Potentialities of ICT in open and distance learning system with special reference to north east India

In a huge country like India where the fruits of development are not equally distributed, the importance of ODL system is tremendous. ODL system is being adopted throughout the world as an important tool to ensure access, equity and quality in the realm of higher education. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is playing a vital role in open and distance learning (ODL) to meet the requirements and expectations of the learners’. It is difficult to perform the same using any traditional institutional system due to its limited resources. ICT has various proven tools and technologies to meet the requirements of a learner at various phases of learning cycle viz the admission phase, the learning phase, the evaluation phase and finally the certification phase as a service. This paper is an attempt to study the growth of ODL system in North East India; the potentialities of ICT in the field of distance education and the issues and challenges on using ICT in an ODL setup.