AN EMERGING TREND AND REALITY IN THE FIELD OF HIGHER EDUCATION: A SPECIAL REFERENCE TO OPEN AND DISTANCE LEARNING IN ASSAM

Abstract

Education is the most potent mechanism for the development of Human Resource. It enhances, enriches and improves all the aspects of human resources. The institutions of today are expected to impart quality education to develop competent and capable individuals who can sustain in the competitive dynamic environment of tomorrow. Higher education is accepted as a vehicle for sustainable development and realized as a powerful tool to build a knowledge society. Higher Education provides people with an opportunity to reflect on the critical social, economic, cultural, moral and spiritual issues facing humanity. Development of such skills is required by one and all of the members of the present society belonging to all walks of life to shoulder their responsibilities properly. Higher education plays key role in this regard.  Viewing the increasing demand of higher education and a lot of limitations to face, Indian higher education needs a serious make over. Open and Distance Learning (ODL) provides a viable alternative mode with the objective to take education to the door steps of the learner, enhancing social equity, and creating flexibility for lifelong learning. ODL system is being adopted throughout the world as an important tool to ensure access, equity and quality in the realm of higher education. Especially in developing countries where there is a need of providing training to large number of workers with limited recourses, in such a situation ODL system could play important and viable role in improving overall skills of workers. Therefore, this paper is an attempt to explore the potentialities of ODL system in a state like Assam.