| Abstract: | In 1977 the government of Costa Rica established a new university, the Universidad Estatal a Distancia (UNED), and charged it with using distance teaching methods to meet the needs of new target groups as well as to alleviate some of the pressure of student demand on the existing three state-funded campus-based universities. This paper examines UNED's impact in relation to three categories of need: (1) student demand for university places; (2) demand from persons who had been previously disadvantaged in one way or another and hence unable to enter a university; and (3) demands generated by the needs of society for trained manpower. The paper evaluates UNED's success or failure in meeting these needs, in so far as it can be measured, and considers evidence based on the views of UNED's students regarding the success of the University in meeting their individual requirements. Throughout, the paper relates UNED's role within the higher education system in Costa Rica to those of the campus-based universities. In spite of the problems of teaching part-time students in a society in which leisure time is at a premium, the authors believe that UNED is to a large degree achieving its objectives by meeting previously unfulfilled needs at the higher education level in Costa Rica. |
