Review of university provision of distance education in Asia highlights and illustrates major similarities and differences in the approaches used in different countries and institutions and compares the operations of national independent universities concerned only with external students and conventional universities which include a distance…

The choices involved in setting up an open learning system are discussed, and the case for the mixture of interaction and independence is established. Problems involved in effecting the synthesis between activities in which the student works alone and those which bring him into contact with others are detailed. (AF)