Three regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and Distance Education Council (DEC), have jointly decided to allow all educational institutions to offer distance education courses subject to approval by a joint committee formed by them.

The UGC, earlier this month, approved an agreement with the AICTE and DEC, for setting up the joint panel, which will act as a "single window" approval mechanism for distance education. "It is a big leap for high quality distance education," said a UGC member.

This would mean that institutions would not have to run from one regulatory body to another to get approval for starting distance education courses. "The mechanism would be in place in a few months," an official said.

The AICTE has been entrusted with the job of monitoring distance education courses offered by technical education institutions while UGC will do the job in case of universities including deemed universities. The DEC will be the overall regulatory body for open education.

The panel will evolve a mechanism to monitor the institutions conducting courses or programmes in distance or mixed mode - distance plus institutional education. It will identify thrust areas and develop curriculum and learning methods to bring in uniformity in open education. The panel will also come out with guidelines to ensure quality in different programmes offered by the institutions.