New Delhi: In an effort to make professional education more accessible to students, the country's two apex educational bodies - the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All India Council for Technical Education(AICTE), have jointly decided to allow all premier educational institutions to offer distance education courses.

As per the decision, now leading institutes including both government-run and privately sponsored, will be allowed to offer their courses through distance learning programmes as well as classroom education.

The elite institutes like Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) will also come under this program. Hence, students would be benefited of receiving degrees from premier institutes sitting at their home, without attending regular classes.

Institutes interested in offering distance learning programs will need to take formal approval from a joint committee of the regulatory bodies. The committee will help establish a 'single window' approach for institutes. "It is a big leap forward for high quality distance education," said a senior UGC official.

Both AICTE and UGC will have different roles in regulating the professional and conventional education programs in the country. The AICTE has been entrusted with the job of monitoring distance education courses offered by institutions offering technical education whereas UGC will monitor universities, including deemed universities. The Distance Education Council (DEC) will be the overall regulatory body for distance education program.

"The mechanism would be in place in few months so that institutions can start offering online courses from the next academic year," a UGC member said. The recent decision of the government would help meet the growing demand for quality professional education in the country.

A data reveals that in 2006-07, about 1.13 crore students enrolled in the Indian higher education system and it is expected that in the next two years, the figure may cross two crore.