Barriers to Development in Open Learning and Distance Education: Bangladesh

Abstract

Education is inevitable for Human resource development and then national development. However, in most of the developing countries, due to the limitation of resources it is almost impossible to educate all of their citizens through on-campus teaching. Huge amount of money is warranted to establish the infrastructure for on-campus teaching which is out of the reach of the developing countries. In this circumstances, to educate their huge population the developing countries are to depend on open learning and distance education system. However, a question still stands: can the educators dissimulate knowledge to the learners smoothly through this new system of education? Some recent research shows that the graduates of the open and distance learning institutions in the developing countries are treated as second-grade graduates. This paper aims to identify the barriers to the development of distance and Open learning system in Bangladesh and suggest possible alternatives may be followed to overcome the barriers.