The University of Zambia (UNZA), through the Institute of Distance Education (IDE), has been offering distance education since 1966. This innovation provides a unique opportunity for those who may, for one reason or another, not be able to enrol in full-time programmes. IDE started as a Department of Correspondence Studies in 1966, Centre for Continuing Education in 1975, Directorate of Distance Education in 1994, and now, the Institute of Distance Education since 2009. The number of distance students has grown tremendously in the past 50 years from the initial 250 to currently over 4,000 students. The current and future emphasis is to offer market-driven, community responsive programmes (on high demand) such as the recently introduced Bachelor of Science (Nursing); Bachelor of Law; Bachelor of Education in Educational Management; Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Finance; Diploma in Computer Science and Information Technology; Certificate in Computer Applications, Repairs and Maintenance and the recently added E- Campus programmes.

Of particular interest, from 2014 Academic Year, in accordance with UNZA’s 2013 to 2017 Strategic Direction 8.3, IDE, in collaboration with Zimbabwe Open University (ZOU), started to offer Postgraduate programmes i.e. four (4) Masters Degrees (Master of Science in Peace, Leadership and Conflict Resolution; Master of Science in Counselling; Master of Education in Educational Management; Master of Business Administration) as well as Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) programmes in various fields. IDE has now embarked on introducing own demand-driven Postgraduate programmes while expanding the number of existing UNZA-ZOU programmes. This is intended to create opportunities for those with Bachelor’s degrees to advance to Masters programmes while those with Masters can advance to doctoral programmes at their convenience i.e. learning whilst earning. As IDE we are currently repositioning ourselves, as we are at the centre of the University of Zambia remodeling agenda as reflected in the Strategic Plan of 2023- 2027.