Has political leadership played a major part in the development of distance education?

The stories of the founding of many of the major single-mode institutions in industrial and developing countries provide ample testimony of the vital part that political leaders often played in establishing and expanding such institutions. Many of these institutions relied heavily on the support of governments or individuals in their early years.

There is also the obverse situation: sometimes political parties have stayed in power only a short time, and the successor governments have taken a less favorable view of newly founded distance education institutions.

• G. Ram Reddy, Andhra Pradesh Open University:
  >> Part One
  >> Part Two