In order to provide a new learning environment that responded to a need to dramatically increase enrolment, organisational culture change at the University of Mauritius was carefully designed and implemented. As part of a project funded by the Canadian International Development Agency, a Centre for Distance Learning was opened, a staff position of instructional designer was created (training of the incumbent in that position was undertaken by Laurentian University and a "template" process was introduced whereby all courses offered in the hybrid distance education (mixed-mode) format included tutorial to full-time on-campus students. This presentation will highlight steps taken to train an instructional designer to ensure the design of culturally responsive courses and to meet the local and institutional demands. The presentation will outline the benefits of the approach to both universities involved in the project. The student support and scheduling of regular tutorials (a standard "template" across all courses) allows response to particular course and learner needs, and acts as a student support mechanism. To introduce distance education, its prerequisites had to be satisfied. The following were thus brought about: curriculum development and modularisation (where a core basic is identified, allowing the same course to be used in different faculties), the credit system (enabling inter-disciplinary degrees, thus counteracting the problem of market saturation) and more learner-centred philosophies (through instructional design and the system of tutorial support). Distance education has been a catalyst for fundamental organisational culture change, whereby its very prerequisites called for changes which would have taken longer to come had distance education not been introduced. The impact of the efforts to change the learning env
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