17 January 2002 Programme meets personal and community needs

Now in its fifth year of existence, Lincoln University's Regional Education Programme is a "learning relationship" designed to meet the tertiary education needs of people whose personal, domestic or employment circumstances prevent them from taking up full-time, on-campus university study.

Hailed at its outset as a new strategic pathway for the delivery of tertiary education to those who live and work away from a central university campus, the programme has brought tertiary education opportunities to over 30 local communities around the South Island.

"We're proud that we have 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 Lincoln University's Regional Education Programme's students? Enrolments come from various sources and include men and women not currently participating in any tertiary education, adult participants of local community education centres, senior high school students and gifted young people.

A feature of Lincoln's Regional Education Programme, as distinct from the extramural opportunities offered at other universities, is the provision of learning coordinators and study centres. Students come together regularly with a coordinator who helps keep them on track and on target with their studies. If it's not physically possible to meet then a teleconferencing option is used.

And the results?

"This is the most satisfying part," says Dr Hardie Wills. "It is most rewarding when people come into the programme who have never done tertiary study before and they discover abilities they never knew they had, and end up achieving A and B pass grades in their exams."

• This year Lincoln University's Regional Education programme is offering 16 papers in Semester I and 19 in Semester II.