“Wouldn’t it be great if a lecture given at Kirtipur were accessible to students in Humla?”
– Dr Pramod Dhakal, Board Member, OUIDC

The idea to establish the Open University of Nepal (OUN), Nepal’s first distance education institution, was envisioned in 2010. The Non-Resident Nepali Association (NRNA), in partnership with the Canada Foundation for Nepal (CFFN), Ministry of Education, and Athabasca University, Canada, have been working since then to get the idea operational.

“There are no laws regarding university education in Nepal. Tribhuvan University has its own and other universities have their own set of laws. This idea can take shape only when there is one set to govern all the universities,” said Dr Pramod Dhakal, Board Member of Open University Infrastructure Development Board (OUIDC), the committee formed by the Cabinet and chaired by the Education Minister.
The committee has been looking into this prospect for the last six years, and according to Dhakal, it’ll be at least three more years before Nepal has its own open university of distance learning.

“Today, it’s not necessary for students to be physically present in classrooms. Technology has in fact helped to create stimulative learning environment, more enhanced than the traditional medium,” said Dhakal.

Nepal’s prospective first Open University is said to have a low-residency program, according to Dhakal. When asked about the problems of loadshedding and Internet speed, Dhakal said, “Those problems can be tackled by making study materials and virtual platforms accessible to students through offline devices.”

source: republica,5 march 2013