Prospect of Email Communication as an Educational Tool for Distance Education in Bangladesh

Bangladesh Open University (BOU) is the only public University in Bangladesh which provides higher education through distance mode. At present BOU offers 21 formal programmes. BOU provides printed materials to the learners which are prepared in a self-learning style of distance education. The learning procedure also includes audio-video programmes and some face-to-fact teaching classes called 'tutorial class'. In reality, these are not enough for learners to complete the whole course successfully. Today, Internet has replaced all means of traditional communication significantly. In the past decade only youth and young generations were playing with it, but today it has been found that aged people have also gladly accepted it for communication with others. Email is the most popular means of communication medium now-a-days. Therefore, it may be used as an educational tool for learning. In present socioeconomic condition of Bangladesh, learners can afford computer or cell phone to access Internet and email. We took this opportunity to investigate the prospective use of these tools for distant learning. To the best of our knowledge, there is no report regarding acceptance and possible use of e-mail communication as additional educational tool for BOU learners. This paper presents survey result carried out to understand the present status of Internet and email knowledge among the learners and their views for possible introduction of Internet and e-mail communication as supporting tool for learning. Furthermore, by investigating BOU's available infrastructural facilities, possible cost effective solutions have been suggested to provide e-mail facility to the learner.