PROMOTING DIGITALIZATION OF DISTANCE TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS AND USE OF ICT ENABLED PEDAGOGY FOR DISTANCE LEARNING: A CASE STUDY FROM INDIA

Digitalization presently is a process for taking India forward with promotion of use of ICT by the Government of India. This paper focusses on the use of ICT enabled pedagogy for distance teaching-learning of counselling and family therapy post graduate programme being offered by Indira Gandhi National Open University. In the present study, feedback was obtained from experts in the field, learner support centre in-charges, and academic counsellors involved in counselling for theory and practical courses of the modular post graduate diploma and Master’s degree programme in counselling and family therapy. Purposive sampling method was used for data collection. It was found that majority of the respondents were in favour of using ICT tools for interacting with the distance learners to bridge the gap felt by the academic counsellors as well as distance learners pursuing counselling and family therapy post graduate programme of IGNOU. The paper highlights the possibility and potential of promoting digitalization of distance teaching-learning process and use of ICT enabled pedagogy for distance education in the context of the counselling and family therapy post graduate programme of the only national open university of India. The paper discusses the need and importance of ICT enabled pedagogy for distance teaching-learning and describes the features and potential of this ICT enabled pedagogy. The difficulties and problems perceived to be faced in using the ICT enabled pedagogy for distance teaching-learning of counselling and family therapy post graduate programme are also discussed in the paper.