The year 1979 marks the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Open University. During this period it has come to be recognized as one of the major innovations in higher education in recent years. The Open University set out to attempt to solve the problem of drop-outs which had been a source of criticism for other distance education institutions in the past. To a large extent it has been successful in reducing drop-outs to an acceptable minimum. The importance of its success for other institutions which teach at a distance, both in Australia and overseas, is discussed. Caution is expressed about the lack of unanimity in terminology in studies of “drop-outs” and the danger of using “drop-outs” in comparing one institution with another.
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