Distance Education (DE) - An Introduction

Education is defined as the imparting and acquiring of knowledge, through teaching and learning. Education therefore empowers an individual with knowledge, and in turn, enables him to become a balanced member and an asset to the society. In other words, if we are desirous of a free and a just society, we need a society of educated people.

Traditional education is carried out in a classroom, under the supervision of a teacher or an instructor. The teacher, imparts knowledge to the students using a blackboard, and a few training aids. The students, in turn, clarify their doubts by interacting individually with the teacher from time to time. This process, allows knowledge to be acquired by the student, thereby educating him or her. The student, ratifies his knowledge by going through his books to enable him grasp the topic or the subject spoken about in the classroom. To clarify traditional education further, the student in most cases, is expected to go through his books, prior to attending the class in the classroom.

Traditional education, therefore, require at least a classroom, a qualified teacher and books related to the subject matter. A number of educational institutions provide us with this basic requirement. However, everybody is not so lucky to have access to such institutions, for example, people living in rural areas. Further, they may be certain subjects, which one may be desirous to learn, and they may not be offered by the educational institutions located nearby. Naturally, we need to think of other ways to impart education. This is where distance education comes in.

The concept is not new. In fact, distance education has been around for over a 100 years. The beginning of distance education was correspondence study. The United States Postal Service introduced a system called the Rural Free Delivery (RFD) in 1896. The Penn State University, took advantage of the system and offered correspondence courses to Americans living in the heartland, away from the cities. In other words, an education system was modified, dispensing away, the classroom and the physical presence of a teacher. Printed matter was sent across the country by post, thereby providing educational facilities, to people staying in remote areas.

The correspondence course offered by such universities needed close monitoring. The course matter had to be intelligently prepared to ensure that the student comprehended the subject, in the right perspective. Naturally, since the student was expected to educate himself using the material provided by the University, the progress was slow. Also, the movement of the printed matter, alongwith the written solutions to and fro, was time-consuming.

As time passed, the paper oriented correspondence studies, got a boost with the introduction of newer technologies. The 1920s, saw the introduction of the radio. People in remote areas augmented their comprehension of the subject matter received in print by listening to educational lectures on the radio. The 1950s, introduced instructional television to the world, and the student could now actually see and hear instructional lessons at home. The educational process, thus got accelerated, with the combination of printed literature and instructional television.

Cable television and satellite downlinks were introduced to the world in the 1970s and 80s. This further augmented distance education, thereby making the system more practical.

Technological advancements allowed videoconferencing (VDC), wherein, compressed interactive videos could be transmitted over telephone lines in real-time. Distance education started mimicking a traditional classroom with this technology.

Today, with the advancements experienced in technology, the Internet has successfully crossed geographical boundaries, thereby offering distance education to anybody having an Internet connection. However, we need to be cautious as to how we mould our concept of distance education in relation to the technology available. We should clearly understand that technology facilitates transportation of knowledge, and does not replace knowledge. In other words, distance education cannot always be real-time. It needs to be a combination of written content, audio and video presentations, a certain amount of interaction and a practical assessment system.

Distance education has evolved into a full-fledged educational system in the past 100 years. A number of factors need to be considered while evolving such a system. With the availability of technology available, education could be made available to nearly everybody in this world. We shall consider some of these factors in the articles to follow.