Overcome Stigma

The debate over the so-called “stigma” attached to academic qualifications obtained through distance education, to be frank, is still alive, and still has an audience. But the tide is turning – and fast. It’s a bit like academic apartheid. Today apartheid of old is a distant echo and has no takers – at least, it has no official legitimacy. So too distance education. At its inception, it was looked down upon like a poor cousin. Slowly, it evolved and took wing and people started looking at it with new eyes. And therein lies a story.

When distance learning first hit the academic road running, it began as a slow starter, but step by step, it found its groove in the education-deprived sections of society. While it came as an innovation, it was embraced as a blessing by these people because it opened a window of opportunity for them to compete with people who were certified better though they may not have been so. Distance education gave some of them a legitimacy they lacked for their knowledge-base, and for others, it came as a second innings in their life.

On the other hand, people in the main were attuned to raise their eyebrows and see distance education students with jaundiced eyes: Did you fail to get the cut-off marks for an admission to a regular college? But surely, you know that your distance education degree is not the same as a regular degree? Oh, you hold a degree through distance education (smirk, smirk)? And so on and so forth.

Holistically speaking, all this had all the makings of a turf war between traditional learning system and distance education. But the ground was retrieved and battle won with distance education creating a level playing ground for all aspiring folks who believed they were second to none. A major barrier was broken when the world’s best institutions like Harvard University for instance embraced the distance education mode. But it was the Internet plug in and play era when distance education developed a critical mass and showed that it was here to stay. Internet 2.0 and 3.0 technologies and tools such as wikis, RSS, online notice boards, forums, and ease of viewing lectures online, irreversibly changed the landscape of distance education.

Distance education degrees are also beginning to payback, especially in teaching positions. For example, doctorate holders from West Wood University and other distance education providers, are a big draw and sometimes preferred over their traditional education counterparts because of their self-evident and acknowledged affinity with online teaching practices.

So worry not over the “stigma” about distance education. Look ahead. The sun is shining on distance learning.