Ўзбекистон республикаси ахборот технологиялари ва коммуникацияларини ривожлантириш вазирлиги муҳаммад ал-хоразмий номидаги

 
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF DISTANCE EDUCATION 
E.M.Urinov ( TUIT Fergana branch) 
 
The growth of distance education is being fuelled by an urgent need felt by 
the poor countries to close the education gap with the rich nations. According to the 
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization International 
Bureau of Education (Benavot 2006), only about 3 percent of young people in sub-
Saharan Africa and 7 percent in Asia attend some form of post-secondary education 
as compared to 58 percent in industrialized countries, and 81 percent in the United 
States. Developing countries such as Asia and Africa have large populations with 
minimal formal education and are very interested in cost effective ways of delivering 

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instruction, particularly in the areas of basic literacy and job training (Moore and 
Kearsley 1996). These countries have adopted distance education approaches 
because they believe that these approaches will help the countries to overcome some 
of the educational disadvantages faced by their population. However, for some 
developing countries the existence of economic, technical, political and cultural 
problems may make even the simplest forms of distance education difficult to 
implement. In some developing countries, whether they are developing or 
progressively developing, they manage to promote the idea of distance education but 
fail to provide the resources with which to implement distance education 
programmes. Despite the positive progress of distance education, Reeves 
highlighted in his article that there are much to be done such as taking advantage of 
the unique features in distance education by providing more effective instructional 
methods that are aligned with its unique affordances.
There are many advantages and drawbacks of offering distance learning 
education mentioned in the research literatures. Following are some of the factors 
stated in the writings of Reeves Selwyn, Gorard and Furlong, Garrison and 
Anderson, Mason, Ryan, Scott, Freeman and Patel, Moore and Kearsley, Feenberg, 
Harasim, which are claimed to be favourable to the students: 
Learners who are not in favour of traditional educational setting are able to 
attain higher education qualifications regardless of age, gender, race, religion, or any 
other demographic background differences.