Dutchman Theo Neijenhuizen was on his way to Africa as a volunteer when he met his Irish wife-to-be. When the couple returned to Ireland from their stint abroad, Neijenhuizen took a job as an electrician with the South Eastern Health Board.

He soon realised that, if he wanted to progress in his career, he needed qualifications in management. "I saw an advertisement for the Institute of Public Administration's national certificate in public management," he recalls. "It was by distance learning. I applied and was accepted. Initially it was difficult to settle down to studying, but after the first couple of months I had no problems at all."

Doing a full day's work and then studying from home means that you have to make sacrifices in your personal life. "You need a lot of selfdiscipline and an understanding partner," says Neijenhuizen. "If you're a member of a club, for example, you may have to give it up for a time."

He achieved high grades in his certificate programme and was able to proceed to year two of the IPA's BA in public management (health stream). Since then he has completed a distance-learning Masters degree with the IPA and is now working on his doctorate.

Meanwhile, he has progressed up the career ladder and is now maintenance supervisor at Waterford Regional Hospital. "I wouldn't be where I am now if it hadn't been for that first course," Neijenhuizen observes.

Clearly he enjoys distance learning. "I like to study at my own pace," he says, "but keep up a schedule. You have to be highly organised and have a well-planned timetable."

For many long-distance learners, loneliness can be a problem. However, "I haven't found it lonely," says Neijenhuizen. "I got to know a group of students who were doing the same course and we kept in touch and learned from one another."

The IPA, which was established to provide education and training for the public service, has been offering programmes by distance learning since the late Fifties. The institute now offers a range of NCEA-approved courses including certificate and undergraduate and post-graduate degrees.

The BA in public management offers a choice of five streams: public management, healthcare management, local government, administration of justice and management. In each of the four years of the course, students take a number of common core subjects including economics and information technology.

The IPA's bachelor of business studies is a four-year course offering three streams - accounting, marketing and information systems management. The course has a common first year and is followed by specialisations in years two, three and four. The four-year BA in healthcare management is also available by distance learning. The IPA also offers two-year certificate programmes in public management, business studies and healthcare management from which students may transfer into the degree courses.

"Distance learning is a bit like a correspondence course," explains IPA senior lecturer Frank Litton. "Each student is given essential textbooks and a specially written distance education manual in each subject. The manual gives students clear objectives, so they know what's expected of them."

Included in each lesson is a self-assessment exercise. "From this, students get a good idea of how they're coping," says Litton. During the programme there are as number of compulsory weekend seminars, optional tutorial seminars and week-long seminars.

"To avoid loneliness students need contact with their lecturers, tutors and peers," he stresses. Contact with other students is particularly beneficial, he says.

Half the students taking IPA courses are doing so by means of distance learning. The pass rates for both distance-learning students and those who attend lectures is the same. Exams are held both in Dublin and in RTCs throughout the country.

It's also possible to work for a two-year IPA Masters degree in public management, in healthcare and, from next January, in local government management. If you don't have an honours degree, you can take a one-year graduate diploma, and if you do well transfer into the Masters programme.

As in the case of undergraduate degrees, students receive distance-learning manuals and have to commit themselves to a number of seminars where they are given guidance and additional tuition. "Each semester students get one week and three days face-to-face contact with staff," says Dr Michael Mulreany, director of the IPA's post-graduate education programme. "When they first come in, we put students in touch with each other so that they can form local informal study groups. We have a strong structure and work hard to avoid the loneliness of long-distance learning."

Contact: Institute of Public Administration, 57-61 Lansdowne Road, Dublin 4. Phone: (01) 668 6233.