ENROLMENT, RETENTION AND ACHIEVEMENT IN DISTANCE EDUCATION. A. Varadarajan, IGNOU, India

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1 ENROLMENT, RETENTION AND ACHIEVEMENT IN DISTANCE EDUCATION A. Varadarajan, IGNOU, India Summary The paper attempts to study the enrolment retention and achievement with respect to three consecutive cohorts of Master of Computer Application (MCA) admission in one the Regional Centre of Indira Gandhi National Open University, namely Hyderabad in India. In summing up the paper brought out the following salient conclusion: 1. The enrolment trend in IGNOU, in every successive year was more than the pervious year. The study found that from the inception the percentage of increase over the preceding year was reported to be more than 100%. There is a strong tendency toward further growth. 2. The difference between in and out migration between the regional centres of students during the span of maximum study period is to the tune of less than one percent. The inward migration is less by 20 compared to outward migration of 226 for the all three cohort of admission taken together. 3. For every 100 students that register in the first semester, only students stay through the course till final semester. 4. The drop out rate grows lesser as the students move towards the final semesters. The larger rate of drop out is at the initial stage, especially at second and third semester. Introduction Popularity of open and distance learning in India has been asserted time and again by different scholars. These assertions have been built on the enumeration of programmes on offer, disciplines covered, students enrolled and such other statistical data pertaining to a given span of duration (Kulandaiswamy: 2006, Srivastava: 2006 and a host of others). It is stated that 24% of the total higher education population of India is now pursuing higher education under the ODL system. It is expected that the figures may rise to 40% as envisaged by the Government of India, by the end of the 10 th Five Year Plan period. Widely acclaimed causes for such popularity and phenomenal growth are identified as : i. the access it provides to the aspirants of higher learning ii. the economy it affords for the providers of higher education

2 iii. the facility that the learners enjoy of freedom from the barriers of time and place. The economy that Open & Distance Learning System affords has been studied from the perspective of cost effectiveness. Several studies have reported the cost advantage in terms of per student cost (Kulandaiswamy, 1995, Pillai and Naidu 1992, Naidu, 2006). Nevertheless, from time to time, voices have been raised against over-exploitation of the economy factor. There are two observations pertinent in this regard. (i) The orientation of several institutions tended to tilt unscrupulously towards money-making, throwing to the winds the concerns for quality education. (ii) The cost advantage of ODL results from the economies of scale and the benefit keeps accruing only upto a critical point of enrollment( Musa, 1991), beyond which the benefit rate stays stagnant and even affects the quality adversely. The quality of ODL programme is mainly the function of motivated students, committed staff, good infrastructure and efficient governance systems (Green and Harvey, 1993; Prasad, 2006, Ruddar Dutt, 1981)). Enrolment, which is disproportionate to the infrastructure and cost benefit ratio will affect the reputation and the growth of the system. To ensure quality, the critical point of cost benefit resulting from economies of scale needs to be identified; the efficiency of the faculty need to be ensured; the infrastructure has to be commensurate with the quality requirement as well as of the quantity. No precise study has been done so far to fix the critical point which will ensure maximum cost advantage of the economies of scale in respect of any programme of IGNOU, or for that matter any programme offered by any of the distance teaching institutions in the country. Enrolment A number of studies have been made on the pattern of enrolment in distance education. Detailed study of the profile of learners in terms of male and female ratio, rural and urban ratio, employed and unemployed ratio etc. have been attempted (Srivastava, 2006, Kulandaiswamy 2002, DEC 2001, Prasad 1998 etc.) The enrolment has always registered an upward trend from the inception of the system till today. The enrolment in ODL institutions in India, from 1975 to 2000 has increased from 2.6 percent of total enrolment higher education (in ) to 17.0 in percent in In the year 2001, every fifth student of higher education was enrolled with ODL system in the country. The growth in terms of enrolment in IGNOU is tabulated year wise in Table 1. The table shows that enrollment in every successive year was more than what it was in the previous year, registering a 94.8 times larger enrollment in the current year compared to the enrollment in its inaugural year (i.e. over a period of 20 years from 1987 to 2006).

3 Table No. 1 Trend of IGNOU student Registration Sl.No Year Cumulative Registration , , , , , , , , ,30, ,63, , ,72, ,96, ,91, ,01, ,16, ,34, ,66, ,29, Note: Figures from the year 2001 indicate registration in both January and July sessions. Percentage of increase over the preceding year In the initial couple of years the enrolment has increased to the tune of 3.7 times and 2.6 times larger than the preceding year. But in the remaining years it ranges from times except for the year 1996 and 2001 during which years it was to the tune of 0.42 and 0.48 times larger respectively. This trend is likely to continue. Retention The term retention has been defined by Phil Race (2003) to mean a process of students start[ing] out on learning pathways, get[ing] to their respective destination successfully. Studies about retention and achievement have been relatively less in the ODL context, compared to the studies on enrolment undertaken by different scholars. Attempts to study about retention and achievement appear to be ridden with a number complex issues. The complexity seems to arise mainly out of the inbuilt flexibility of the ODL system. The flexible duration for completing a programme of study; flexibility permitted in terms of learner movement from one place to another; flexibility to resume studies after a lapse of time and provision for readmission, etc. make any attempt to define retention difficult. As ODL systems are supposed to extend benefits through its open course materials, broadcasts and telecasts to even those who have not registered for the programme, its spectrum of achievement of a given programme also remains undefined. It may be because of issues such as these that there has been a lot of reservation in taking up studies of retention and achievement.

4 Scope of the Study The quality of an educational programme can be judged more by the rate of retention and achievement than by the scale of enrolment. Hence, in spite of the difficulties involved, a formal study of retention and achievement becomes necessary to adjudge the advantage of an educational system. With this focus in mind the authors desired to take up a study of retention within a limited scope. The restriction on this scope is imposed by the complexities discussed above. The study restricts itself to three Cohorts of the MCA programme registered at the Hyderabad Regional Centre in 1999, 2000 and The initial enrolment in Semester-1 is taken as the point of reference for each cohort. The re-registration data from among these Cohorts in the subsequent semesters, viz., 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 were taken to indicate the retention through the progressive semesters. Limitation 1. Students were allowed to avail themselves of 14 slots of Registration over a period of 7 years, for courses offered in six semesters. As 1,3,5 semester courses were available in January June sessions each year and 2,4,6 semester courses in July- December sessions, students were not compelled to register for the courses sequentially in the serial order of 1-6 semesters. As a result there have been cases where student registered for the six courses in different orders, not necessarily in the serial order of The 2001 cohort, has a registration span of 7 years, from 2001 to Registrations of students of this cohort are taken into account upto July-December 2006 session only. They have two more slots for Registration (January-June 2007 and July-December 2007). These slots of registration opportunities could not be taken into account as the study is dated to There have been cases of migration of students from Hyderabad RC to other RC s and vice versa. On a close study, it was found that the difference between emigration and immigration is to the tune of less than 1 percent. a total of 206 students immigrated to this regional centre from various other regional centres against 226 cases of emigration from Hyderabad. The inward migration is less by 20 cases for all the three cohorts of admissions, taken together. The figure is too small to have any significant impact on subsequent registrations and therefore on the rate of retention through subsequent semesters. Data of Retention The tables given below represent semester wise, year wise re-registration of students from the three given Cohorts in the seven-year span of registration validity. Table No.2 Semester wise registration of MCA students cohort of 1999 Sl.No Year Sem-I Sem-II Sem-III Sem-IV Sem-V Sem-VI Total

5 Resumption rate Table No.3 Semester wise registration of MCA students- cohort of 2000 Sl.No Year Sem-I Sem-II Sem-III Sem-IV Sem-V Sem-VI Total Table No.4 Semester wise registration of MCA students cohort of 2001 Sl.No. Year Sem-I Sem-II Sem-III Sem-IV Sem-V Sem-VI Total Analysis Out of every 100 students registered in semester-i, the number of students registering for the subsequent semesters are as follows: Table No. 5 Semester wise percentage of student registration - Cohort of 1999, 2000 & 2001 Year Semester I II III IV V VI * Average for 3 cohorts * Two more slots of Re-registration are due in Taking the registration in the previous semester as the focal point, the percentage of registration in the subsequent semesters is represented in the following tables for each of the three Cohorts.

6 Table No. 6 Percentage of Re-registrations for consecutive semesters Year Semester I II III IV V VI 1999 Cohort Cohort Cohort Average for 3 cohorts Dropout in successive semester Interpretation On an average out of every 100 students that register in the first semester, students stay through the course till they reach the 6 th Semester (Table No. 6). If you take the registration in the previous semester as the focal point, decreasing rate in drop out is observable as the cohort progresses through successive semesters. The drop out rate grows lesser and lesser as the students move towards the final semester. The implication of the decreasing rate of drop out is obvious. The larger rate of drop out is at the initial stage. Perhaps this rate can be controlled and minimized if appropriate teacher interventions are made to check the causes for the drop out. Reports have been sporadically made about efforts taken at certain Regional Centres about the interventional strategies adopted. On completion of the registration for the second semester, letters seem to have been written to the apparent drop outs with a view to providing the support needed for survival through the course. However, no detailed report or study is available on this account. A fullfledged effort on intervention and a report thereof will help in increasing the retention rate and reducing the drop out rate. Achievement The minimum period of study for MCA is three years and the maximum period permitted is seven years. This means students pursuing the course seriously can complete course requirements earliest at the end of three years, get the results announced in fourth year and collect the award formally in the fifth year. Thus the last possible date for collection of award for a given cohort will be the 11 th year from the year of initial registration. A study of the awards made to the students of different Cohorts during the 4 th, 5 th, 6 th & 7 th year was undertaken and the results are tabulated below:

7 Table No. 7 Status of degree awardees Year Students admitted Student registered till VI semester Students awarded degrees at the end of Total $ 5 th year 6 th year 7 th year [2003] [2004] [2005] * 576 [2004] [2005] [2006] * [2005] [2006] * excludes 2006 convocation in absentia figure. $ Four more events of award distribution for each cohort are possible. {Figure s within brackets represent the year of convocation} The above table gives us the information that on an average 40.15% of students have successfully completed the course requirements to qualify for their awards at the end of the 3 rd, 4 th, & 5 th years of their registration. The year wise awards show that the number of awardees can be decreasing after the 7 th year. This is observable as the implications that those who are serious try to complete their course as early as possible and the number of such people is proportionately very large. Out of the left out, the number trickles down gradually as the years go. A study is perhaps necessary with interventions with the failed candidates to identify the causes of their failure and to check the kind of support that may help them complete the programme. No study in this respect also is reported so far from any quarters. Enrolment and retention is just one facet of achievement of an Open University. The argument advanced in favour of distance teaching programmes in the earlier days (Gooler, 1981) still holds good. Gooler lists the following arguments. (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) (v) Numbers and Necessity Argument Egalitarian Argument Economic Argument Quality of Education Argument and Spin 0ff benefits Arguments These arguments can as well be the parameters to measure the achievement of Open Universities. In such a case one can easily agree that the Open Universities have substantiated amply the numbers and necessity argument (with enrolment and the constant up-trend), the egalitarian argument (by throwing open the gates of admission to a larger section of unreached aspirants of higher education), the economic arguments (by less per-student-cost) Though same kind of assertain can not be made in respect of quality of education argument, one can still agree with Prof. V.C. Kulandaiswamy s (1995) observation: The conventional system of higher education does not produce a wide range of instructional materials of higher quality and standards as the Open Universities do make available to their students that these materials are available openly, not only to the students of open universities but also to the students of conventional universities and other general public is a distinct contribution that the Open Universities make to the needs of a learning society The publications brought out by IGNOU are by any means the largest from a single institution. In the last one year 10 million blocks of study materials were printed and

8 nearly 1.5 million packets were dispatched to the students and other consignees (VC s Annual Report, 2006). The revenue earned by way of sale of course materials to non-students has exceeded Rs. 10 million in a year, which is a more apparent indication of the quality of materials. The use of IGNOU materials by non-students and other members of public ensures the spin-off benefits argument too. Though there is some indication about the demand and utilization of printed as well as audio, video materials (by way of sale figures), we have no clear indication about the utility of IGNOU s broadcasts and telecasts, live and recorded, through All India Radio, Doordarshan, Gyan Darshan and Edusat. A comprehensive audience research needs to be undertaken to check the spin-off benefits reaching untargeted audience. Conclusion In summing up the paper brought out the following salient conclusion: 1. The enrolment trend in IGNOU, in every successive year was more than the previous year. The study found that from the inception the percentage of increase over the preceding year was reported to be more than 100%. There is a strong tendency toward further growth. 2. The difference between in and out migration of students during the span of maximum study period is to the tune of less than one percent. The inward migration is less by 20 compared to outward migration of 226 for the all three cohort of admission taken together. 3. For every 100 students that register in the first semester, only students stay through the course till 6th semester. 4. The drop out rate grows lesser as the students move towards the final semesters. The larger rate of drop out is at the initial stage, especially at second and third semester. 5. The study found that on an average percent of the VI semester enrolled students have got their awards. 6. Out of the total number of awardees 46.04% get their award at the end of the minimum period of 3 years. Recommendation In view of the growing enrolment trend, retention and achievement pattern, the paper proposes to formulate and implement these following recommendations. 1. As more drop out usually happens at the beginning of the study period, appropriate learning intervention system should be evolved and implemented at the early stages. 2. As quality is one of the determinants of enrolment, to ensure quality in distance education a critical point of economies scale should be assessed.

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