The Universidad Estatal a Distancia UNED is a public institution of higher education, a pioneer of the distance education model in Latin America. It has more than forty years of experience, a network of thirty-seven university campuses throughout Costa Rica, undergraduate and graduate programmes, extension and research, and intensive use of information and communication technologies in its pedagogical model. The objectives of the State Distance University are as follows:

• Strengthening the values on which the Costa Rican State is based;
• Providing higher education, mainly through the use of distance learning techniques;
• Catering preferentially to those sectors of the population which, for geographical, professional or other reasons, cannot attend other centres of higher education;
• Contributing to scientific and technological research for the cultural, economic and social progress of the country;
• Providing appropriate instruments for the education and continuous training of all the inhabitants of the country;
• Acting as a means for the dissemination of culture;
• Contributing to the non-university education of adults, by establishing systems of cooperation and coordination with specialised national or international institutions; and
• Fostering the scientific, artistic, cultural and civic spirit of the Costa Rican people.