human resource. In order to do this, there must be many and varied opportunities and multiple pathways to cater to the varying learning styles, aspirations, achievement, abilities and talents of the population.

Vivienne Roberts

Prior to the 1960s, higher education was restricted to a small homogeneous group of relatively young learners, confined mainly to universities. Since then, higher education has become democratized embracing colleges, polytechnics and institutes, catering to a wide cross section of learners of all ages, abilities and stages of life: the young, the busy adult, the retired, the single parent, the late bloomers and the disabled.

The Open Campus was established by the UWI to expand the scope, enhance the appeal and improve the efficiency of its service to all the countries which it serves. This statement embodies a challenge: the commitment to broaden access so that quality university education can reach not only a larger number but also a more diverse pool of geographically dispersed and underserved learners.
Sir John Daniel and colleagues of the Commonwealth of Learning argue that there is an iron triangle of access, quality and cost and that this inflexible linkage cannot be broken through traditional face –to- face education but rather through distance education. This is so because distance education removes the limitations of space and time while allowing for the application of technology to individualise teaching and learning. The Open Campus has embraced this challenge of using distance education to provide access to quality education at an affordable cost.

In addition to space and time, the possession of formal qualifications is another barrier to access. The Open Campus is committed to open access for some of its programmes but it is simultaneously determined that exit standards must be rigorously maintained. Therefore it seeks to provide access courses to fill the gaps and enhance students’ chances of success. In this regard, it uses a series of laddered programmes to enable students to progress successively and successfully from certificate level to diploma, bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

The potential offerings of the Open Campus are limitless but currently include Education, Management, Social Services, Criminology, Business, Banking and Information Technology - offered online, onsite, on demand.
In recognition of the fact that learning takes place outside of classrooms, and formal educational environments, Open Campus plans to use a system of prior learning assessment to enable applicants to use experiential learning for purposes of matriculation or advanced placement in many of our programmes.

Thus, the Open Campus will give meaning to its label: openness to learners of all ages and stages, openness in the level and scope of its offerings, openness to non-traditional qualifications and openness to a growing population of learners who seek to achieve the development of their full potential and by extension, the socio-economic development of the region.

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