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European Journal of Education Studies ISSN: 2501 - 1111 ISSN-L: 2501 - 1111 Available on-line at: www.oapub.org/edu Volume 3 │ Issue 9 │ 2017 doi: 10.5281/zenodo.852520 PROBLEMS OF OUSL CENTRE NETWORK IN 2007 AND 2017 Lalith Ranjan Gonsalkoralai Senior Lecturer, Department of Secondary & Tertiary Education, Faculty of Education, The Open University of Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Abstract: The Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL) is highly concerned about the student satisfaction. One major reason for the concern is that dissatisfaction leads to dropping out of students. Undoubtedly, high rates of dropouts mean high wastage of resources. Therefore, these institutions are concerned about student satisfaction and a common approach to ensure satisfaction is to provide Student Support Services (SSS). The expectation of the institutions is to increase student satisfaction so that success rates would increase. A strategy adopted by the OUSL similar to many other Open Universities is to operate a network of centers in order to facilitate the provision of SSS. At the same time, the centers themselves face problems in the provision of SSS and these in turn can affect student satisfaction. The main aim of this study is to compare the problems faced by the OUSL network of centres in the provision of SSS in 2007 and 2017. The study also aimed to identify the SSS currently provided by the OUSL network of centres, the current problems faced by them in the provision of SSS and to make suggestions to minimize the problems. In 2007, there existed only 4 regional centres and 17 study centres in the centre network while now the number of regional centres has gone up to 8 and the number of study centres has increased up to 27. The instruments used to collect data were a questionnaire and an interview schedule. The analysis of data was done qualitatively. The findings revealed that although some of the problems that existed 10 years ago were solved some still existed may be to a lesser degree. Additionally a few fresh problems currently faced by the centres of the OUSL centre network were also identified. Suggestions were given to minimize the problems. Copyright © The Author(s). All Rights Reserved. © 2015 – 2017 Open Access Publishing Group 163 Lalith Ranjan Gonsalkorala PROBLEMS OF OUSL CENTRE NETWORK IN 2007 AND 2017 Keywords: comparing problems 2007 and 2017, Open University of Sri Lanka, student satisfaction, regional and study centres, student support services, suggestions 1. Introduction The Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL) was established in 1980 under the University Act No 16 of 1978 as the only national University for Open and Distance Learning (ODL) in Sri Lanka. The university has by now completed more than 35 years of existence and at present caters to a student population of around 45000 by offering more than 60 programmes of study, ranging from foundation and certificate programmes to post graduate degree programmes. A problem which affected the OUSL from its inception was the alarming rate of dropouts from the study programmes. This was due to the fact that students who were used to the conventional education system being unable to adapt to ODL which involves self-learning to a great extent. Therefore the OUSL similar to most other Open Universities around the world take great efforts to provide student support services (SSS), to the student population of the University. In ODL, one barrier, the students face is the barrier of distance For downloading the full article, please access the following link: https://oapub.org/edu/index.php/ejes/article/view/987 European Journal of Education Studies - Volume 3 │ Issue 9 │ 2017 164