26 June 2000 Regional Education Programme – Lincoln responds to community need

Lincoln University expanded its course-delivery modes in 1997 with the development of a Regional Education Programme. Three years on the programme has been hailed as a new strategic pathway for the delivery of tertiary education for students who live and work off campus.

Regional Education delivers Lincoln University papers, and degree and diploma study opportunities, to off-campus urban and rural communities throughout New Zealand. It is a partnership between local communities with unmet tertiary education needs and a provider, Lincoln University.

It is a ‘learning’ relationship designed to satisfy the unmet tertiary education needs of people whose domestic or employment circumstances preclude them from taking up full-time, on-campus study.

"Over the past three years the development of this programme in some 30 local communities around the South Island has increased the number of university educated people who can contribute to the life of their home regions and who now enjoy that special sense of self-development that education brings," says the programme's manager, Dr Lynette Hardie Wills.

Who are the Regional Education Programme's students? Enrolments to date have come from five main sources –

• Students not currently participating in any tertiary education

• Adult participants in local community education centres

• Adult day students at community colleges and other similar institutions

• Students who make a direct request for distance education

• High school year 13 students and gifted students.

During last year there was an increase in the number of students taking Regional Education subjects in year 13 at school. Some such students are using the Regional Education Programme's subjects as extension work while others are taking a subject not available to them at school.

A growth recruitment area experienced by all universities at the moment is the ‘mature student’ and this group has been strongly represented among those enrolling in Lincoln's Regional Education Programme.

With this group of the market the Regional Education Programme's many course support mechanisms are particularly appreciated – from the provision of learning coordinators and weekly study group sessions at convenient locations to the regular contact with the University ‘base’ – and these have led to high retention rates and good exam results. (All students, regardless of whether they are on-campus or off-campus or studying under the Regional Programme or as fulltime internal students, sit the same assessments under the standard examination and test conditions.)

‘Site provider’ is the term for the local community site where study groups take place, i.e. where the regional students come together regularly with their learning coordinators. Such sites exist throughout the South Island from Invercargill to Blenheim, Nelson to Westport, Dunedin to Ashburton, as well as Christchurch.

The amount of face-to-face interaction between the regional students and their learning coordinators ranges from three to five hours per subject per week for the 12 weeks of a Lincoln University study semester.

In addition to the study groups, a wide range of other communication channels are used in the Regional Education Programme to ensure that the two learning partners – the local community residents and the University remain closely entwined over the duration of a semester entwined – phones (including teleconferencing), faxes, and email. (Sic)

And the results?

"This is the most satisfying part," says Regional Education Project Manager Dr Lynette Hardie Wills, "when people come into the programme never having done tertiary education before, discover abilities they never knew they had, and end up achieving A and B pass grades in their exams.

"The motivation and commitment so often found with adult learners is a big factor in this.

"Of course in addition to opening up opportunities for adult students, the Regional Education Programme also gives secondary students the scope to extend themselves by starting university papers while in their senior years at school, and again there's a pattern of strong achievement because of their motivation.

"Furthermore, it provides very good staff development opportunities for subject specialists in the communities concerned.

"We definitely see tertiary level educational needs in the community being met by our programme."