Blantyre International University Mode Of Study

Since BIU subscribes to the view that education must be life-long, especially in this 21st century, BIU, therefore, offers both full time and distance learning so that its academic programmes can be accessed by as many people as possible, including those that are already in employment or business.

There are a lot of advantages deriving from distance education, which include the following:

a)       It is a very flexible educational system which is not limited by time and place restrictions.

b)       Under this system, a learner can progress at his own speed.

c)       It fulfils the needs of various categories of persons who are unable to make use of the formal system of education.

d)       It leads to self-learning.

e)       It can reach remote areas through postal service or radio or TV.

f)        Learners can take advantage of the lectures of the most efficient teachers which is not always possible in all conventional educational institutions.

g)       Distance education makes higher education accessible to all sections of society.

h)       In-service personnel, housewives, persons with disabilities, underprivileged people, people residing in remote areas, school drop outs, etc., can all avail of the courses offered.

i)        The inherent flexibility of distance education system is conducive to a greater variety of subjects of study.

j)         The likely higher quality of the self-instructional package produced by multidisciplinary team of experts for use in distance education enhances the learning experience of distance students.

k)       The number of students in an open university system may be unlimited.

BIU offers distance education in order to meet the following needs and objectives:

a)       To provide educational facilities to those who cannot benefit from the formal system of education.

b)       To help socio-economically poor students receive education.

c)       To make the educational institution go to the students, rather than the students coming to the university.

d)       To provide opportunities to the educated citizens to study further while remaining at the places of their work.

e)       To provide less expensive education.

f)        To ease the problem of financial constraints on the part of the government to start new educational institutions.

Distance education or home study is a well tried and tested technique. Experience of distance education in other countries of the world, such as the USA, Sweden, Russia, Japan and Australia where it has been used extensively for a long time gives inspiration for fuller exploration of the method for a wide range of purposes. There is hardly any ground for apprehension that distance education courses are an inferior form of education than what is given on a full-time basis.

The duration of the University’s first degree courses is four years, except for the Law (Honours) Degree which takes five years. Later on the University will introduce Masters Degree courses whose duration will be two years and Doctorate Degree programmes whose duration will not be less than three years on a full time basis.

A student may in approved cases be exempted from certain levels or courses or both provided that the student shall have successfully completed approved or equivalent university level courses elsewhere and that the student shall be required to complete at least one half (50%) of the programme through BIU.

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