Chapter 34- Distance Education

Chapter Outline

• Introduction
• What is Distance Education ?
• The Purposes and Function served by Distance Education
• Theories of Distance Education
• Organization and Management of a Distance Education Programmed

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Introduction

          Distance education mode is now being recognized globally as an effective supplement for even substitute for the regular classroom instruction  More and more universities and School Education boards are coming with some or the other advanced network of the distance education. It has necessitated on the part of the prospective as well as in-service teachers to become acquainted with the nature and functioning of the distance education mode not only for helping the cause of distance education but also to make its proper utilization for professional growth.

What is Distance Education ?

          The term distance education refers to a system of education run along a two-way interaction and communication between the source of teaching and the learner maintained through the conventional as well as advanced information and communication technologies with an eye on providing opportunities to the learner to engage in his self-study with a freedom of choice related to time, space, pace, medium, access and curriculum.

The Purposes and Functions served by Distance Education

The purposes and functions served by distance education may be outlined as

(i)               Helpful in serving the educational and functional needs of all those learners for whom it remains as the first and a lone choice for one or the other reasons,

(ii)            Helping in the achievement of the target of compulsory education to all besides proving an effective and forceful media for mass education,

(iii)          Considered better in comparison to the conventional system of education due to its cost-effectiveness,

(iv)          Helpful in inculcating among the students a number of good habits like self-study, independent problem solving ability, time and resource management,

(v)             Suiting the likings, needs and temperaments of a wide variety of the learners on account of the flexibility and freedom offered by it in terms of time, space, pace, medium, access and curriculum, and

(vi)          Helpful in the universalization, humanization and globalization of the system of worldwide education.

      

Theories of Distance Education

   Theories of distance education represent the basic assumptions, principles and insights for directing the path of distance education. The theories discovered so far can be broadly grouped into three categories, namely

(i) theories of autonomy and independence, 
(ii) theories of industrialization, and 
(iii) theories of interaction and communication.

     Theories of autonomy and independence try to put the learner in the centre and fore front of a teaching learning process of any distance education programme. As example of these theories we may name the theories like Charles Wedemeyer’s Theory of Independent Study, Michael G. Moore’s Theory of Autonomy and Independent Study.

     Theories of industrialization try to organize the structure and functioning of the distance education or the basis of the model of industrialization. The theories put forward by the scholars kike Otto Peters, Desmond Keegan, Randy Garrison and John Andeson belong to this group of theories.

     Theories of Interaction Communication focus on the significance and role played by the phenomenon of interaction and communication in the organization and functioning of a distance education program. The theories propounded by the scholars like Borje Holmberg, John A. Baath, Kevin C. Smith, David Stewart and John S. Daniel belong to this group of theories.

Distance Education in India – Historical and Modern Perspectives

   Before independence in our country, distance education was not the subject of mass or general education. It existed for the elite class in the name and shape of  correspondence courses and postal tuition or coaching run through a very few commercial institutes. The trend continued for a long even after gaining independence till 1960 when for the first time Planning Commission of the country put forward his proposal of making use of correspondence education as a supplementary method to meet the growing demand for higher education. As a result Delhi University came up in 1962 with the first correspondence course of the country at the university level through the establishment of School of Correspondence course and Continuing education in its campus. Late on other universities took initiative by establishing departments or directorate of correspondence courses or education. On the school level, the first correspondence course (for the students of Intermediate classes) was started in 1965 by the Board of School Education of the State Madhya Pradesh. In 1979 CBSE started an open school enrolled in the regular classes for one for such courses. Its working was later on handed over to National Open School (NOS) now known as National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) – responsible of running open learning system at the school level. At the higher education level this responsibility is now shared by the National Open University known as Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) established in the year 1985. With the establishment of IGNOU, the distance education of the eighties (provided usually in the form of correspondence courses) have changed into an era of open learning.

Organization and Management of a Distance Education

Programme
The task of the planning and organization of the activities concerning of a
distance education programme involves certain basic components or
elements like 

(i) preassumptions and knowledge about the learners, 

(ii) development of the course material, 

(iii) follow-up in the form of assignments’ evaluation and feedback, 

(iv) organization of personal contact program (PCP), 

(v) Selection and use of appropriate communication media or technology, 

(vi) Provision of study centres, and 

(vii) Sharing of resources.