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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Online push for distance learning by Basant Kumar Mohanty

Online push for distance learning by Basant Kumar Mohanty

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published Published on Jan 12, 2012   modified Modified on Jan 12, 2012

A government-appointed panel has suggested launching online higher education courses, a step experts said would not only widen access to knowledge but also check irregularities in distance learning.

Apart from permission to universities and deemed universities to offer courses through the Internet, the committee has recommended that the government set up a Distance Education Council of India (DECI) as regulator.

Fourteen open universities and 172 other institutions now offer distance education to nearly four million students, while some 11 million study under the conventional system.

But as doubts often surfaced over the quality of distance education, the government set up the committee to suggest ways for improvement.

The panel, headed by academic N.R. Madhava Menon, found that the existing Distance Education Council had failed to discipline institutions guilty of irregularities like offering distance education at undeserving franchise institutions beyond their territorial jurisdictions for commercial motives.

Experts said allowing education online — which would involve admission, counselling, submission of assignments and evaluation — would help check such irregularities and also increase access as the Net has no territorial limits.

But any institution will have to seek permission from the proposed DECI before starting such online courses, which can run parallel to distance education, the committee said.

At present, the Consortium of Educational Communication (CEC), a wing of the University Grants Commission, offers a few courses on multimedia through the Internet.

CEC director T.R. Kem said online education could enhance access to higher studies but setting up the infrastructure would take at least two years. “To offer courses through the Internet, you need content, connectivity and device. The CEC is currently preparing e-content material for all undergraduate humanities courses while the IITs are preparing e-content in the engineering stream.”

The rural development ministry and the information technology department have launched an exercise to provide broadband connectivity to all the 2.3 lakh gram panchayats in the country in the next two years. The human resource ministry has already unveiled Aakash tablets, the low-cost mobile computers.

“It will take another two years minimum to complete the preparation of e-content material. By that time, connectivity would not be a problem and Aakash would have reached remote areas. So online course delivery could be possible,” Kem said.

Seven IITs and IISc, Bangalore, have already joined hands to prepare curriculum-based web courses in engineering. These courses have been prepared by the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning.


The Telegraph, 12 January, 2012, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120112/jsp/nation/story_14995733.jsp


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