Increased public investment in education Technology-enhanced open and distance learning should focus on capacity building of personnel, especially professional teams, creating integrated distance-learning environments, development of instructional software and creation and management of student-support networks.
The example of China’s vast infrastructure for technology-enhanced distance learning supports policy initiatives in this direction.
The Information Technology Task Force, set up by the Indian government, has emphasized the need to foster the IT sector in the country through building awareness, creating infrastructure and developing suitable programmers for IT training. The Indira Gandhi National Open University, for instance, is investing substantially in creating systems and software for meeting these needs.
The creation of infrastructure and development of programmers to meet the exponential demand for education will be need massive investment. This is well beyond the capacity of the government. Privatization of education is, therefore, imperative.
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India ranks very low in the world on the human development index. Expenditure on education is only 3.4 per cent of the gross national product. In comparison, the world average is 4.8 per cent and investment in industrialized nations averages 5.1 per cent. Public investment in education needs to be substantially increased to recommended levels of six per cent in India.