Presentation on 22 September 2013 at the National Conference on Higher Education: Emerging trends organised by Raj Bhawan, Bihar. (uses some slides from other other sources)

1. Commonwealth Educational
Media Centre for Asia
Open, Distance and
eLearning in India: Status
and Trends
Sanjaya Mishra
Director, Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia
September 22, 2013

2. Structure of the Presentation
 Historical Perspective and Current Situation
 Problems and Issues
 Strategies and Approaches

3. Historical Perspectives
 1962: University of Delhi
 1964: Kothari Commission
 1975: Parthasarathy Committee
 1978: CBSE project Open School
 1982: Dr. BRAOU
 1985: IGNOU
 1989: NOS (Now NIOS)

4. Structure of ODL
 National Open University
 15 State Open Universities (including 2
private: Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh)
 Over 200 Dual mode universities and
specialized institutions offering ODL
 Chartered Accountancy, Company
secretary, Cost Accountancy, etc. also offered
programmes in distance mode

5. Structure of ODL
 Programmes offered at all level (Open Basic
Education to Doctoral Degrees)
 Number of students (over 2 million at School
level; 4.2 million at higher education level)
 Technical courses through AICTE-UGC-DEC
Committee
 Some areas still not allowed (e.g. Medicine
and Law)

6. PROBLEMS AND ISSUES
 Quality
 Access
 Equity
 Technology
 Interaction

7. Quality
 IGNOU Act (dual role: offered programme and
also monitored quality of ODL in the country)
 Distance Education Council established in
1991 under IGNOU Act (first quality agency in
the country) – now, part of UGC
 Dual standards of quality learning
 Poor monitoring of quality
 Poor perception of ODL

8. Access
 Lack of National Human Resource Planning
 Planned to have additional capacity of 1
million in ODL in 12th Plan (about 15% in
ODL)
 Additional 2.5 million in School in 12th Plan;
5.2 million at HE
 Reduction in attrition rates in ODL

9. Equity
 Who is the ODL student?
 Rural-Urban gap
 Enrolment of Women (about 27%) and people
with disabilities

10. Interaction
 Interaction is the hallmark of quality (this is
at least in F2F)
 Interaction in ODL through
materials, assignments, technology, contact
session, different formats of tutorial support
(including, f2f
contact, telephone, online, mobile SMS)

11. Technology
 Started with supplementary approach to use
of Audio and Video
 Added teleconference (audio and video) at
designated centres
 Used Satellite based interaction (again from
designated centres)
 Learning materials available through
eGyanKosh, NPTEL
 eLearning is yet to follow pace

12. ODL Human Resources
 Not enough teachers with ODL capacities
 IGNOU has MA in Distance Education and Post
Graduate Diploma in eLearning
 Short term courses organised for in-service
training
 Large numbers of Academic Counsellors, who
are backbone of the support system are
untrained

13. STRATEGIES AND
APPROACHES
 Understanding ODL
 Ensuring Quality
 Improving Access and Equity
 Using Appropriate Technology
 Strengthening Institutional Capacities
 Improving perception of ODL

14. Understanding ODL
The classical definition of Distance Education
says, it is a system:
 Where teaching and learning is mediated by technology
(print, audio, video, computers, etc)
 Where didactic conversation takes place through
learning materials and assignments
 Where learning is primarily asynchronous (taking place
at a time, place and pace decided by the learner)
 Where the student and teacher are not permanently
separated
 Where the student is quasi-permanently separated from
peer group.

15. Understanding ODL
Open is all about:
 No requirement for entry qualification
 No physical boundary of the institution
 Flexibility of choice of courses
 Use of technology to teach

16. Understanding ODL
Use of eLearning is changing teaching-learning
practices:
 Both face-to-face and distance education
 It can be used effectively to increase quality
of student interaction in both the systems
 Make teachers and institutions more
accountable
 It is the new age distance education

17. Why ODL?
 NKC recommendation: 1500 universities by
2015
 Do we have the resources?
 ODL provides Economies of Scale
 Optimally utilizes the existing infrastructure
and expertise
 Cost of Open Schooling per child is about
1/10 of cost in conventional system (NIOS)
 Cost of graduate distance education is about
35% of F2F

18. Costs in ODL
 Korea (KNOU): annual cost/student
$186 as compared to $2880 in a
campus university
 Thailand (STOU): studies show
cost/learner is $226 compared to
$876 for conventional learning
Open and Distance learning in the developing world –
Perraton (2000)

19. Dual-mode provision
 University of Nairobi: cost/learner
of a residential B.Ed was 3 times
that of an ODL programme
For dual mode systems: cost in CCIs were
15% of conventional departments
Perraton (2000)

20. Open and distance education
in mega universities
COUNTRY INSTITUTION ENROLMENT
% of Campus
Cost*
Pakistan AIOU 456.126 22
China CCRTVU 2,300,000 40
India IGNOU 1,187,100 35
UK OU 203,744 50
*Unit cost per student as a percentage of the average for other universities in the
country, NKC, 2004.

21. Ensuring Quality
 How?
 Recognition Vs. Accreditation
 Common quality framework for Learning
irrespective of mode (e.g. QAA of UK )
 Internal quality assurance system
 Development of quality standards

22. Improving Access and Equity
 Existing number of colleges (over 31,000) in the
country: Use unutilized space and time
 All universities offer need based programmes
through ODeL; especially use eLearning for existing
courses and programmes
 Release all materials produced through public
funding as Open Educational Resources under
suitable license
 Provide special incentives for women, persons with
disabilities and economically weaker sections of the
society to pursue ODL programmes

23. Technology and Interaction
 Content is King: Make all learning resources
digital and Open Educational Resoruce
 Content is King, but not ENOUGH: Create e-
environment for increasing student-
teacher, student and teacher to content and
student-student interaction
 Support asynchronous learning by accessing
learning resources on the Web, Mobile and
through on-demand DTH services

24. Technology Innovation: COL Tablet
server
A tablet used as
a server can host
an LMS or CMS
such as Moodle
or Wordpress
pre-loaded with
learning
materials.
A portable wireless router can broadcast a
network that students can connect to
An external battery can power
the wireless router off-grid for
up to 12 hours.

25. Improving ODL Practitioners
 Trained human resources for ODeL (in-service
vs pre-service training)
 Policies aligned with national mandates
 ODeL as a lifelong learning strategy rather
than second chance to education

26. Trends in eLearning and OER
 eLearning initiated in late 1990s, but now it has
become more pervasive
 Over 80 programmes are available online in
Commonwealth Asia
 eLearning is used in different ways by both
distance teaching and F2F universities
 Use of Open Educational Resources increasing
 Shift from content development approach to
learning facilitation
 More of a convergence of distance and F2F
teaching

27. eLearning Models
 Use of in-house technology (IGNOU’s PG Certificate on
Management of Resettlement and Rehabilitation)
 Use of Open Source/ Proprietary LMS (currently several
programmes, including the PGDEL)
 Use of Wiki platform for training (2008 conducted online
training and delivered online certificate)
 Delivery of video lessons online and web courses (NPTEL
Courses)
 Emergence of MOOC (IIT, Kanpur and COL on Mobiles for
Development)
eLearning can bridge the gap between face-to-face and
distance education.

28. Open Educational Resources and MOOC
 Making available textbooks in open licences
to create an ecosystem for re-use and re-
mixing of knowledge resources
 Make textbooks accessible to all
 Teachers will have more time to
teach, explain, mentor students (including in
Distance education)
 MOOCs can address up-gradation of skills and
knowledge of large numbers

29. Possible Steps
 Policy on Open Distance and Technology
Enabled Learning as a strategy for lifelong
learning
 Adoption of an Open license framework for
sharing educational resources
 Adopting more online learning practices in
Indian universities
 Adopt consortium approach to delivery of
education through ODL

30. Thank YOU