Management of Distance Education (414)

Questions

(a) Discuss the specific issues that are relevant to the management of education, with special focus on the issue of quality. Write a critical essay on the growth of higher education in India.

(b) Explain briefly ‘affiliating’ and ‘Unitary’ type of universities in India.

India has central and state universities, unitary, federal and affiliating universities, institutions of national importance, institutions deemed to be universities and open universities. The common typology, however, is that of a state university with its finances for maintenance provided by a state government, and its development programmes funded jointly by the state government and the central government through the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All India Council for Technical Education(AICTE).

Affiliating Universities

The affiliating type of universities has a number of colleges affiliated to it. In  this pattern the bulk of the teaching takes place in the colleges which admit students and impart instruction to them. The majority of Indian universities are of the affiliating type. You will recall that we have mentioned elsewhere in this block that there are about 20,000 colleges in India. Each of these is affiliated to one of the 400 or more universities. It should be noted here that colleges do not have the option to choose the university to which they should get affiliated. Each university has a clearly defined geographical jurisdiction, and colleges located in those territories must necessarily be affiliated to it. 

In the affiliating system, the university concerned prescribes the courses of study, holds the examinations and awards the degrees while all the teaching is done by the colleges. The university has little to do with the appointment of teachers, admission of students and the day-to-day academic functioning of the colleges. However, the university concerned does insist that teachers appointed by the colleges should possess the qualifications prescribed by it and that they should conform to the criteria laid down for the selection of students for admission.

Universities generally prescribe a set of criteria under its statutory powers to grant affiliation to colleges. These criteria, among others, include the provision of infrastructure (classrooms, laboratories and libraries, administrative buildings, hostels and residences, books and equipment), number of teachers required for courses to be offered, the qualifications required of the teachers, funding arrangements,  management structures and the approval of the state government concerned, where necessary. In the case of colleges offering professional programmes like those in engineering, law, medicine, etc., the approval of the concerned statutory authority is necessary before students are admitted and teaching is started. Once affiliation is granted, and the colleges start functioning, the university sends teams of experts at specified intervals to inspect the facilities provided and to ensure that all the criteria for affiliation are followed. Any breach of the criteria could lead to the withdrawal of affiliation. It is the primary responsibility of the university to prescribe the courses of study and to conduct the examinations. College teachers have very little to do in the design of courses or the development of their content. Their role is just to teach according to the syllabi handed over to them. The examinations are set by the universities and college teachers may have the responsibility to assess the answer sheets sent to them by the university though these would not be of their own students. In other words, a college teacher has no role in determining what to teach and how, or in assessing the performance of his/ her students. A major criticism of this model is that college teaching is a lifeless process; there is very little interaction between the academic communities in the university and its colleges; and there is no opportunity or incentive for any innovations in teaching.

Though the modern Indian university was born as a purely affiliating and examining body, this model has changed very soon. There are no  universities today that are purely affiliating with no teaching of its own. All universities are teaching universities with many among them also affiliating. In other words, there are quite a few universities that only teach with no colleges affiliated to them. We shall now turn our attention to this model. 

Unitary Universities

These are of relatively recent origin in India; they are modelled after the European universities or their more contemporary counterparts in the United States. They are essentially teaching campuses where generally postgraduate studies and research programmes are offered; in many cases, they also offer undergraduate programmes. They control all aspects of curriculum transaction, including curriculum planning, teaching and examinations. A typical unitary university comprises several schools or faculties, each of which in turn comprises several departments. The school, faculty and departments are not loose administrative units. They are more academic than administrative organs.

All the teachers are appointed by the university; and hey have greater representation on the university bodies and serve much greater roles in shaping the academic decisions of the university. It is much easier in such universities to introduce innovative changes in terms of courses and other curricular and examination practices. It must, however, be admitted that although these universities have contributed significantly to the goal of attaining excellence, their response to the demand for access from a larger number of students has not been as impressive, often leading to the criticism that they tend to be elite institutions.

(c) Describe briefly the operation of distance education.

(d) Analyse the problems and needs of distance learners.

There are several advantages that flow from these collaborative arrangements. Some of these are; No single institution can meet all the varying needs of distance learners in today’s world. More and more of them will be looking to a number of institutions to satisfy their specific needs; A networked and collaborative system can respond effectively to these needs and learners will have the freedom to choose from a wide range of courses and programmes; The programme development costs can be shared by a number of institutions; Institutions that do not have the resources, especially those in the developing countries, can acquire the learning packages and use them by adoption/adaptation/translation. The roles devolving on the academics in a distance education system have significant management content. Traditionally, teaching is an individual effort, but it is not so in distance education. Adaptation to the new role of managing a team or working as one of its members requires a new orientation; good interpersonal relationship, commitment to shared responsibility, openness, flexibility, willingness to submit oneself to the discipline of start and finish deadlines are the major qualities of academic life in a distance education system.

(e) List the philosophical foundations of education and elaborate any two of them. 

(f) Write a brief note on faculty productivity.

4.4.2 Faculty Productivity

Productivity, in the economic sense as we noted earlier, is the ratio of outputs to inputs. Productivity is high or low depending upon the efficiency with which a firm transforms inputs (labour and capital) into outputs (goods and services). Ask any academic about what he/she thinks about productivity in the academia. There could be as many views about it as the number of teachers you consult. Broadly, these views could be something like these: a teacher is productive if he/she produces high quality work, sets high standards for his/her students, and is a good citizen; a productive academic is one who helps students to learn and inspires confidence in them; a productive academic is one who publishes his/her views and research work; productivity is an absurd concept in teaching which has more to do with quality; an academic works all the time, reading, reflecting and researching. How can these be measured; productivity involves contribution to the field of knowledge, and the profession.

These differing perceptions reflect the absence of an agreed definition of faculty productivity; they do not totally reject the idea of productivity. You will recall that the principle of ‘value for money’ in educational spending became an issue primarily because of the widely held view that little or no teaching did indeed take place in many institutions and that, at any rate, the education that most students received did not add any value to their future life and work. It will be interesting to explore why these issues about the failure of the purpose of education, and the role of teachers in it, arose in the first place. The first and most important reason was, of course, the dwindling resources for education, especially at higher levels. Governments, almost everywhere began asking their institutions to cut their expenditure, and as everyone knows, the bulk of the expenditure in education is on salaries. If salary has to be cut, who will stay with the teaching profession? Surely, not the good teachers (the productive ones). 

Secondly, all organised systems have members who are un-productive. Education cannot be an exception. Business and industry have devised mechanisms to deal with their dead wood. How does one identify the dead wood in the academia? 

A third issue that has often been raised in this debate is that most faculty members are more interested in research and devote more time to it. This can be done only at the cost of teaching. If teachers can neglect their classroom engagements, why are they there in the first place? In more recent times, a new dimension has been added to the discussion on teachers’ roles. With the teacher no longer the most important instrument for the dissemination of knowledge, and the communication technologies progressively taking over that function, what do teachers do? Any question of their productivity has to be based on a better definition of their role. Finally, productivity as an economic concept assumes that teachers work for money. If that were indeed the case, many teachers would have been making much more money in business and industry. Yet, they stick to teaching. How is productivity relevant in their case? The debate will continue since there are no simple and straight forward answers to these questions. It does not, however, mean that the problems will go away as they have no finite solutions. It is interesting to note that most of the conflict between the faculty and the administrators in educational institutions across the world can be traced to this single source, namely, productivity-related nature of their service contracts. The suggestion that teachers should be appointed on contract for a fixed shortterm with provision for periodic renewal based on performance review and assessment, as against the widely prevailing system of tenure (permanent appointment) is frowned upon by teachers as a bureaucratic device  designed to harm their interests. However, it is not correct to assume that teachers as a rule are against any kind of performance evaluation and feedback. 

Therefore, if concerns about productivity are delinked from the bureaucratic search for ‘fixing’ teachers, it would be possible to evolve  objective and reliable indicators about the performance of teachers and their productivity. All that we have said so far is how difficult it is to define academic productivity and how complex it is to measure it. The complexities do not end with all that we have said so far. The productivity of a teacher is dependent on multiple criteria that are both external to and, at the same time, defined by the individual. Minimal standards of teaching excellence, for example, could be developed irrespective of who is teaching. But expectations are different for a full professor on the one hand, and for his/ her junior counterpart on the other. Again, they could be different for a professor teaching languages and another teaching engineering. The teaching standards might vary vastly in a university that emphasises research from another that is focussed more on undergraduate teaching. 

The levels of commitment to teaching could also vary depending upon whether a teacher is already tenured or is still seeking it. So complex is the problem that we should refrain from offering any solutions. Yet, having raised the problem, it would be useful to flag a few points that might help in our effort to move forward in addressing the problem. We list them as follows:  First, it should be possible for the members of the institution to gauge the productivity of each participant to assure that he/she performs adequately;  Second, an individual may be highly productive when judged by external criteria, but may not be so productive when judged in terms of the specific context of the institution’s needs. In such cases, over time, a balance could be established by matching the individual talent and the institutional needs; if that fails, the institution has to decide whether it needs that individual or not; • In more recent times, a strong view has emerged that contract appointments for short periods, say, 5 years, would provide the institution the opportunity to assess the performance of the individual, and decide whether or not his/her continuance is in the interest of the institution. This approach would lead to better performance (high productivity) from teachers, and institutions have the opportunity not to renew the contracts of poor performers (critics of the contract appointment argue that this approach is primarily to curb academic freedom that tenured faculty enjoys); • Finally, academic productivity is all about the culture of the institution, its values and principles. A high performance institution would be the one that aids and supports its high performers, however small their number, enables and encourages the large numbers in the middle to achieve high performance, and provides the environment to the poor performers to change, improve or rethink their roles.

(a) Write a note on the apex body of higher education in India, i.e., the University Grants Commission (UGC).

4.4.1 University Grants Commission (UGC): The establishment of the University Grants Commission in India, on the pattern of the British UGC was recommended by the University Education Commission in 1949. The need for establishing the UGC was expressed by the Commission in the following terms: A commission for allocating grants to universities from the Central, Government is fundamental to the improvement and development of universities in the country;  Such a body should consist of experts and representatives of government. The political decision on policy and resource allocation require, for their execution, experts who have the knowledge and the experience; It should be the responsibility of such a body to create and develop facilities for advanced research in the universities; There is need for coordination of facilities, in special fields, since it may not be possible all facilities in all universities;  There should be constant liaison between universities and national research laboratories; • Such a body would be able to recommend policies to be adopted by the central government from time to time; It should be the responsibility of such a body to ensure the minimum standards of efficient administration in the universities. These recommendations were accepted by the government and a University

Grants Commission was established in 1956 under an Act of Parliament. The Commission consists of a full-time Chairman and a full-time Vice- chairman, and ten other members. These ten members include two officers of the government, university teachers, members f the learned professions, and Vice-Chancellors, all appointed by the Central Government. The major functions of the Commission are: Promotion and coordination of university education; Determination and maintenance of standards of teaching, examination and research; Allocation and disbursement of grants to the universities from the funds given to it by the central government; Advising universities on measures for improving university education; Advising central and state governments on matters relating to university education.

During a period of more than half a century of its establishment, the university system in India expanded phenomenally. We gave you a broad overview of this expansion in unit 1. We also drew attention to the many problems and challenges arising from this growth and expansion. We shall now turn to the ways in which the higher education management system in India addressed these problems and met those challenges. This is not the place to go into an exhaustive survey of all the major developments across half a century; we shall confine ourselves to the major issues that could be identified with particular phases of development. The most significant among these were the issues posed by expansion. In the first two decades after independence, there was a major expansion. But it became evident that the economy could not absorb all the manpower coming out from the universities; there were other national problems too – food shortages, problems of challenges to the country’s security, and so on. There were not enough resources to meet all these challenges. The expansion of higher education had to be contained. The UGC, with the approval of the Central Government decided to regulate the establishment of more universities by insisting, through regulations that no central assistance would be available to universities that were set up with no previous sanction of the UGC. While this policy continued through the 1970s and 1980s, the UGC focused attention on improving the quality of education provided by universities and colleges by strengthening their infrastructure and supporting the growth of centres of excellence in education and research. This pause in unplanned growth gave rise to a new phase of development in which attention focused on enduring measures for improving the quality of the higher education provision. Significant among them are: • The UGC Act was amended in early 1980s to make a provision that empowered the Commission to create common facilities and services that universities across the country could draw from. These included a common facility for research in nuclear science, an Inter-university Centre for Advanced Studies and Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Inter-university Consortium of Atomic Energy facilities, a Consortium of Educational Communications providing electronic media support for higher education, and an Information and Library Network. • Over 30 selected universities were designated as Curriculum Development Centres for continuous review and renewal of the content of academic programmes in most disciplines. Similarly, some 48 designated university departments were developed as Academic Staff Colleges for training university and college faculty on a continuing basis. The last three decades marked a revival of expansion. With the national economy registering high growth and the expansion of employment opportunities, the demand for higher education rose rapidly. The segment that witnessed the highest rate of expansion was professional and technical education in which universities played the major role (we have looked at this phase elsewhere in this unit). The establishment of a National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) by the UGC to assess and accredit  universities and colleges, though on a voluntary basis, was a major breakthrough during this phase.  The UGC itself expanded considerably. It set up five Regional Offices to maintain close liaison with the growing number of universities and colleges in all the states. The Regional Offices became contact points for  collection, compilation and dissemination of information, monitoring the progress of projects funded by the UGC, and  instruments for improving the efficiency in the functioning of the UGC 

(a) “Across the world distance education systems are gaining acceptance and most governments are making heavy investment in distance education”. Discuss the statement.

(b) Discuss the critical areas of management of an educational institution. According to you which area is crucial and why ?

(a) Define an education system. Discuss the various levels on which the structure of education system is organised in your country.

(b) Discuss the major functions associated with management of organisations in achieving their goals.

(a) Discuss briefly the instructional system of any open university that you are familiar with.

(b) Write a short note on the first open university in India. 

(c) List the four pillars of education and elaborate any two of them. Critically examine the four philosophical foundations on which educational processes are based.

In 1993, the UNESCO appointed an International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century to reflect on education and learning. The Commission’s report deals exhaustively with, among others, the basic pillars on which education has to be founded. There can be no better way of understanding the processes of education than briefly looking at the views expressed by the Commission on the four pillars of education.

4.3.1 Learning to Know: Learning to know is not just acquiring itemised, codified information. It is more of mastering the instruments of knowledge themselves. In this case, learning is both a means and an end in life. As a means, it enables each individual to understand enough about his/her environment to be able to live in dignity, to develop occupational skills and to communicate. As an end, its basis is the pleasure of knowing, understanding and discovering. As the field of knowledge widens, people begin to understand various aspects of their environment better, and with that their intellectual curiosity is aroused and their critical faculties stimulated. They acquire independence in judgement. Learning to know pre-supposes learning to learn, calling upon the power of concentration, memory and thought. Learning to concentrate can be in many forms, and use different situations including training, travel, play and project work. Memory and recall are essential attributes of the human faculty. Mere storing of information and remembering them mechanically will not do. We have to be selective about what we learn and should cultivate consciously our faculty of memory by association. Similarly, the faculty of thought must be cultivated by the interplay of the concrete and the abstract; in teaching and research, the seemingly conflicting methods of induction and deduction have to be combined to cultivate coherent thinking. The process of acquiring knowledge never ends. All experience through life only enriches this process.

Learning to Do: Knowledge by itself is of no great significance unless we also know what to make of that knowledge and what to do with it. Learning to do is in some ways implicit in learning to know, but in teaching children how to put what they have learnt into practice, we are instilling in them the habit of doing, by developing the skills in the application of knowledge. In the industrial economies, labour was an important factor of production and occupational skills were a pre-requisite for most jobs. The growing substitution of machines for human labour is making the traditional occupations less relevant in tomorrow’s world. In their place, what is now rowing in emphasis is the nature of knowledge-related work especially in the context of the dominance of the service sector in the economy as against the manufacturing sector. This trend is evident from the fact that innovative businesses and jobs are emerging with unfailing regularity. As operational skills associated with machine operators and technicians are getting obsolete, what now emerges is more of personal competence, replacing physical tasks with more mental works such as controlling, maintaining, and monitoring machines, and also by organising, coordinating and supervising tasks. The processes of education have to take note of these emerging trends in the nature of work and prepare our children for tomorrow’s work.

Learning to Live Together: Speaking at the convocation of the Allahabad University (India) over six decades ago, Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister said that the university stands for humanism, reason and tolerance. He had obviously the social objectives of education in mind. You will recall that we had mentioned earlier that education should prepare people to take charge of their destiny and shape the future of the society of which they are a part. When we look around, we see a world which is increasingly devoid of the values that Nehru spoke about. There are conflicts of all kinds among nations, and among various communities within nations. With the extraordinary capacity for self-destruction that humanity has created for itself in the last fifty years or so, nations tend to seek dominance of one kind or another over others, while ethnic conflicts and terror are destroying whole communities in different parts of the world. Education has not been able to do much to create that atmosphere of reason and tolerance and to find peaceful resolution of conflicts and tensions. All indications, on the other hand, are towards a heightening of tensions. For example, the general climate of competition that pervades economic activities within and between nations underscores the ruthlessness of the human spirit in economic warfare with the result that the tension between the rich and the poor continues to grow. Education should be able to contribute towards the resolution of these conflicts by fostering the quest for discovering the diversity among peoples, on the one hand, and the experience of shared purposes throughout life, on the other. The task of education is to teach the diversity of the human race, and an awareness of the similarities between, and the interdependence of, all humans. 

Education, whether in the family, in the community, or at school should help children and young people discover themselves, so that they can discover others and understand their problems by relating them to their own situations. Teaching should be devoid of all dogmatic approaches and should encourage curiosity and critical spirit among the young students.  Working together on special projects and group activities of all kinds expose individuals to the ways of working together, and in the process, discovering group identity that highlights what the group has in common rather than the difference between its members. In several areas, in sports, for example, tension between social classes and nationalities, in the end, has been transformed into unity by the common effort involved. Education, from the very beginning, should endeavour to introduce the young to the ways of cooperative undertakings through participation in sports, cultural activities and social welfare initiatives.

Learning to be:  Education should contribute to the all-round development of each individual- mind, body, intelligence, sensitivity, aesthetic sense, personal responsibility and spiritual values. An earlier Commission appointed by the UNESCO in the early 1970s mentioned in its report entitled “Learning To Be” that ‘the aim of development is the complete fulfilment of man, in all the richness of his personality, the complexity of his forms of expression and his various commitments – as individual, member of a family and of a community, citizen and producer, inventor of techniques and creative dreamer’. This role of education has assumed still greater significance in the context of the widely feared dehumanising effect of technological advancement. The changes in society in the last three decades or so, specially the development of the power of the media, have underscored these apprehensions. The challenge for education is no longer the preparation of children to live in a given society, but to continually provide everyone with the power and intellectual framework he/she needs to understand the world around him/ her and behave responsibly and fairly. More than ever, education’s essential role is to give people the freedom of thought, judgement, feeling and imagination they need in order to develop their talents and remain as much as possible in control of their lives. Individual development continues throughout life. It is a dialectical process which starts with knowing oneself, and then opens out to relationships with others. In that sense, education is also an inner journey, the stages of which correspond to those of the continuous maturing of one’s personality. Education as a means to the attainment of a successful working life is thus a highly individualised process and, is also at the same time, a process of constructive social interaction.

(d) Elaborate briefly the problems and prospects of higher education in the developing countries in the 21st century.

(e) What are the issues involved in the management of the academic programmes, particularly the aspects of material design and development ?

(f) Explain briefly the features of dual-mode distance education institutions.

(a) Explain the role of higher education in the changing globalised world. 

(b) Discuss the major issues and concerns involved in the management of distance education systems.

(a) Discuss the processes associated with the performance of management functions, with emphasis on distance education institutions.

(b) Identify and discuss the critical issues to be addressed while planning the establishment of a distance education institution.

(a) Elaborate any four key elements in the organisation of distance education systems. 

(b) Write a note on key features of single mode institutions.

(c) Discuss briefly the challenges faced by education in the globalization era.

(d) Describe the major issues and challenges of higher education in developing world. 

(e) Name the apex bodies of Indian higher education and elaborate briefly any two of them.

(f) Discuss briefly ‘Academic Management’ in an educational institution.

(a) Analyse the developments of higher education in India after independence and examine the major issues/challenges faced by Indian higher education.

(b) Critically examine the four philosophical foundations on which educational processes are based.

(a) Discuss the features of four types of higher distance education institutions with focus on their organisational structures.

(b) Analyse the role of open and distance education as a major instrument in the globalisation process of education.

(a) List the apex bodies in Indian higher education and briefly elaborate any two of them.

(b) Write a note on problems and prospects of universities in developing countries with focus on curriculum and organization of study.

(d) “The quality issue in education is both technical and ethical”. Briefly elaborate the statement.

The quality issue in education is both technical and ethical. The technical issue of quality in education is concerned with its products (levels of learning attainments, ratio of educated people at various levels to the total population, proportion of educated women, pass ratios, employment status of graduates, and so on) and its processes (teaching methods and practices, provision of learning resources, training of teachers, objectivity and reliability of the examination system and so on). The ethical issue of quality of education is concerned with the values and attitudes that the system seeks to promote and develop as well as the ethos and culture in which it operates.

There are many definitions of quality; “fitness for the purpose” is, perhaps, the simplest among them. What complicates the question of quality is: how do you determine the quality of any object? Well, we said determine; and that involves assessment. How does one assess the quality of education? Through evaluation? By establishing performance indicators? As we noted in the previous section, requirements of public accountability involves assessment of performance in terms of several pre-determined criteria leading to the judgement – good, bad or indifferent – in terms of the values (ideologies that underpin public sector reforms) represented by the indicators mandated and monitored by governments. A serious criticism against such externally imposed quality assessment mechanisms is that educational institutions are burdened with the responsibility for producing the indicators without any concern for the specific nature of the ways in which educational systems function. In the event, accountability is just a show of holding universities answerable to just a few questions that in no way leads to improvements in their performance. As we discussed earlier in this unit, the import of market operations in to the education system in the recent past introduced an element of competition among universities. The systems of ranking, relating funding policies and volumes to the ranking of institutions and perceptions of high quality associated with high ranking, and so on, have contributed to consequences in which education management systems conform more to corporate management styles and practices. Planning, forecasting, costing, unit cost per student, per course, per subject, per graduate, and so on, have all become part of the modern university management practice that was once known for its collegiality, discussion and debates and participatory decision-making systems even if they involved delayed decisions, and sometimes, no decisions at all.

(e) Briefly discuss the controlling processess in  an organisation.

(f) Describe in brief the education system and its structure.

(a) Identify and analyse the critical area of management of an educational institution.  According to you which area is most important and why ?

(b) Identify and elaborate the major issues and concerns involved in the management of distance education systems.

(b) Why are many Governments across the world making heavy investments in distance education ?

Discuss briefly ‘Academic Management’ in an educational institution

Write a note on the instructional system of any distance education institution that you are familiar with.

(c) Discuss the importance of learner support system in distance education. 

(d) Describe the functions of any three apex bodies in the field of higher education in India.

(e) Discuss briefly the major issues in the financial management of universities in the Third World.

(f) Critically discuss the role of private sector in higher education.

Discuss the critical issues to be addressed while planning the establishment of a distance education institution.

(b) Critically analyse the key elements that will influence the nature and type while designing a distance education institution

Define an education system. Discuss the various levels on which the structure of education system is organised in your country.

(b) Analyse the developments of higher education in India after independence.

Explain any three features of quality assurance in a distance education institutions.

(b) Write a brief note on Resource Management in distance education institution.

(c) What are the characteristics that are common to higher education in the developing countries ?

(d) Identify types of Universities in India according to their roles/functions. 

(e) Write a note on problems and needs of distance learners. Discuss briefly Radio and Television Universities in China.

(a) Compare the processes of educational and non-educational organisations. List their distinguishing features.

(b) Discuss about dual mode institutions, single mode institutions and consortium or networked systems.

Describe the major management processes which are important for any open and distance education university.

(b) Explain the academic management of any higher education institution. 

Differentiate between administration and management.

(b) Write a short note on University Autonomy.

(c) Explain the challenges of globalization in higher education system.

(d) Write a short note on dual mode universities.

(e) List the various categories of personnel and their tasks in any distance education institution.

(f) Write a short note on Resource Based learning.

Resource-based learning involves the use of instructionally designed resources for the communication of curriculum between teachers and learners through a variety of different media. Resource-based learning methods can be integrated with any education programme, using any mix of contact and distance education strategies. Resource-based learning need not necessarily involve separation of teachers from learners in time or space; it is nevertheless, used to overcome such separation. In other words, while distance education can usefully employ resource-based learning strategies to enhance its effectiveness, it is not essential that all resource-based learning must essentially be part of distance education methods. Arbitrary though this distinction is, it helps to understand that the move towards resource-based learning does not, by itself, achieve the goals of distance education or vice versa. Most distance education programmes seek to overcome separation in time and space with the use of resources; in some cases, telecommunication technologies such as video-conferencing are used only to get over the problem of distance. Conversely, many efforts to develop educational resources have not systematically focused on achieving economies of scale that have historically provided the central motivation to most distance education programmes. 

The major objectives behind the drive towards resource-based learning are: • breaking down the traditional notion that a talking teacher is the most effective strategy for communicating the curriculum; • directing a significantly large proportion of total expenditure to the design and development of high quality resources, as a strategy for building and assuring the quality of educational provision; implementing strategies to shift the role of the teacher from simply talking to passive students to stimulating engagement and interaction between them and the teachers; • investigating the potential that the integration of new educational technologies with teaching and learning environments has for supporting, improving or enhancing those environments 

Explain the reasons, why governments of all countries are investing in open and distance education  ystem.

(b) Describe the organisational structure of any open university.

Describe the structure of the education system in India.

(b) Explain the role of various apex bodies of India under higher education.

Differentiate between planning and controlling from the management point of view.

(b) Write a short note on education as a social system. 

Education as a Social System: Education is a people-oriented activity. It is not just about getting children and young adolescents together and getting them to accept common values shaped in the past. It is also about trying to find answers to questions like the reason and purpose of living together, and equipping everyone with the ability to participate effectively in shaping the future of the society of which they are a part. It is the responsibility of the education system to prepare everyone to perform this social role. As societies become more and more complex, people’s participation in common enterprises goes far beyond the conventional political decision in electing their governments; it extends to shaping and developing social institutions and organisations as well. The major role of education then is to prepare people for active participation in the life of their communities. It is now widely recognised that the goal of development should be human welfare and not merely economic growth measured in terms of GDP and per capita income. The indicators of development are to be reckoned also in terms of health, nutrition, access to drinking water, education and the environment. Equity, equality between social groups and between the sexes and the degree of participation in the processes of development itself are just as significant. In this broader perspective, one of the principal functions of education is to prepare humanity to take control of its own development. It must enable all people without exception to take their destiny into their own hands and contribute to the progress of the society.

Education systems cannot, however, continue indefinitely to meet all the demands made on them, and these demands are only growing  constantly.They are called upon to provide the same educational opportunities to all, and to respond to all demands made on them. Inevitably, resource allocation becomes a crucial factor in determining the paradigm of development, and the distribution of resources should clearly reflect each society’s choices of models of economic, social and cultural development. In the developing countries, while shortage of resources is a major constraint in making choices, developed countries also face the dilemma of balancing different options in resource allocation for education, as for instance, provision of equal opportunities or removal of the mismatch between supply and demand in the labour market. In both cases, the pressure of these demands falls largely upon public authorities and the policy-makers who are often faced with conflicting interests; industry demands more and more skills and competence; science wants funds for research and higher education that produces young researchers; the humanities and the social sciences want support for better general education; parents look for more high-quality education; the disadvantaged social groups want more opportunities to pursue education; and all these, in turn, require a better supply of good teachers. The issue is not one of just making a choice; each of these demands is based on the legitimate expectations that it is one of education’s basic functions. Choices in education, therefore, concern the whole of society and require democratic debates and decisions.

(c) Explain the features of universities in the developing countries.

d) Write a short note on single mode institutions.

(e) List the various categories of personnel and their tasks in a distance education institution.

(f) Write a short note on technology enhanced learning.

a) Describe the major elements in organization of distance education system in any country. 

(b) Describe the management of academic programs of any distance education institution.

“Planning and controlling are two important management functions in an educational institution”. Explain the concepts with examples.

(b) Describe the changing role of universities in a globalized world.

Differentiate between Mission and Goals.

(b) Describe the role of governments in University Autonomy.

(c) Describe the services provided by educational institutions to the students.

(d) Explain the impact of technology on higher education.

(f) Describe about Virtual Distance Teaching Universities.

Explain the emergence of Open and Distance Education System in Indian Higher Education.

(b) Describe the types of universities on the basis of their structural patterns.

List the components of administrative support systems in a university. Describe any two of them.

(b) Describe the roles and responsibilities of central government in management of higher education institutions.

a) Differentiate between Administration and Management.

(b) Explain why strategic planning is important to achieve the goals.

(c) Write the importance of institutional leadership in educational institutions.

(d) Describe the role of Academic Council in a university.

The Academic Council: The Academic Council is the principal academic authority of the university. All decisions on programmes, courses, teaching methods, student assessment systems, academic standards, creation of new departments, etc are within the purview of the Academic Council. However, as we have said in the previous section, the scheme of university management envisages a sharing of powers and authority between the Executive Council and the Academic Council, with the former enjoying a slight edge over the latter. 

The Academic council is essentially a body comprising the academics of the university. It is chaired by the Vice-Chancellor and consists of the Pro-Vice- Chancellor(s), all Deans, all Heads of Departments, representatives of the Heads of affiliated institutions and colleges,and representatives of all categories of teachers both from the Departments as well as affiliated institutions, and in several cases, also of representatives of students. 

Depending upon the size and nature of the university, the Academic Council can be a body of 50-150 or more members. Where the number of teachers is large, representation is provided normally through the method of election, and where the number of teachers is small, a system of nominatio or rotation is followed. The important functions of the Academic Council are: Laying down the academic policies of the university;  Supervision over the implementation of the academic policy and giving directions on methods of instruction, evaluation of research and improvements in academic standards;  Inter-faculty coordination for joint projects, programmes, etc; Recommending statutes/ordinances concerning academic matters like establishment of departments, laboratories, research centres, committees for admission and examinations, qualification of teachers, award of degrees, diplomas and other qualifications, conduct of examinations, institution of scholarships, student fees, etc. Generally, the universities will also have a set of academic regulations that provide for procedures to be followed in various matters like admission, examination, declaration of results, etc. These regulations are also framed by the Academic Council. To the extent that statutes, ordinances and regulations are internal legislations, they require the approval of the Executive Council 

Describe the management of academic programmes in an Open University.

(b) Explain the importance of Monitoring and Evaluation in an Open and Distance Education Institution.

Describe ‘how creating the structure’ is an important aspect of management process in any organization.

a) Write a short note on Institutional Performance.

(b) Describe the challenges of Globalization in education.

(c) Explain the impact of privatization on National Education Policies.

(d) Explain the role of central government in policy formulation and implementation in India.

Write a short note on ‘administration’ in management of higher education in the developing countries.

(f) Write a short note on dual mode institutions

a) Explain what are various distance education technologies used in open and distance education institutions.

(b) Describe the planning component of an open and distance education institution.

a) “Organizing is one of the major management functions.” Describe the concept of structuring and principles in organizing.

(b) Describe why the administrative support systems are important in any educational institution. Explain any one in context of an Open University.

(b) Describe the concept of accreditation of universities and colleges. 

As the quality of higher education remained a continuing concern for the government, the UGC and indeed all the stakeholders of the system, it became a focus of debate especially during the review of the national policy in 1986. The policy called for serious efforts to “make the system work”. The strategy for this purpose, among others, was “creation of a system of performance appraisals of institutions according to standards and norms set at the national or state levels”. This declaration in the policy was followed up at two levels; first, when the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) was set up as a statutory mechanism through an Act of Parliament in 1988, a provision was made in the Act that AICTE will have the powers to establish a mechanism for accreditation of technical institutions (those offering programs in engineering, technology and allied fields including business and management studies). In pursuance of this provision, the AICTE set up a National Board of Accreditation (NBA). In 1992, the UGC decided to set up a National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) as an autonomous body with the responsibility to carry out an assessment of universities and colleges and accredit them according to the grades awarded through a detailed process of assessment. While he NBA proceeded on the basis of benchmarking the performance of the Indian Institutes of Technology as the models of standards, the NAAC began its work with the accreditation of institutions on a 9-point scale on 7 criteria, namely, curricula, teaching, learning and evaluation, research, consultancy and extension, infrastructure and learning resources, student support and progression, organization and management, and healthy practices. As accreditation of higher education institutions was a completely new initiative in India, and predictably, not all stakeholders were too enthusiastic about possible adverse effects of negative or inadequate rating of institutions they were associated with, the beginning was cautious. It began with accreditation as a voluntary initiative; only those who were interested in getting the institutions assessed and accredited, needed to volunteer. The objective was to launch the system, enable institutions to come forward and establish their credentials, and to establish the process of accreditation as a means of quality assurance in the long run. This approach did pay rich dividends; by 2010, about one-third of all universities and about one-fifth of all colleges got themselves accredited. Old and well established institutions with great reputation behind them called external assessment and accreditation as an infringement of their autonomy, and resisted the initiative, the relatively newer and those keen to find their place in the sun came forward and got their performance assessed and made their grades known to attract more and better students. At any rate, the process got a strong foothold in India. Though this is not the place to go into any in-depth analysis of the processes and mechanics of assessment and accreditation as presently practiced in India, it would be useful to refer briefly to the impact of accreditation on he quality of higher education institutions in India. During the first ten years of its active operation, the NAAC has assessed and accredited 81 universities and 2727 colleges. The findings are shown in the following graphs:  

You will notice that 25% of the universities assessed claimed their place in the high quality zone while two-thirds of all the universities that volunteered for assessment fell in the average quality zone. Just about 75 of all universities figured in the low quality zone.

The position of colleges shows a marked variation. While two-thirds of all colleges assessed fall in the average zone, nearly one-fourth of all belong to the low quality zone. This should cause some concern. The high quality colleges is just about 9% only.

(c) Explain privatization of higher education. 

Explain the mechanism of funding in higher education.

(e) State how enrolment in higher education has changed in the developing countries. 

(f) Write a short note on technology enhanced learning.

Justify the need for open and distance education system in Indian Higher Education.

(b) Describe in detail about the management of the Academic Programmes in an Open University.

a) “The university in the 21st century is no more the ‘ivory tower’ that it was. The modern university is an open system”. Elaborate and justify your answer.

(b) Describe the key elements in the organisation of Open and Distance Education System.

What makes planning a dynamic process in an educational institution ?

(b) Write a short note on decentralisation. 

(c) What are the regional imbalances in Gross Enrolment Ratio ?

Comment on the changing nature of universities in a globalized world.

(e) What are the major components of expenditure of an educational institution ? Write a short note on dual mode universities.

(a) Describe the statement – graduates produced by Higher Education Institutions fail the test of “fitness for purpose” – Explain giving examples.

(b) Identify the achievements and failures in respect to access, equity and quality in higher education.

According to Murphy’s Law-“If anything can go wrong it will.” But control helps to prove Murphy wrong. Explain with examples.

What are the major thrusts of the 1968 and 1986 National Policies on Education ?

What in your view should be the thrust areas for the new education policy of 2016 ?

(a) State the basic principles of be kept in mind while structuring an organization. 

(c) Describe the different types of Distance Education Institutions with the help of suitable examples.

(d) Write a note on University antonomy. 

(e) Write a short note on e-learning. ,

(f) Differentiate between single mode and dual mode universities. 

a) A system is an aggregation of several interrelated components. Explain these components in an . Open and Distance Learning System. How are they organized and managed ?

(b) Discuss the positive and negative impact of globalization on Higher Education.

Describe the processes which are associated with the design and structure of an organization.

Describe the challenges of globalization in higher education. Explain its impact on open and distance education institutes.

Write a short note on institutional leadership.

(b) Describe the role of private sector in Indian Higher Education System.

(c) Explain the meaning of Open Educational Resources.

(d) State the major functions of University Grants Commission.

(e) Differentiate between deemed universities and institutes of national importance.

(f) Give five reasons for emergence of open and distance learning.

a) Describe the various media choices to reach the students in open and distance education system.

(b) Describe, how open universities manage the financial resources.

(a) “Organizing is a major management function.” Discuss this in context of higher education system.

(b) Analyse and comment on the 21st century problems of Indian Higher Education. 

(a) Write a brief note on recruitment and training in creating higher education structures.

State the role of leadership in Institutional building.

(c) Explain how technology has impacted higher education.

(d) Write a short note on open and distance learning.

(e) State the functions of Executive Council in the University.

(f) Write a short note on Open Educational Resources.

Describe the importance of staff development and training in open and distance education universities.

(b) Describe how management of colleges is different from management of universities.