Chairman - DEC Messages

Providing educational training and capacity building opportunities for millions of people is the greatest challenge for a highly populated and fastly developing country like India. Conventional systems of education need to be augmented and complimented with a wide variety of strategies for enhancing the quality of education delivery and extent of the reach of education. In this context the role of open and distance learning is enormous. This provides opportunities for diverse types of learners who are in one way or other find it difficult to undergo the conventional classroom teaching. Moreover, to provide continuous capacity building and training of people at the workplace, flexible open and distance learning systems are necessary.

The Government of India in its 11th plan has targeted to increase the Gross Enrollment Ratio in higher education from 11% TO 20%. This implies that we need to double up our capacity for higher education. Besides other steps to achieve the above, the government of India is planning to increase the contribution of distance education from the present 24% to 40%. Thus, there is a need for Universities to establish high quality distance education systems to achieve these targets.

I am glad that Punjab Technical University (PTU) has contributed a lot in this direction through its distance education programme that has been running successfully since 2001. I have learnt that the University has more than 1200 centres all over the country and is imparting vocational and technical education to more that 1.25 lakhs students. The University has developed Self Instructional Materials, Computer-Based Tutorials and web based Online Learning Management System to reach out to the masses. PTU has also established its network not only in the urban sector but also in the far flung areas which have been deprived of opportunities of higher education. I am sure that the University will ensure strict norms for quality of content, delivery and examination processes in all its distance education activities.

I understand that the University is starting its admission processes for the next academic session shortly for which I convey them my best wishes.   

Prof. V. N. Rajasekharan Pillai

Prof. V. N. Rajasekharan Pillai

Chairman, Distance Education Council,

New Delhi