A Comparative Study on the Status and Efficacy of Counselling Services in Three Open and Distance Learning Universities

Shikha Mulani

doi:10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i03.79700

A Comparative Study on the Status and Efficacy of Counselling Services in Three Open and Distance Learning Universities

Author(s)	Ms. Shikha Mulani
Country	India
Abstract	Counselling Services play a critical role in enhancing learner engagement, persistence, and overall educational outcomes in Open and Distance Learning (ODL), where learners often experience academic and psychological isolation due to the limited face-to-face contact between teachers and learners. In this context, counselling support provided by the ODL institution helps learners in overcoming academic difficulties encountered during their course of study. This study examines the status and efficacy of counselling services in three Open and Distance Learning (ODL) universities—Uttarakhand Open University (UOU), Vardhman Mahaveer Open University (VMOU), and Uttar Pradesh Rajarshi Tandon Open University (UPRTOU). The study gauges the perception of sample learners with the counselling services offered by the UOU, VMOU and UPRTOU on four key dimensions: competency of academic counsellors, facilitation of understanding of study materials, effectiveness of counselling sessions, and regularity of counselling services. A descriptive survey method was adopted, and data were collected from a sample of 399 learners (133 per university) via an online questionnaire. The analysis was carried out using descriptive statistics, including percentages, mean, and standard deviation. Overall, the findings indicate that learners generally perceive counselling services as effective across all three universities. However, variations in learners' responses are evident across the universities. Learners from VMOU provided the most favourable and consistent response, and VMOU consistently scored higher than UPRTOU and UOU across all four aspects of counselling. Learners of UOU and UPRTOU also provided positive responses, however, with greater variation, particularly with regard to the regularity of the counselling service. These results highlight the potential areas where UOU and UPRTOU may benefit from focused improvements, particularly in strengthening the regularity of the counselling service.
Keywords	ODL, Learner Support Services, Counselling, Academic Counsellors
Field	Sociology > Education
Published In	Volume 8, Issue 3, May-June 2026
Published On	2026-05-29
DOI	https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i03.79700

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A Comparative Study on the Status and Efficacy of Counselling Services in Three Open and Distance Learning Universities

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