Open schooling is becoming increasingly prevalent in many developing countries. Enrolment numbers are rising rapidly, particularly at the secondary school level. But quality assurance remains limited.

Open schooling must mean access to quality education, otherwise its introduction becomes counterproductive. In our view, the quality of the education is as important as the quantity offered.

This carefully prepared toolkit is one way of providing support as open schools develop quality assurance systems that will be the foundation of a culture of continual improvement in open schooling. We hope it will benefit open schooling by making institutions’ quality assurance practices as explicit and systematised as possible, with quality assurance policies clearly communicated amongst institutional stakeholders.

While the toolkit aims at helping open schools to institute sound quality assurance systems that can lead to quality ODL provisioning, it also seeks to alert policy makers to the importance of investing in quality open schooling as more and more learners opt for this alternative form of education.

Keywords

accreditation · case study · distance learning · open schooling · quality assurance · toolkit