Rhetoric Versus Reality Of Practices In Indian Distance Education Institutions

Teaching is a profession and that requires the development of knowledge, competencies and skills. But, teaching at a distance is not the same as classroom teaching and this requires specialized professional development programmes. There are researches, experiences, practices and theories related to distance education and their successful application would enhance distance learning. But, there are mushrooming growth of distance education institutions in our country but whether they are powered with professional people. This study tried to analyse and describe the structure of the self-instructional materials developed by two renowned distance education institutions in our country and one of which was a dedicated or single mode Distance Education Institution (DEI) and another a dual mode DEI. This analysis was done with delimitation to only the structure of the contents at the course and block levels to know whether the DEIs were adhering to the principles related to self-instructional materials (SIM) construction. This enabled to come an inference that though trained man-power was available in both the DEIs, there found lapses in structuring the SIMs. Professional development programmes were initiated by the then Distance Education Council(DEC), but still they were found inadequate and all the DEIs in India would require constant professional update programmes, guidance, support and monitoring over the practices for the effective pursuit of distance education programmes. Key Words: DDE, DEB, DEC, DEI, IGNOU, M.A., MKU, STRIDE Policy