| Abstract: | Distance Education (DE) is defined as any educational or learning process in which the teacher is
separated geographically or in time from his or her students; or in which students are separated
from other students or educational resources (Reddy Venvgopal, 1999). On the other
hand,Conventional Education (CE) is defined as a mode of learning which is based on the ordinary
classroom teacher-students interaction. It is a widely accepted reality that DE increases access to
learning opportunities compared to CE. Although well organized distance learning accommodates
multiple learning styles, creates access to learners who are not likely to attend conventional
classroom instruction (effectiveness), serves to accomodate as many learners per dollar spent
(efficiency) and helps to attract and serve low income learners (equity),DE is generally blamed for
its poor quality, especially in developing countries like Ethiopia where there is low level of
infrastructure development .This study was initiated to compare the performances of graduates from
the CE and the DE mode.
The study was conducted at Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation (ETC), which is structured
into six zones and eight regions. To arrive at the specific zones and regions on which data
collection was to be carried out and to select sample employees, multi-stage random sampling
technique was employed. Accordingly, North and West Addis Ababa Zones, and Northwestern,
Northeastern and Western Regions were selected randomly for the data collection exercise. The
study purposivly focused on diploma accounting graduates from the CE and DE modes who are
currently working at ETC. This was done for the purpose of getting adequate samples from the two
learning modes as accounting profession was started by different institutions in Ethiopia earlier than
the other disciplines. Accordingly, a total of 59 diploma accounting graduates who pursued their
studies either through DE or CE modes, and working in the corporation were randomly selected.
Structured questionnaire was prepared and mailed for the concerned offices so as to generate data.
Statistical tools like paired, and independent t-test, one way ANOVA, correlation techniques were
employed to analyse the data gathered.
The findings of the study revealed that there is no statistically significant variation between the
performances of DE and CE accounting graduates, and there is variation among the different higher
education institutions in terms of academic performances of graduates expressed in terms of earned
CGPA. There is evidence that there is statistical variation between the CGPA of the distance and
conventional mode graduates with the later having marginally higher CGPA. But, the standard
deviation of the CE CGPA marginally higher than that of the DE CGPA, indicating CE mode better descriminates students academic performances than that of DE. In addition, there is significant
correlation between years of work experience and performances of the employees in the case of DE
graduates, but not in the case of CE graduates. This implies that the training package provided at
colleges gives little opportunity to prepare students to the world of work.More over, the study
revealed that there is weak correlation between students CGPA and their average performance
points in both of the two training modes indicating that either/both academic evaluation mechanism
or/and, the performance evaluation mechanisms or/and the curriculum adopted has/have some
defficiencies, which suggest further study. |
