The format of theological education once offered strictly in-person at a residential seminary, has expanded with manifold non-traditional means. Many more people are embracing distance, online or blended modes of learning. While some students prefer intensive, short-term programmes, others find only evening or weekend formats suitable to their schedules. Many full-time students increasingly are interested in education which does not require uprooting from their families and local communities and the familiarity of workplaces and churches. Open education, that is education that attempts to overcome the barriers of time, distance, age, place, pace, and space, in the educational process, is also gaining popularity. Through open education students may enrol anytime and take courses at their own pace. Institutions embracing these non-traditional models of learning need to think about quality measures.

High quality in open, distance and online programmes can be developed in accordance with suitable standards. The guidelines provided in this document direct institutions in the process of designing, developing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating open, distance and technology-enhanced education for purposes of excellence in theological education (and/or Christian higher education). ICETE’s Standards and Guidelines for Global Evangelical Theological Education, referred to as SG-GETE 2019, provides a template for such accreditation standards. This document, therefore, contextualizes the SG-GETE 2019 for use by ACTEA institutions.

The common terminologies used in this document include,

• Open Education: refers to education that overcomes the barriers of time, distance, age, place, pace, space, etc.
• Distance Learning: refers to any instructional model in which the teacher and learners are geographically separated during part or all the learning process. Under this broad definition, diverse instructional models may be classified as subsets of distance education, including correspondence studies and programmes totally or partially technologically mediated
• Online Learning: refers to web-based instructional models that are mediated by the internet with no in-person physical interaction between instructors and students
• Blended/Hybrid Learning: a hybrid instructional model that combines in-person instruction with periods of online or other modes of distance learning.