Colin Latchem

As guest editors of this Special Issue of Distance Education, this issue harnesses the opportunity to profile African innovations in the areas of open and distance learning, and e-learning. The contributions assembled provide a balanced and engaging series of articles and reports on the kinds of empowerment and development that are extending and enhancing educational opportunity in African schools and universities. Importantly, they also demonstrate that African experiences – positive and negative – have global relevance.

With many TVET systems in the developing world now considering the adoption of ODL and ICTs because of the promised cost efficiencies, it is important to examine the costing of these new educational and training practices. Given the dearth of resources focusing specifically on costing ODL in TVET, this chapter focuses more generally on costs in the use of ODL and ICTs and extrapolates these findings to the TVET context. This chapter explores the costs of ODL and how to avoid the ramifications of weak financial planning.