Counselling Distance Learners: An Experiment at the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand

Abstract

In August 1993, The Open Polytechnic decided to establish a counselling service for it's 30,000 enrolled students. Historically, The Open Polytechnic (previously the Technical Correspondence Institute) had specialised in trades and vocationally based courses, having been developed after the Second World War by the Government of the day to rehabilitate returned servicemen. As students studied by correspondence, it was possible for ex-serviceman to complete vocational qualifications without the disruption of leaving home and work to study.