Regardless of what area your educational interests lie in, distance learning offers many advantages over the traditional "brick and mortar" establishments. These are well-known: flexibility, affordability, learning while you earn, etc. An added advantage to an expatriate in South Africa doing a distance learning course is that Study Permit is not required for such programmes.

As the term implies, with distance learning you do not have to be limited to the South African universities and colleges. The world is your oyster, and the quantity and quality of international distance learning programmes is constantly growing. As far as South Africa is concerned, distance learning is a relatively new offering, thus the choice is rather limited. Your best bet for undergraduate and postgraduate degrees is without doubt UNISA, while a couple of colleges offer well stuctured range of popular courses:    

With more than 100,000 students, UNISA (University of South Africa) is the largest University in South Africa and one of the largest in the world providers of distance learning degrees. They offer internationally recognised Bachelor, Honours, Masters and Doctorate degrees. UNISA consists of College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, College of Economic and Management Sciences, College of Human Sciences, College of Law and College of Science, Engineering and Technology.

Damelin Correspondence College and Intec College are both South African leaders in college distance education courses. Wide range of courses are grouped into Computer School, Business School, Creative School, High School, Vocational School and Technical School.      

Last updated: September 24, 2008