COUNSELLORS IN DISTANCE EDUCATION

1. Introduction:

It is a waste of time to compare a Distance Education System (DES.) with the Conventional Education System (CES.) It is the proved fact that DES is cost effective than that of CES. It can cater millions of learners irrespective of places of residence. It allows them to learn at their own place and pace. The lessons are written in the self-instructional mode. Audio-Video medias are used to establish the rapport between the learner and the teacher. Yet feeling of isolation remains intense. Therefore human support is given establishing study centres at the root level of the distance education system.

Human Support involves Academic Support  & Administrative Support at the study centres. Centre in change, Co-ordinator and Clerks are the persons give Administrative Support where as Counsellors give Academic Support to the students at the Study Centres. This paper throws light on only Academic Support means ultimately on Counsellors at the Study Centres.

Counsellors are not the regular teachers. They are not appointed like the college teachers. There is neither advertisement, nor interview by the committee constituted for the purpose. These posts are not permanent or part-time posts. They are working on a clock-hour basis. They are related to the Study Centres for their concerned courses/subjects only. Though it is so, they play very important role in Academic development of the students. Therefore it needs to pay attention to be good counsellors at the Study Centres.

2. A Case Study of YCMOU

Yashwantrao   Chavan Maharashtra Open University, established in 1989, run many programmes through its eight schools established for the purpose. Most of the programmes are vocational and professional programmes just as B.Ed., M.Ed., B.Lib. M.Lib., M.B.A., B.Tech, M.Sc.(Agri), M.Phil (Agri), Ph.D. (Agri) and many general programmes just as B.A. (general), B.A.(spl),B.Com., M.Com., M.A. (Subject communication/Educational communication/Distance Education), M.Phil & Ph.D.(Subject Communication/Educational Communication/Distance Education) etc.

Out of all these programmes enrolment in B.A. programme is nearly 60% Moreover there are 75 courses, as given below, are developed for B.A. programme

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1. Name of the Programme                                                          courses

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1          Preparatory programme                                                          05

Of   B.A.

2      First year B.A. Programme                                                           06

3      Second year B.A. programme                                                      16

4      Third year B.A. programme                                                         48

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Total courses                                                                                       75

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YCMOU        runs 287 Study Centres for B.A. programme of the University and there are 9394 counsellors working at the Study Centres for B.A. programme only.  The list of Counsellors, Course wise and Region wise, is attached herewith as appendices. The presenter was the Co-ordinator of   the workshops arranged for proper selection and training of these Counsellors conducted   by YCMOU for its B.A. programme. Therefore it is the first hand information.

2.1 Required Qualification of the Counsellors

Most of the Counsellors are regular teachers of Conventional Universities. Therefore they fulfil the conditions of qualification to work as Counsellors at the Centres. But because of their unwillingness to work as Counsellors in their holidays Study Centre- In-Charge or Co-ordinator has to find out other solutions to get the Counsellors at the Centres. Therefore it needed the University to fix their educational qualifications to work as Counsellors at the Study Centres.

YCMOU always tries to maintain its quality. It emphasises the Centres to appoint the Counsellors as per the qualifications of the teachers (Lectures) prescribed by the University Grant Commission. But passing National Eligibility Test (NET) or State Eligibility Test (SET) was not made compulsory.

In the year, 2004-2005, YCMOU rejected more than 840 Counsellors due to their disqualifications and asked the Centres to appoint suitable qualified Counsellors in their places. Comparing to the total number of Counsellors (i.e. 9394) 8.94%Counsellors were rejected. It was required to find out course wise rejection. But it was not done.

Study Centres tried to find other Counsellors in their places and thus 410 Counsellors were newly appointed. Percentage of this new appointment was 48.81%. But 51.19% Counsellors remained under qualification as most of the study centres wrote that they didn't get suitable persons then and they would try to get them in the next year. Therefore University had to give them one-year approval and ask them to fulfil this condition in the next year.

The relationship between qualification and counselling or teaching is to be found out through researches. It is one of the thirst areas of research in education.

2.2 Selection Procedure:

It is a great task to select the Counsellors following the procedure of the selection as that of Conventional Education (CE) To find out the exact number of posts, advertise them, constitute a committee, conduct the interviews is a huge task. Moreover university has to bear the expenditure, which is a great amount. In addition, the teachers of CE are not willing to work as Counsellors in their holidays

Considering all these factors, Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University follows the  the procedure as given below.

(1)  YCMOU shouldered this responsibility to the Co-ordinators of  the Study Centres. They are asked to collect the bio-data with necessary certificates at their level instead of advertising for the same. This is the first stage of selection procedure.

(2) In the second stage, YCMOU has constituted a committee consisting of four members as follows,

(a) One member from Student Services Division,

(b) the  Second is from School of Humanities and Social Sciences,

(c) the  third is Regional Director of the particular Region, and

(d) the forth is centre-in-charge or Co-ordinator of the particular Study Centre.

This committee is to be held at the Regional Centres every year.

(3)  Centre-in-charge/ Co-coordinator presents the bio-data before the committee held at the Regional Centres where they are checked physically one by one and the Counsellors list at the Study Centre is finalised.

(4)  The Co-ordinator of B.A. programme in Student Services Division is in-charge of all this activity. He leads all the proposals and cause to nominate the persons to work on the committees. He collects all the lists and causes to put before the School Council of School of Humanities and Social Sciences for its approval.

(5) The School Council approves the lists and after its approval the selection procedure ends.

Luckily Presenter was the Co-ordinator and therefore involved all these activities.

2.3 Appointment Procedure:

It is observed that there is a core team found working as Counsellors at the Study Centres. But 10% to 20% of Counsellors are changing yearly. They need to be appointed then. Moreover, 10% to 20% teachers get transferred every year. It is also one of the areas to do research to find out the correct figure in this regard.

Considering all these factors, YCMOU gives appointment order for three years only. Therefore it needs every year to confirm the names of Counsellors at the Study Centres and new Counsellors should have an appointment order.

This responsibility is shouldered to the Regional Directors (RD). YCMOU sends the approval list to the Regional Directors in the month of August/September. And accordingly he sends the appointment letters of the Counsellors collectively to the Study Centres with the approval list of the Study Centre to hand over the letter to the concerned Counsellors.

It is found that a few Study Centres sometimes don't hand over the appointment letters to the Counsellors, which de-motivate them to be Counsellors at the Study Centres. Therefore YCMOU has clearly given instructions to the Study Centres-in-charge and Co-ordinators to hand over the appointment letters to the Counsellors and have a signature of them. They are required to keep this copy with them for the inspection.

2. 4 Rate of remuneration of the Counsellors.

Rate of   remuneration of the Counsellors for B.A. programme of the University  is  fixed on the number of students enrolled for the programme .

1. Programme                           first                   Second                           Third

batch                  batch                               batch

Students           Students                         Students

1             Preparatory                             50 to 150        50 to 300                          300 +

Program

2                F.Y.B.A.                                  50 to 150       50 to 150                         300 +

3.                S.Y.B.A.                                20 to 150           50 to 300                      300  +

4                T.Y.B.A.                                 10 to 150              50 to 300                    300 +

* Two Contact-. Sessions for revision are allowed if there are 10 students for S.Y.B.A. and 5 students for T.Y.B.A.( per subject).

2.5 Collection of Counsellors' Data

As already mention, the bio-data of all the Counsellors were collected and brought at the head quarter. Subject wise and course wise & region wise Counsellors' list was prepared. This data is used for the selection of  the subject-experts, for course-experts for writing training manual, for training the Counsellors, for selecting question bank writers, for paper setters and for  many other purposes of YCMOU activities.

Every bio-data is then coded in short form. For example A 41(m) B(1/6)w Means : 41 years male who is a doctorate and who has YCMOU experience of counselling and paper setting. He has 11 to 15 years experience in other Universities. This coding gives detail description of the person who is working as a Counsellor at the Study Centres. YCMOU has 9394 bio-data from all over Maharashtra.

2. 6 Provision of the Training:

Unlike CE, in DE, there are no daily classes and teaching. There is a Counselling. Therefore, it needs to train the teachers to get familiar with their changing role. They are expected neither to teach nor to come daily at Study Centres. To be acquitted with the term Counsellors and Facilitators and acquire the necessary skills, YCMOU is trying to train them as Follows.

2.6.1Resource persons' training at the Main Office:

YCMOU identified the persons, amongst the authors, editors, senior and experienced teachers, members of advisory committee of the courses, to work as a resource person for the courses of the programme and were invited at the main office.

There were three parts of the working of the resource persons then.

*   In the first part, general session was held where the discussion was on getting the skills of     counselling and dos and don'ts of the counselling.

*  In the second part, the discussion was on course wise counselling and its schedule, and

*  In the third part, the discussion was on their role after this training,

2.6.2Counsellors Training at the Regional Centres:

YCMOU, generally, invites the counsellors at the Regional Centres and trains them with the help of the Resource Persons who are already trained.  But in the last two years , the counsellors were invited  at the main office for their training. More than 600 persons were trained in the last year.

Here the stress was given to explain the counsellors' activities on the study centres, more on practical than on theory and more on empathy than on sympathy. No doubt every counsellor is expected to know the theory of D.E. But they need to be practical at the study centres.

The training was given considering  three parts of their activities.

* The first part is of planning where he is expected to read the content and  find out the area to be        discussed in the class  with necessary suitable examples.

*  The second part is of implementation where he is expected to counsel the learners. He motivates the learners to participate in the discussion, asks them to raise the questions etc. He is expected to solve all sort of academic difficulties faced by the learners at the study centres.

* Third part is of Feedback where he assigns the task to the learners to do home and report it in the  next session.

2.7Development of Counsellors' Guide:

Counsellors guide is very useful for the counsellors at the study centres. They use it at the time of their training and at the working places. YCMOU has identified the persons for writing this manual.. There are eight subjects prescribed for B.A. program .and every subject includes two courses for SYBA and six courses for TYBA

YCMOU invited two experts for each subject and one writer for per course. Considering eight regions of YCMOU,  experts and writers were invited from each region for each subject and  per  course respectively. Thus, tried to include the writers from all over Maharashtra.

*  Subject experts were invited one day before the workshop of the writers and discussed  on how to prepare the training manual or counsellors guide. Various views were expressed and finalised one design for the same.

* On the second day writers joined the experts.

* A general background and general guidelines for writing the training manual was provided to  them and discussion took place.

* Lastly final form of design was prepared and circulated  it to all the writers and experts.

* Subject experts discussed the guidelines considering their subjects and  that of  courses.

* The workshop went on for a week and prepared training manuals subject wise.

* Subject experts edited the training manual and gave his remarks for its acceptance. Thus the procedure ended.

Sometimes the writing is rejected. For B.A. program two course writers' writing was rejected out of 64 courses 2 were rejected means 6.25% of writing was rejected. This figure would increase if they were asked to write home. Therefore, the experts and writers were invited at one place for writing the manual for B.A program of YCMOU.

The same procedure was followed for writing training manual for preparatory program and F.Y. B.A program of YCMOU. Every writer was given Rs.2000/- for per course and Rs. 1000/- for editing the writings. It was for per  subject and not for per  course. Moreover, T.A. & D.A was also borne by the University. The co-ordinator of all these activities was given Rs. 2000/- per subject. It was expected from him to prepare the rough design of the writing, general instructions to be given to the experts and also to the writers. He is expected to  make indexes and write  concern writings and prepare the manual. Being the Co-ordinator of all these activities, every steps were carried out  by the presenter and thus it is the first hand information.

2.8Preparation of the Material:

2.8.1 Course writing

Every writer was expected to write the training manual for his course following the points given below:

• Introduction.
• Objectives of the Course.
• Nature of the Course.
• Content of the Course.

Book No.: 1

Unit No.: 1

Unit No.:2

Unit No.:3 –etc.

Book No.: 2

Unit No.: 1

Unit No.:2

Unit No.:3–etc.

Book No.: 3

Unit No.: 1

Unit No.:2

Unit No.:3–etc.

2. (A) Classification of units according to the content.

(b) Classification of units according to contact sessions.

3.About Counselling

Contact session Nos.

Unit Nos.

Points for Counselling

Points for self study

Stressing Point

Instructions, if any

4. (a) Concepts:

(b) Use of A/V aids and Computer.

5. Discussion based on evaluation / examination.

6. Conclusion of each unit, in brief.

7. References to be useful for further study.

8. Model of Question Paper.

2.8.2 Manual preparation

After acceptance by the subject expert ,the co-ordinator of the workshop collects all the writings. He is supposed to arrange  the content as given below.

(1) The information of Open University: the concept and nature,

(2) Objectives of YCMOU

(3) General information of its B.A program,

(4) Counselling: Nature and Principles

(5) B.A syllabus and contact sessions.

(6) Counselling of course No: 1-

(7) Course No.2

(8) Course No.3

(9) Course No.4

(10) Course No-5

(11) Course No.6 etc

(12) Rules for Recognising theCounsellors.

(13) The list of course wise contact sessions.

(14) Yearly schedule of the program.

(15) The rate of remuneration.

(16) The list of the programs available in YCMOU, along with programs fee, duration and advertising date.

(17) The programs.  sanction letter of the Govt.

This type of material was produced for each subject and thus YCMOU had produced training manual for Preparatory program and F.Y. B.A. program including all the courses prescribed for the class. Subject wise eight training manuals for SYBA and TYBA are also in print. Those are for Marathi, Hindi, English, Psychology, Economics, Sociology  & for Politics.

The language of this training material is Marathi. But the courses of Hindi and English are written in Hindi and English accordingly.

2.9 The Feed Back:

The training manual for preparatory program and F.Y.B.A. program was prepared in 2004. Various reactions of the counsellors on phone as well as in oral discussion clearly showed that these training manuals are very useful to them. They demanded this type of manual for S.Y & T.Y B.A.Therefore, in June,2005; YCMOU developed the training manual for S.Y & T.Y B.A program of the University.

Various modifications were made in the training manual of F.Y.B.A. and S.Y & T.Y B.A program of the University considering the previous feedback. Previously terminology was not given, evaluation/ examination discussion and use of computers/AV aids were not included. These points were added  then.

3. Conclusion:

YCMOU, considering the importance of Counsellors at the study centres, is trying to appoint qualified persons following certain procedures. The appointing letter is also issued to them. The rate of remuneration is also attractive to the counsellors. YCMOU has also made training provisions for the counsellors. Training manual or guide is also prepared for them by the expert counsellors under the guidance of experts in that subject. The feedback is also taken and necessary modifications are also made accordingly. Thus it is trying to develop counselling skills in counsellors in DE.