Open and Distance Learning : Equity and Access

Contents: Foreword. 1. Introduction/Sitansu S. Jena, Kuldeep Agarwal and Sukanta Kumar Mahapatra. 2. Educational development of marginalized communities through open schooling in India: a case study of NIOS in India/Sukanta Kumar Mahapatra. 3. The role of SSC programme of open school towards education for all in Bangladesh: a study on learners experience/A.K.M. Iftekhar Khalid. 4. Open schooling for female education and empowerment in Bangladesh: scope, practices and challenges/Sadia Afroze Sultana and Mostafa Azad Kamal. 5. Education of the tribal children through open schooling: special reference to Odisha/Pankaj Deep. 6. Role of distance education in the context of Universalization of secondary education in India/Prakash Kumar Pradhan Mohapatra. 7. Enduring issues in business education: a case for societal needs based systemic reforms/Geetika Dutta. 8. Streamlining female school dropouts through distance education in Bangladesh/Sabina Yeasmin, Md. Mizanoor Rahman and Santosh Panda. 9. Disabilityequity and access to education: capitalizing through open schooling/Amitav Mishra. 10. Education for all: reaching the unreached through NIOS/Ajit Kumar Bohet. 11. The role of open schools in expanding access to education and meeting the EFA goals: the case of Zambia/Victor Muyatwa. 12. Progress and problems in achieving goal of education for all in Nepal: a review of literature/Amarendra Mishra. Achieving Millennium Development goals is central to achieving Education for all. Societies and states in various parts of the world, particularly in developing countries, adopt several policies and strategies for achieving the primary goals of achieving equity, quality and access in education. But still wide inequality exists among different sections of society. There are hard-to-reach groups in society such as minorities backward classes, physically challenged persons and women who are still not been able to access school education in spite of many programmes being devised to benefit them from formal education system. In this context, open schooling, as a viable tool has been playing a vital role in providing access for the disadvantaged sections of society. (jacket). …