Academic honesty, professionalism and commitment of teachers and academics will immensely boost the status and morale of the staff, students and the system of distance and open education as a whole. On the other hand, if these teachers and academics are academically dishonest, professionally corrupt without any commitment either to the cause of the profession or to their institution their practices can be no better than resorting to plagiarism, manipulations and reproduction of others’ work. Section-I of this book is devoted to the changing status and emerging professionalism, including plagiarism, of distance teachers and academics which reflects on the above issues with most representative cases of academic works and institutions. If the establishment and development of support structure and delivery of academic support services to the learners is improper it would inevitably de-motivate them and consequently lead to their dropout or attrition. The magnitude of dropout or attrition among distance learners calls for scientific approach to organizing counselling on the problems, difficulties, felt needs and so on of the potential dropouts among the learners. Section-II overviews the problem of dropout and the reasons thereto; presents a scientific approach to organizing counselling for distance learners; highlights quantitative and qualitative aspects and issues of delivering a distance education programme; and sets out priority areas for action and feedback research in distance education. The future of distance education can be very bright if it acquires the potential to reach all categories of needy learners and people, at all places and at all times. Towards this end, Sector-III of this book attempts to evolve a comprehensive consortia for distance education in India and to address related issues and problems so as to enhance access, flexibility and relevance of distance education to the learners who are multilingual and multicultural with diverse socio-economic background.
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