abstract

the distance education programme in bangladesh was originally conceived in 1974. the relevant section of the kudrat-e-khuda education commission says, 揥ith the present education system there should be ample scope for part-time, drop-out and irregular students, so that they can achieve higher education. all the irregular students should have been given scope to sit for the examination, in this case, evening course can be started. to achieve this goal, an open university can be started like u.k.” bangladesh joined the world body of open/distance learning in 1981 through an inter-ministerial task force. later, in 1985 by offering b. ed. course 揃angladesh institute of distance education” (bide) was established. in 1992, under the act of bangladesh parliament, bangladesh open university (bou) was established. the aim of launching the distance education programme was 搕o expand all levels of education, knowledge and science by a diversity of means including the use of technology. it intends to provide opportunities of education to all classes of people and create efficient manpower by improving the quality of education.” bangladesh has achieved a literacy rate of 54%. bangladesh has 15,293 high schools, and 66,81,212 students are enrolled yearly. about 50% of the high school students fail to pursue higher education due to financial constraints. many students who are economically sound also fail to continue higher education because they do not get seats in colleges and universities, resulting in huge drop-outs. due to serious economic and other social pressures, those who continue to pursue higher education are virtually unable to achieve desired level of educational standard and results. establishment of bou and launching of 19 formal and 18 non-formal courses of different level have facilitated enrollment of over 250,000 students from all over bangladesh. bou organizes its educational programme through 12 regional centres, 80 local centres, and more than 800 tutorial centres. each regional and local centre is equipped with a pc, but each regional centre has tv, vcp, vcr, teleconferencing facilities, etc. the enrolled students can use the libraries and multimedia facilities of the regional and local centres. quality of any education largely depends on the educational facilities offered to students. among other things, access to information and information resources are highly important. although there are library facilities in the regional and local centres, these are not computerized and are not networked. participants of the courses do not get access to the central library of bou from their own environment or from the access centre. bou has plans to facilitate access of course participants to information resources from its headquarters in gazipur, about 30 km from the capital city. but the programme could not be implemented mainly due to financial constraints. to facilitate and ensure an effective and appropriate online distance learning, online access to information and information resources is essentially needed. bangladesh still has a huge number of drop-outs who can be made worthy citizens by offering them easy education through the open learning/distance education programme. this group of people, if properly educated, can greatly contribute to their economic formation and fate, particularly of the rural people.

1. introduction
bangladesh is one of the seven south asian countries. it is bounded by india on three sides: the west, the north, and the north-east, and on the south-east by burma, and the bay of bengal on the south.
the area of bangladesh is 1,47,570 sq. k. m. the total population is estimated to be 130 million in 2000, the population growth rate being 2.1 per annum. the density of population was 755 per sq. k. m. in 1991, and it is expected that at the end of 2000 a. d. the figure would be reaching to 881. the percentage of urban people is 20.1, while that of the rural is area 79.9.1
the muslim ruled the country for over five and a half centuries from 1201 to 1757 a. d. this territory was ruled by the british for nearly 190 years from 1757 to 1947. during 1947 to 25 march 1971, this geographical territory was known as east pakistan. on 26th march 1971, bangladesh was declared as an independent and sovereign state.
it is true that bangladesh is facing acute economic hardship. the per capita income is us $ 350.5 due to economic constraints and poor social infrastructures, most of the average people cannot stand on stable footings.

2. education and culture
揟he foundation of the educational system in bangladesh was laid down during the period of british rule; the system has three levels — primary, secondary, and higher education.”2 primary education, which is yet to be made absolutely free and compulsory, for the children attaining 10 year plus, is the base of secondary education divided into two levels — secondary education from class vi to viii, high school, and higher secondary from ix to xii with public examinations being held at the conclusion of each level of schooling. schools in cities and towns are generally better staffed and financed than those of rural areas.”2
the recent survey shows, bangladesh has 15,293 high schools3, and 66,81,212 students4 use to get enrolled yearly. about 50% of the high school students fail to pursue higher education due to financial constraints. a good number of students though economically sound do also fail to continue their higher education because of the lack of seats in colleges and universities, resulting in huge drop-outs. in addition economic stringency and odd social pressures have been stranding many to have higher education that could virtually play the vital role to raise the desired level of educational standard and cherished attainments. establishment of bangladesh open university and launching of 19 formal and 18 non-formal courses on different disciplines have recently facilitated the enrollment of over 250,000 students from all over bangladesh.
in the educational and cultural fields bangladesh occupies an important position among the countries of south asian region. for the purposes of imparting general education, there are 11 government universities including bangladesh open university (bou) in gazipur in a flourishing area (near capital city dhaka). unlike other conventional universities, bangladesh open university is purely technology based and its aim is to make scope of higher education for the less literate mass people who are engaged in different occupation, etc.

3. problems in conventional education
it is true that bangladesh is facing acute economic hardship. the per capita income is us $ 350.5 due to economic constraints and poor social infrastructures most of the average people cannot stand on stable footings. it is no doubt that it tremendously affects educational atmosphere of the country especially of the rural people. though bangladesh has a good number of universities, colleges, schools and vocational institutions, the overall picture of education is not yet appreciating. the land is limited, other than human all sorts of resources are too much limited, and so is the rate of literacy that is not satisfactory. in addition is the increasing population that painstaking and stands as a barrier to the education system. the roots of such pensive causes are:
1. lack of expert teachers,
2. limited seats in classes,
3. faulty education planning,
4. lack of appropriate education policy,
5. lack of acceptable curriculum which is an absolute requirement of the present age,
6. uncertainty in employment after obtaining of higher degrees,
7. lack of library facilities and services,
8. political instability, etc.
these problems are regular phenomena and cannot be solved in a day. but witnessing these pictures, one cannot sit idle. hence it demands some action plans, programmes, steps and necessary positive activity so that the nation can be well educated and upgrade up to a certain dignified level. to achieve the cherished goal possible steps are to be taken and that should be a long-term planning. educationists, policy makers, and socialites did feel much about mass education and it is early 1970s, the then government had taken the maiden steps by taking the open learning and distance education policy in hand.

4. distance education in bangladesh : a history
the distance education programme in bangladesh was originally conceived in 1974. the relevant section of the kudrat-e-khuda education commission says, 揥ith the present education system there should be ample scope for part-time, drop-out and irregular students, so that they can receive higher education. all the irregular students should have been given scope to sit for the examination, in this case, evening course can be started. to achieve this goal, an open university can be started like that of u.k.”6 bangladesh joined the world body of open/distance learning in 1981 through an inter-ministerial task force. later, in 1985 by offering bachelor of education (b. ed.) course 揃angladesh institute of distance education” (bide) was established. in 1992, under the act of bangladesh parliament, bangladesh open university (bou) was established. the aim of launching the distance education programme was 搕o expand all levels of education, knowledge and science by a diversity of means including the use of technology. it intends to provide opportunities of education to all classes of people and create efficient manpower by improving the quality of education.”7 by this time bangladesh has achieved a literacy rate of 54%. bou organizes its educational programme through 12 regional resource centres (rrcs), 80 local centres (lcs), and more than 800 tutorial centres (tcs). each regional and local centre is equipped with a pc, but each regional centre has tv, vcp, vcr, teleconferencing facilities, etc. the enrolled students can use the libraries and multimedia facilities of the regional centres though local centres are yet to be equipped.

5. prospect of ol/de in bangladesh
open learning/distance education is widening rapidly throughout the world. specially media of teaching methodology in ol/de is quite different from that of conventional teaching and education. conventional teaching is classroom based. an expert teacher takes classes for a limited number of students ranging from 6o to 80 students. this number can reach up to 100. but in ol/de its scope is wider and an expert teacher can teach millions of students with the help of electronic media. in ol/de students have much more better scope of learning, viz. modular guidebooks, audio-video tape, television, radio, teleconferencing, internet and also direct interactions from tutors in the tutorial centres. so, in the developing countries like bangladesh ol/de is very much prospective and lucrative.
in bangladesh distance learners are from different spheres of life — town and rural areas. in other words, learners belong to three different levels — economically sound and employed, underemployed and aspires to be more educated and more skilled — and jobless and economically poor rural people.
it is claimed that teaching system in bangladesh open university is technology based. it may be partially true for it has limitations. the rural areas are not yet within digital phones and computer networking system. distance learners of the areasare to depend on regional resource centres. the local centres are also not yet properly set up and equipped.
in conventional system of education teacher-student interactions are in class-rooms only. but it ol/de it is done through tutorial centres and other media. besides this, students have scope to take help of on-line teaching through computer networking system. the rrcs are also termed as community centres/ relay station for distance learners in bangladesh. the rrcs can relay all the programmes to lcs and after transmitting the programmes from main campus, rrcs can receive and store them in e-library. distance learners will come in rrcs during their leisure time and will use these programmes as and when required. in bangladesh, local centres are not equipped well and even maximum of the lcs are in the rural areas where cable-television facilities, dish antenna, digital phones are not available and have no scope to establish e-library which is very much essential for on-line teaching system. so they have to depend on regional resource centres. but regional resource centres are situated far away from rural areas. it is cumbersome and difficult for rural jobless learners to go there and have facilities from rrcs. if all local centres can be given e-library facilities, it would be very much helpful for rural distance learners, especially for those who are completely jobless and economically down trodden
in open learning/distance education the role of e-library is always positive and well recognised. in this system all books, guides, modular lessons prepared by expert teachers, everything is put into the memory of computer and web site in internet. during leisure time students use computer and get their desired and related topics and lessons. establishing of e-library, especially in a developing country like bangladesh will be very much fruitful. initially it will be expensive, but in a long-run it will be treated very much cost-effective and useful as like as anything. in existing system quality education is always not ensured. but it ol/de, as therefore, it is based on media technology, each learner can get uniform education.
growth of population is a threat to any developing country like bangladesh. to meet the demand and to ensure education for increasing number of population government has to manage the situation and chalking out proper plans. hence it would be an absurdity to think that more educational institutions will be set up to meet this need. rather it would be wise and realistic if mode of education is changed and within the limited scope and limited resources maximum result can be achieved. and ol/de is only the mode of education to tackle the situation, to create scopes and offer facilities and overcome all the arising problems. the number of population is growing, and in this circumstances to meet the need of the society establishment of more and more universities and colleges is not easily possible and nor it is justified due to financial paucity and economic constraints, limited experts teachers, and poor socioeconomic infra-structures. moreover these steps will create new problems and more pressure on economy of the country. so, it is obvious that not only for bangladesh and developing countries only, but also for other countries for meeting this increasing demand in the 21st century ol/de must be implemented throughout the world. in its favour we like to stress one thing that in open learning/distance education less numbers of expert teachers are needed in teaching. and in this age of technological development one expert teacher is quite enough to each subject area for disseminating the contents of thousand learners.
the aim of ol/de is to hire experts from outside the campus. those who are in campus as teacher, will design, plan, prepare modular lesson and manage the whole programme and thus perform their duties as programme managers. in conventional system it is seen that one teacher is to take classes of nearly 80 to 100 students, and their salary and other allied expenses are not cost-effective. so to make education easy to willing group of masses, fruitful and cost effective, modern technology is to be used as a must must.
it is very much relevant to note here that almost in every conventional university and college, there are frequent political instability, students unrest and continuous chaos which seriously hamper normal educational atmosphere. but in open learning and distance mode of education, there is no scope of creating such types of hindrances.

6. library, it and distance education
having bangladesh open university and its learners in mind, it can be stated that conversion of manual library in e-library is a must. it may also be mentioned here that for last few years price of it equipment is decreasing rapidly, so developing countries like bangladesh can smoothly go for introducing of electronic and media technologies for open learning /distance education. librarians or the information managers should keep it in mind that their learners are mainly aged, workers, service holders, women, housewives, and jobless urban and rural people. sitting at home or at any suitable place, or in the working station if one can make linkage with the learning process i.e. on-line system of learning, one will be benefited much. in this process learners will have entry to have facilities of course materials, lectures, teachers' suggestions, etc. and this course-study and follow-up is fully independent of place and time barrier. in the on-line process satellites based television, cd-rom, internet, web-site, multi-media facilities can be used. during leisure, students and learners will take advantage and opportunities to use different media for their linkage and learning.

7. librarians and the internet in open learning/distance education
it is believed that 21st century is the age of electronics and media technology. by this time, this concept is widely recognized and accepted to the information seekers. virtually, academic librarians are on the front lines of making new technologies accessible and useful to scholars, teachers, and students. but the pedagogical responsibility of a librarian is to ensure relevant services to all information seekers, especially to the students. in other words, computer and the internet are recognized as useful tools — and only tools. if one can use them successfully, one can complete an assignment on the desired topic, gather knowledge on the desired subject, and develop skill on desired discipline. however obviously it depends on how skillfully the students or the concerned people do operate it. thus the use of computer and access to the internet are always given importance in open learning and distance education. so far the bangladesh open university is concern, creation of own resources’ database and providing online searching facilities for learners will encourage students and create more facilities for our learners. moreover, providing of university courses’ curricula, schedule of activities, learning materials and other important programmes in website will facilitate distance learners.
"the implications for education and training are immense. learning can be independent of time and place, and available at all stages of person's life. the learning context will be technologically rich. learners will have access not only to a wide range of media, but also to a wide range of sources of education.
the challenge for educators is how to utilize this power, so that education and training meet the needs of individuals and society at large."8

8.technology, future education and open learning/distance education in the 21st century
in the past days of open learning/distance education we had to depend on printed materials (books, modules, etc.) only. later, one-way communication was introduced — radio and audio cassettes were used as additional tools for education. with the technological advancement two-way communication i.e. telephone teaching and audio-graphics, computer-based learning and use of multimedia, computer mediated communication, etc. gradually replaced the previous conventional and early systems & tools. in true sense, developments in multimedia that give teachers and learners the tools to reconstruct and personalize knowledge, the development of computer-mediated communications, and the eventual integration of multimedia with electronic networks, suggest the essential function of computers in education in moving away from the notion of the computer as substitute teacher towards that of a 'true' technology, a set of tools to be used by teachers and learners, to facilitate the task of learning and understanding."9

9. conclusion. quality of any education largely depends on the educational facilities offered to the students. among other things, access to information and information resources are much important. although there are library facilities in the regional and local centres, these are not sufficiently computerized and are not also networked. participants of the courses do not get access to the central library of bou from their own environment or from the access centre. bou has plans to facilitate access of course participants to information resources from its headquarters in gazipur, about 30 km from the capital city. but the programme could not be implemented mainly due to financial constraints. to facilitate and ensure an effective and appropriate online distance learning, online access to information and information resources is essentially needed. bangladesh has still a huge number of drop-outs who can be made worthy citizens by offering them easy education through the open learning/distance education programme. this group of people, if properly educated, can greatly contribute to their healty economic formation and fate, particularly of the people living in villages.

footnotes
1. bangladesh statistical year book 1998. p. xxii.
2. encyclopedia britannica, vol 14, (macropaedia), 15th ed. 1994. p.716.
3. national education survey (post-primary) (draft report), 1999.
4. ibid.
5. world development report 1999/ 2000
6. kudrat-e-khuda education commission, 1974. p.88.
7. bangladesh open university at a glance. 1999. p.1.
8. bates, a. w. (tony) : technology, open learning and distance education. london: routledge, 1997. p.229
9. ibid., p.227.