Role of distance education in meeting the needs of learners

Learners prefer Distance Education as it supplement the efforts of the traditional system, provide equality of opportunity, expand geographical access to education, expand the capacity and capability for education in new areas, provide education in natural environment, impart specific education speedily at a lower cost, provide flexibility to education system, provide high potentiality for in-service education etc. This system can fulfil the educational needs of all categories of society like school dropout, housewives, employed, physically challenged individuals, people who want to learn while earning some livelihood, people living in remote and far-flung areas etc. Effective support services in the form of study materials, personal contact programmes, counselling sessions, multimedia instructions and different communication technologies etc. are the commonly used medium for these academic programmes. Distance education uses all forms of technology from print to computer, this range includes radio, television, audio-video conferencing, computer aided instruction, e-learning or on-line learning through internet etc which make it popular and beneficial among the learners. The present paper is an attempt to study the significance of Distance education system in meeting the need of learners of 21^st century.