Free online courses aim to boost higher education access

BDLive 02 July 2016

The University of the Witwatersrand announced recently that it had developed free, online courses to be made available over the next three years, as part of efforts to enhance access to higher education, reports BDLive.

The university will be offering options that include open online courses on the edX platform, short online courses, and ultimately entirely online degree programmes. The University of Cape Town is already offering online courses, under its GetSmarter programme. These, however, are not offered free of charge.

In a statement, management of the University of the Witwatersrand, or Wits, said it was the first African institution of higher education to offer open, online courses on the edX online learning platform, created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University in May 2012. Wits Deputy Vice-chancellor (Academic), Professor Andrew Crouch, said there was a dire need for more places at South African universities and for access to high-quality post-school training.
Full report on the BDLive site

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