Supporting Guyanese Distance Education Audiences: Challenges for Providers in a Small State

Guyana, a lower income country that has a limited communication infrastructure and occupies an area of 216,000 km, is home to a population of 750,000. While 90 percent of the population occupies the narrow and relatively easily accessible coastal plain, the remaining population is sparsely distributed in the mountainous and forested hinterland which, more than any other part of the country, is affected by limited trained human resources. Guyana’s topography combines with her population distribution pattern to pose immense problems for the provision of quality face-to-face education for all Guyanese. An additional problem to the provision of quality education is the small budget available for educational development. Confronted by these challenges the nation has turned to print-driven distance education as an alternative mode of educational delivery. The distance modality allows delivery of a standardized educational programme to coastal and hinterland communities. Nevertheless, if it is to facilitate equitable opportunities for education, it requires the provision of suitable support services to help students overcome the challenges presented by distance study and any resource limitations that exist in their communities. Given the limitations in the country’s communication infrastructure, human resources and financial capacity, Guyana has had to opt for equality of concern rather than equality of provision in providing support services to distance students in less accessible areas of the country. This paper details the problems encountered by providers of distance education as they attempt to offer quality student support, and chronicles the attempt to solve these problems.