Zeroing in on distance education
Reviewed by B. B Goel

Quality Assurance in Distance Education and E-learning: Challenges & Solutions from Asia
Ed Insung Jung, Tat Meng Wong & Tian Belawati Sage. Pages 307. Rs 795

Distance education & e-Learning has made a strong dent in revolutionising education landscape. The establishment of UK Open University, advent of internet, web/ICT services not only spawned new ways of delivering education, but also surged for export/import of user friendly Open & Distance Learning (ODL) model. Although this mode has made a phenomenal progress in Asia, it carries a stigma of being haunted with culture of quality assurance (QA) processes and shift from accountability to continuous self improvement in operations. Poor bandwidth, viability of low-cost model, compatibility with quality research, absence of an over arching QA framework, lack of consistency in standards of conventional and distance education enabled environment, still persist.

The book under review lucidly explains regulatory framework in 16 different institutions, reveals orderly growth of QA systems, identifies challenges affecting distance education products/services, and shares solutions for replication. In India, although Distance Education Council is not an independent regulator, it provides academic excellence, encourages use of innovative technologies and is engaged in accredit ting institutions. In Singapore, programme development is triggered by involving industry practitioners. The tutors can be early terminated for failing to provide continuous improvement to distance education. Hong Kong experience reveals that course coordinator can discard an ongoing course material if it requires fifty percent overhaul. In Korea, senior students act as mentors to freshers and provide advice on online study. To maintain academic integrity, students sign an agreement that they will not cheat during examinations. Indonesia follows ISO 9001 on principle of Plan-Do-Check-and Act (PDCA) . Their motto is "We write what we do, we do what we write, we check, we act, and we improve it continually". Surprisingly, Peking University imparts online education even in medical science with PDCA framework. In order to develop thinking skills, Japan’s Kumamoto University insists for revision and resubmission of assignments rather than failing the learners and abundantly use storey-centered curriculum. Open University, China involves all stakeholders (right from course design to final examination) for preventing member’s apathy towards distance mode. The Pakistan virtual learner system facilitates working students to create their own examination schedule, select city, date and time of their choice and obtain print out of examination entrance slip. Open University Malaysia applies Balanced Score Card in design and implementation of distance education. An uprising system should replicate these novel experiences as inputs to its quality assurance framework for continuous improvement. It should move towards an outcome based approach, benchmark best practices and internationalise quality culture. Editors deserve kudos for suggesting the sustainability of a positive attitude towards distance education.

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