Preference of Conventional Degrees by Educational Institutions: Two Cases from Pakistan and India

Although the number of programmes offered by distance education has increased significantly and gained global importance, research shows that there is a resistance towards distance degree holders and many employers are sceptical at the time of appointing such employees as the quality of outcome is questioned. This cold war has gone to the extent that especially the teachers earning degrees through distance are sometimes considered as second class in merit at the time of their appointment in public and private educational institutions. This paper reports on the findings of a qualitative case study research that investigated and explored the support given by employers to teachers during their study period through distance education and the perceptions of the employers towards the worth of distance education degrees. Two universities offering distance education in Pakistan and India were taken as units for investigation. Two semi-structured interview protocols were developed to collect data through three focus group interviews and five individual interviews of teachers and employers, respectively. Stufflebeam’s (1983) CIPP evaluation model was adapted to analyse the data and important findings showed that the perceptions of the participants from both countries regarding the support and worth of distance degrees varied from employer to employer tilting more towards conventional degrees.