India has witnessed various progresses in almost in every arena and one such field is education which has really progressed a lot after independence. Earlier, education was only limited within the boundaries of elite society and a large majority of poor and marginalized people remained illiterate. Political considerations have an important role in the expansion of higher education, especially at the state level. The state government experienced tremendous pressure from the public to establish more and more colleges and universities. These days we find that distance learning is a resourceful substitute of traditional learning and why not? It is comparatively flexible. In the times of digitisation, where the world is getting on the internet, the education sector has majorly flourished as a result of this progression. Students remain abreast with what takes place around them, particularly in the educational arena when they enrol for distance learning.
The distance education mode was adopted by many universities to meet the ever-growing demand of those students who lacked means to pursue higher education through the regular stream. Also, there were economic constraints. There are many universities in India which offers distance education to the students’ one of the best distance courses university in the world is Indira Gandhi National Open University.
Distance learning involves a varied range of teaching techniques which makes it engaging, intense and student-centric. The panel of faculty members come from various backgrounds and provides the students with quality education. In case of classroom education, education is imparted to the students who are present at that moment whereas distance learning has a free-flowing reach and can be accessed by anyone, even by those belonging to the remotest corners of the globe. Candidates can effectively maintain a balance between their work, education and other responsibilities. Such distance courses proved a boon for the service persons as well as others who wish to pursue higher education
The term Distance Education received a formal recognition in 1982 when the four decades old International Council for Correspondence Education was renamed as the International Council for Distance Education. However these days old form of learning like print material is replaced by the new concept of distance education include supplementary material being used through non-print media, also such as radio, television, computers, laptops, Cd’s, through projectors, video lessons and satellites.
Distance education gets overwhelming response in India, the universities introduced many new distance-education job oriented courses according to the changing times and students requirements. However, in this process, the actual motive of providing quality education .Currently in India, the Distance Education departments are generating the maximum revenue for their universities. However before enrolling your name you should check the authorities of the university running distance education courses and make sure it follows UGC guideline. The correspondence courses institutions are offering more than 400 programmes in India
Distance Education makes it eminently possible to democratize higher education to provide access to high quality education to all, to offer need-based academic programmes, to promote and reach quality education to the learner’s to their doorstep, and to set and maintain standards in higher education. In this today’s competitive world there is a sharp rise in the increasing interest in distance education. Every people try to add up or rather excel in the academic arena so distance education is a great relief which has greatly reduced the wall of distance between education and a normal student beyond the long distance of home or work place to university. Now just a little need to increase the need to make it professional in the arena of education.