QUALITY EDUCATION IN INDIA: A MISSION REVISITED FOR DISTANCE EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS

India, one of the largest country in Asian continent, with a population of over one billion has been striving towards achieving sustainable development in all the spheres of the society through scientific and technological, socio-cultural and economic progress. It has been trying to bring about radical changes in the society through various modes and education remains one of the primary tools of accomplishing the developmental objective. In pursuit of this objective, the government has been establishing a number of educational institutions at all levels i.e. at school and at higher education level. It has also been supporting private and non-governmental organizations which are in this sector for reaching education to masses. Data show that distance education institutions are catering to much larger segment of population as compared to conventional mode of institutions. This large enrollment and the added responsibility of reaching education to the people with a diverse mode of delivery puts enormous responsibility on these institutions to maintain quality standards of education through distance mode. In the light of what has been stated above, the article identifies the various dimensions of quality in distance mode of education and proposes strategies for maintaining quality standards and quality control mechanism