Distance Education is growing rapidly and reaching the nook and cranny of India. The website of the Ministry of Human Resource and Development lists the different purposes of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) - an opportunity for pursuing courses at 'educationally disadvantageous locations' and the promotion of industry efficient skills.
Lately, UGC has allowed all Higher Education institutions to provide online courses along with the regular and part time ones.
What are distance and online education?
The major difference between distance and online education is the level of interaction. Earlier, distance education largely used to be paper-based and students and teachers had almost no interaction except for feedbacks and query resolutions. The students had to be motivated and disciplined enough to study on her own and prepare for the exams.
But with the development of e-learning technologies and real-time audio-visual exchange of information, students can interact with peers and teachers in virtual chat groups, and even access live lectures. Online interactions are richer and help speed up the learning process.
With the recent surge in 4G internet speeds and reduction in prices, students from remote areas can access material online and watch rich content in video format. Online learning is now accessible to all students and has quickly become preferred mode for students who cannot get into regular courses.
Benefits of Distance and Online Education
According to survey by India Today, India is "one of the fastest growing online education markets" which is estimated to touch $1.96 billion dollars by 2021. UGC has decided that all regular and part time courses in Higher Education which have been approved by statutory councils should be offered as online programs as well.
Cost Effective
Online courses are cheaper than regular courses. For instance, Sikkim Manipal University's Distance MBAÂ costs around 1lakh, which is much less than 2-3 lakhs charged for regular MBA.
Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER)
UGC aims to achieve a Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) of 30% in Higher Education by 2020. Government has already taken steps to improve GER ? new IITs, IIMs, NITs and AIIMS have been establishment and seats in existing ones have been increased. But this still leaves out students who cannot pursue regular courses for financial and other constraints. Such students can be educated through online and distance mode. Besides launching online courses by government universities, UGC also wants private universities to offer such courses.
Better Curriculum and Niche courses
One of the major challenges for current education system is employability. Regular courses still teach curriculum that is outdated. Hence students are not employable when they graduate. To address this issue, curriculum needs to be revised regularly based on industry needs. Online format makes it much easier to continuously improve the content since delivery of the material is almost instant.
Similarly, online format makes it easy to offer niche courses since cost of producing courses in online format is much less. This further increases the employability of the candidate as they tend to get specialized skills with niche courses.
Golden job opportunity, recruitment on the vacant posts of WBPSC
