COMPUTATION OF EFFECTIVENESSOF THE CERTIFICATE COURSES OFFERED BYOPEN AND DISTANCE LEARNING CENTRE, ANGRAU

Distance education is powerful medium for extending knowledge and skills to large number of people outside the class room boundaries. It extensively usesrecent advances in technology (ICTs) for developing standard teaching materials to provide learner centric education to aspirantsacross the globe. Open and Distance learning center of Acharya N.G.Ranga Agricultural University is aimed at giving access to agricultural education to maximum aspirants of the state. The study investigated the potential of newly initiated Certificate Courses in imparting Agricultural education in new areas with the aim of reaching the grass roots. The present study was conducted with 200 randomly selected participants of distance learning certificate courses of three months duration - Organic Farming and Terrace Gardening in telugu offered by ANGRAU in 2018with an objectiveto measure the effectiveness of the distance learning courses on the basis of selected parameters such as Course content , Contact sessions , Resource person expertise , Duration of course , Communication pattern, Exposure visits/Practicals,New learnings gained and Course objectives achieved. The data was collected from respondents using structured Interview schedules and check lists. Effectiveness index was computed by summating the scores on all eightparameters of certificate courses.The effectiveness index scores of selected parameters of the courses and showed that 67.50 percent of officers perceived the certificate courses to be highly effective followed by 23.50 percent of them as effective and a meagre 9.00 percent expressed as less effective.The study implied that the parameters such as Exposure visists/Practicals and Course duration that scored comparatively less needs immediate attention.