ABSTRACT
The first attempt in English to define distance education and to articulate a theory appeared in 1972. Later this was called the theory of transactional distance. What was stated in that first theory is that distance education is not simply a geographic separation of learners and teachers, but, more importantly, is a pedagogical concept. It is a concept describing the universe of teacher–learner relationships that exist when learners and instructors are separated by space and/or by time. This universe of relationships can be ordered into a typology that is shaped around the most elementary constructs of the field – namely, the structure of instructional programmes, the interaction between learners and teachers, and the nature and degree of self-directedness of the learner.
