Open and Distance Learning (ODL) is an emerging area to address the fundamental issues of access, retention and quality of higher education to improve human capabilities and achieving the vision of knowledge economy. In India, a higher proportion of younger population is found due to unique demographic transition. Providing quality higher education to such a large proportion of population, in a soft democratic country, is a Herculean task, where hardly ten percent of the youth are enrolled in higher education. The gross enrolment ratio (GER) of marginalized sections of society in the context of social and gender is even less than six percent. The need for cost effective and need based quality education capable to produce employable youths is self evident. The Knowledge Commission of India (2006) and the Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007-12) highlighted better governed participatory structures and processes for inclusive educational development. At present, more than 300 institutions of higher learning are functioning in different parts of India. Certainly one can attain cost effective and need based quality education through ODL System and ICT and e-governance will aid ODL system. In this article a frame work on e-governance of an ODL system is discussed. It will provide a heuristic of the study of e-governance in ODL system and suggest ways and means to integrate different entities towards achieving the goal of e-governance in an ODL System.

1. Bates. A. W. 1995. Technology, Open Learning and Distance Education, London: Routledge.
2. Farmer M. A. 1999. Study: E-commerce sites pricey to build, CNET News. com.
3. Moonen. J. 1997. The efficiency of telelearning, Journal of Asynchronous Networked Learning, 1 (2).
4. Sarvaharana,P. ,Ramakrishnan,K. S. , and Vijayan, S. 2008. The Concept of Governance vs. e-Governance its problems and prospects– An Analysis" Presented at the International Conference on Digitalizing Administration- Challenges and Issues in E-Governance" held on 17th & 18th March 2008 organized by the Department of Public Administration, Chennai-India.
5. Sarvaharana,P. ,Ramakrishnan,K. S. , and Vijayan, S. 2007. An Overview on the Problems in Accountability of E-content and E-Administration of Distance Learning", Presented at the International Conference on Open and Distance Education organized by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Open University on 25. 8. 2007, Hyderabad, India.
6. Roderick, E. 1998. More than just pretty pictures: A cost/benefit analysis of digital library holdings. A paper presented to the CAUSE98 Conference, Seattle.
7. Tolley. S. 2000. How electronic conferencing affects the way we teach, Open Learning, 15(3), 253-65.

Open And Distance Learning Information And Communication Technologies E-governance