Open education

Open education is an alternative approach to formal education at higher level. It  is a non formal approach to formal education. The institutions are established to fulfill the need of those people who cannot get higher education from educational institutions such as schools and universities due to many reasons. One of the reasons is that students should attend the classes of schools and universities regularly to get higher education. These educational institutions function at a certain place for certain duration and time. The people who are engaged in different jobs cannot get education from these institutions due to their formal structure. Institutions of open education are established to fulfill the needs of those people who are not benefited from schools or universities.

 The basic principles of open education are learning opportunities should be provided without delay and provide education when it is needed and take examination when the students are ready. The students need not attend the class as it is needed in general schools and universities. They function by using alternative means  for acquiring knowledge. These means include correspondence courses self learning materials contact classes contact with resource persons ,contact centers, mobile library, learning kits programmed instruction use of communication media such as radio as television, instruction material etc. in open education students learn by self study.

 The delivery approach of open education is paced according to ability of students. Students take their own time for learning a  lesson. They learn through self study using their leisure time. All students learn in their own rate by using different alternative means. When they finish one learning task they enter In the learning of other task. In this way they finish the learning of a certain level according to their pace. When they feel ready to take examination, educational institutions provide an opportunity to the students to appear in the final examination. After the success in final examination they are awarded the academic degree which is termed equivalent to the degrees provided by formal education institutions. With the rise in the filed of information technology many educational institutions and universities have provided online courses. A student can get the higher degree utilizing his or her leisure time. Open education provides a chance for earning and learning at the same time .

 A true Open education system not only provides a chance to get higher education by using alternative approaches other than face to face learning in classroom it should provide higher education to the capable persons withdrawing the need of a prerequisite educational background. In a true open education a person should be provided an opportunity whatever he or she want to learn without a prerequisite degree. Students should be allowed to learn any area of knowledge and the institution of Open education should accredit their learning if they become successful in the final examination.

 Although Open education is a new concept it has been successfully practiced in other countries. The first open university was established in the uk in 1960 in the name of university of air. It was inaugurated in 1970 in the name of national university. The first chancellor  of his university was Harold Wilson the prime minster of the uk of that time. Allam ikbal university of Pakistan is the first open university of SAARC region.