Desertion in Distance Education, Living Together in Higher Education

Abstract

The paper reports a study of desertion of a distance education programme in a Colombian University to explore the reasons for desertion. The study is based upon the conception that desertion involves the student’s failure to complete a particular cycle of education, but that this is a collective rather than an individual phenomenon, and has causes both inside and outside the educational system. The study concludes that causes of desertion are many and varied, and that they cannot easily be separated in terms of their explanatory power.