The paper traces the historical perspectives of open and distance education in India. It also discusses the various modalities and standards followed by various universities in offering social work education through open and distance learning (ODL) mode. It also highlights the achievements and challenges of social work education through ODL mode in India. The article will be extremely helpful to the academicians and policy makers in understanding the various dimensions of social work education

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... hrough ODL mode in Indian context. The study recommends that Indira Gandhi National Open University model is one of the successful models of offering social work education through ODL mode. Keywords: Social work education, distance learning, field work, IGNOU. materials of various universities has been covered in the paper. Besides that, the achievements and challenges of social work education through ODL mode have been highlighted. CONCEPT OF OPEN AND DISTANCE LEARNING Open', 'distance' or 'flexible' learning, all terms used to describe alternatives to traditional taught courses-where the teacher and student interact directly through face to face contact (Horwath and Shardlow, 2000). It can be described as an organized educational activity which is based on the use of teaching materials in which constraints of study are minimized either in terms of access, time and pace, methods of study or any combination of these. In Open and Distance Learning mode, the learner can select his/her own place of study and gets relaxation in selecting his/her courses. The term 'open' in the open and distance learning system incorporates all the measures that encourage wide spread access to, and participation in education. In ODL, there is no full time face to face class room education. The teachers and learners interact at a distance. Occasionally, the learner meets the teachers in face to face counseling sessions. There is an educational organization which takes care of designing, preparation and delivery of learning materials to the learners. These are also called 'selfinstructional material' or' self -learning material' (Goel and Goel, 2009 cited in Aara, 2013). This system of learning has tried to remove barriers to learning such as entrance requirements, time constraints, program and course structure, lack of finance, geographical distance, and social and cultural factors, such as age, gender, ethnicity, and class, that have closed off and prevented attendance at the 'traditional 'system of learning. Open learning improves access to education, as it intends to be in line with the learning centered philosophies, creating flexible learning opportunities for a broad range of people from a wide range of backgrounds to enable them and empower them to have choice about how, when and where one learns (Bourn and Bottle, 2005; Collins, 2007; and Horwath and Shardlow,2000)