Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research

Evidence from all over the world especially developing countries have shown a rapid increase in enrolment of individuals under distance learning academic programmes. In today’s modern world, one of the most important objectives of education is to produce such learners who could be self reliant for their learning process. ODL has been an instrumental educational strategy in reaching out masses from far flung areas to build their capacities. A worth mentioning example for this very achievement of ODL in Pakistan is Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU). It is quite important to explore that what are the factors which instigate the masses towards joining ODL programmes and their impact on individuals’ capacities. The paper is presenting the survey based view point of ODL students in Pakistan about a) the reasons for joining AIOU and b) the impact of this education on development of skills to organize their studies and assess the quality of their written work which enabled them to extract important themes and ideas from the specially developed printed study materials. Findings are made on the basis of data collected through interviews of randomly selected 250 AIOU students of different levels from its 03 regions (Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Saidu Sharif). It can be concluded that distinguishing features of AIOU which turn into reasons for females to join AIOU includes; opportunity of education while staying at home, lower fee structure, study while in service, no age limits and continuation of education after breaks. AIOU offers a wide range of courses/discipline which is also an important reason behind joining the institution. A vast majority mentioned that they have learned the skill of reading, organizing their study plan and preparing lessons and can do self assessment of their written work. These skills were developed because of compulsory written assignments for each and every course of the academic programmes. An area which requires some further and specialized efforts is related to the feedback provided to students by their tutors on the written assignments. The learners can enhance their reading and self evaluative capacities up to the extent, technical feedback is being provided. So, the distance learning methodology of AIOU has been enabling its beneficiaries, through its self study model, to develop self reliance and get education which otherwise is not accessible or feasible in conventional system