Role of Distance Education in Promotion of Women Education in Pakistan

Education plays a significant role in growth of mind and individual income as it helps an individual in contributing to society in a positive way. It positively affects the attitude of an individual in adjusting to the society and adds in economic and societal growth. The main objective of education is to reshape the personalities and attitudes of people to build a better society and grow the economy. In this way, women education becomes more important. There is a common saying, “If a man is educated, an individual is educated, and if a women is educated, the entire family is educated”. The distance learning mode of education has been recognized as a great resource to give equal access to education to the women from remote areas of developing countries including Pakistan. However, proper quality assurance systems are to be placed for distance and open education in order to avoid its misuse and to ensure uncompromised education. With this backdrop, the main objective of the present study was to assess the role of distance education in extending and promoting women education. The nature of the study was quantitative and survey type. The masters students {MA (Education)/MEd level} of Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) enrolled for spring semester-2018 to spring-2019, all the tutors of postgraduate Teacher Education Programs of AIOU, academicians relating to distance education and formal education programs were the population of this study. Due to lack of resources, and constraints of time and scope of the study, it was limited to four regions that were randomly sampled. A total number of 300 students from relevant programs were randomly selected i.e., 75 students from each region. 100 tutors of relevant programs were randomly sampled by selecting 25 tutors from each region. Questionnaires were used as research instruments. SPSS was used for data analysis. The data were analyzed and interpreted by applying statistical method of percentage and mean scores. The results show that the distance education has positively contributed towards women education. It has also improved their social, social skills, communication skills and the skills required for employment and entrepreneurship. The results further show that distance education has benefited the remotely located women in the country.  However, the quality aspects of distance education need to be addressed to enhance further benefits to women who opt for distance education.