ABSTRACT
The phrase international perspectives of distance education' may suggest global dimensions in the form of international cooperation and collaboration. However, practice invariably starts from previous initiatives focused within national boundaries. It is often when practitioners elsewhere come to know about these national or institutional characteristics that the respective peculiarities – in the use of terminology, in administration of courses, in management of institutions – form the basis of a comparative study in the international arena. The chapters in this section reflect such a pattern of treatment in that they present international aspects of the debate on distance education, as well as of current practice within a particular country or region. Also evident in this section is the political ideology which has influenced the rationale responsible for shaping the institutions in some of the countries which feature here.
