On deputation from the School of Education, Indira Gandhi National Open University, CB Sharma, current Chairman of the National Institute of Open Schooling gets candid about distance education in India.
Recently, the Distance Education Bureau (DEB) of the University Grants Commission (UGC) de-recognised many distance-learning courses, including several at IGNOU. Your view?
The UGC acts like big brother without the requisite expertise and is damaging the system and the interest of the learners who otherwise cannot attend regular education. Till 2013, the Distance Education Council constituted under the IGNOU Act was looking after the promotion and coordination of the open university and distance education system. It was a full-fledged body with more than 50 people. When it was merged with the UGC, it became the DEB, comprising less than half-a dozen-people. Given that distance education handles about 30% of the learners of higher education in India, it needs an independent, expert agency.
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I agree that distance education in India needs an overhaul, and some courses and open universities de-recognised by the UCG deserved. India has around 15 open universities and hundreds of traditional universities that have a distance education wing. Many of these function simply as certifying agencies. So, such an exercise is important. However, the UGC’s decision is half baked and taken in a huff. There should be an expert body parallel to the UGC, with experts from distance education, who should take researched and considered decisions.
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Ideally, it is an amalgamation of well thought-out and structured study material developed in different media, such as text and audio-visual that will help students understand a subject without regular access to a teacher, and personal contact hours for resolving doubts and evaluating assignments. All of this needs funding, and it is a misconception that distance learning is cheap. It is in fact, quite expensive and we are only able to subsidise because of economies of scale. However, this is often not sufficient and in the absence of funding, most places cut corners, reducing distance learning to correspondence courses where students rote-learn study material and give exams to secure certification. As such, there is little respect for it. Also, profit-making institutions often do not spend money on development of material and save major portion of the fees collected. This has damaged the reputation of distance learning. There is also some pressure to privatise distance education, with a large number of private players who have entered this domain.
How does one overcome the challenges?
There should be an independent, expert agency to give a direction to distance education in the country, and it should become the custodian of all self-learning-material developed by different Open and Distance Learning (ODL) institutions. Gradually, private institutions should be allowed to enter the sector and also use the material. Use of multiple media should be a pre-condition for offering courses through ODL. The agency should be allowed to decide on what courses institutions can offer and should be the monitoring agency for ODL. As universities, they must also get the same type of autonomy that other universities have.