Page 30 - Universitas Terbuka Center of Excellence In Asia 2010 and The World 2020 (A Journey Towards a Leading Open and Distance Education Institution 1984-2008)

At that time, DGHE also
had a project called

Teaching Certification v
(Akta V) in which its task

was to increase teaching
competencies of tertiary

education lecturers. This
project was also difficult to

manage because it was
separated from higher

education institution
resources.

In order to solve the
problems , the government

decided to develop a
university with open and

distance education mode
which was flexible enough to

serve students around the
country including those living in the remote area . The education system of this

university should be in distance education (DE). One of the advantages of DE
was that it did not use many teachers and classrooms, since teaching and

learning were delivered in the form of printed and non-printed media. The 'face-
to-face interaction between students and their teachers was seldom conducted ,

and if needed it could be done by means of media such as by mail or telephones.
The teachers who wrote course materials and delivered tutorials could be part-

timely hired from the established local universities without disturbing the daily

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