Distance education has created a new opportunity for students who may have had difficulty accessing education in its traditional format. Whether this was due to remote location, or disability, distance learning removes the barriers associated with attending in-person classes. Ease of access to global learning opportunities has opened up as well, with distance education in universities and colleges making international study an option for many more students.

CLARIFICATION OF TERMS

Distance Education, Non-Formal Education, Nontraditional Education, and Open Education

Distance and online education allow students to acquire knowledge beyond the restrictions of a traditional classroom and regular college attendance. While these terms are frequently used interchangeably, it’s crucial to discern their nuanced differences. Distance graduation and master’s degree programs, for instance, specifically refer to courses offered entirely over the internet, allowing students the flexibility to pursue higher education remotely.

The confusion over the use of the term stems from the fact that various expressions, such as non-formal education, distance education, nontraditional education, and open education, currently used in the field of education, are either not properly understood or not adequately defined. The reason is simply that the educational processes underlying these expressions are similar in one aspect or another, in terms of their philosophy or procedures. In other words, unless one is clear about the philosophy underlying these expressions and the methods they imply, there is bound to be an element of confusion that we should resolve before proceeding further.

It is an improvement over the single ‘correspondence’ mode, since distance education in Kolkata uses all the available media for educational delivery. ‘Open Education’ refers to the approach or the philosophy behind it. We shall be at the beginning.

By formal education, we mean the campus-based education at the school, college, and University levels where curricula and syllabi have certain established patterns. The age groups, training, methods of teaching, materials (textbooks) used, evaluation, etc., are known to the teachers and the taught. By non-formal education, we mean any other approach to provide education to those who have not been able to get formal education. Distance education refers to the ‘mode’ which does not require the physical contiguity of the teacher and the learner at all times.

It is not unusual to confuse the terms distance education, Correspondence Education, and Open Education with each other. Openness to methodology is indeed a characteristic of distance education. It should be clear that there can be various degrees of openness in education.

Correspondence Education:

The distinction between correspondence and distance education lies in their aims, methods, and orientation. Whereas correspondence education becomes an extension of conventional education as far as its imparting of prescribed knowledge for issuing certificates is concerned, distance education aims at more varied goals. These include personal growth, training for better job prospects and job enhancement, a change in attitude, etc., in addition to imparting knowledge. Distance education also employs a multimedia approach, including human contact.

Correspondence education, on the other hand, depends mostly on printed materials distributed by post. The procedure adopted for admissions to the courses and examinations is more or less the same as has been in use over the centuries in the traditional college university education.

Open Education:

We may define open education as a system of education that does not operate through traditional conventions which are essentially restrictive in nature – admission restrictions, attendance restrictions, restrictions on the candidature for examinations, restrictions on the period to be devoted to a course, restrictions on the number of examinations given and taken in a year, restrictions on subject combinations for a particular degree, restrictions on the modes of didactic communication and the didactic tasks, etc. The larger the number of such restrictions left unobserved, the higher the degree of the ‘openness’ of the type of education under consideration.

What’s the simplest way to explain distance learning?

Distance education is the simplest form; distance teaching and learning are like going to school, no matter where you are in the world.

Students can watch lessons on their computers or mobile phones, join live video calls, and hand in all assignments through an online learning system, which supports virtual learning tools.

Teachers can create on-demand learning opportunities or teach live lectures as they would in a traditional classroom.