For the foundation of an Open University in Portugal

Abstract

This text is the final chapter, entitled «Synopsis and advice», of a report worked out by the Work Group for Studying the Higher Education at Distance. This Group has been constituted by the Portuguese Ministry of Education and Culture in order to establish an Open University in Portugal. These are the points dealt with: features, methodology and conditions of the efficiency of education at distance; the problem of the pedagogical relation in the education at distance and the importance, as to that problem, of regional «supporting centres»; justification for the establishment of an Open University in Portugal conceived as a national popular university, firstly for workers; ends, targets and institutional form advised for the Open University; activities it is expected to perform and the organic structure it must adopt. At last, one traces the main lines of the plan suggested for the development of the Open University within a short, mean and long term.