摘要：High enrolment in distance education may be counterbalanced by a high rate of attrition. To enhance retention of distant learners there is a need for an extended support system provided by academic counselors, and the support system gets strengthened when academic counselors are trained intensively for their role. In this paper the focus is on the orientation programmes that have been organized from 2003-2009 for the academic counselors working for the academic programmes of the School of Education at Indira Gandhi National Open University. These programmes were meant for preparing the academic counselors for the twin roles which they are expected to perform – tutoring, and counseling. The study aimed to critically assess the effectiveness of these programmes along three dimensions - academic inputs provided ; methods of imparting instructions ; and duration of the programmes. A longitudinal descriptive case study approach was adopted, and individual programmes were the units of the study. Interpretation of the data collected was done by grounding the observations into a rubric developed with the help of propositions extrapolated from published literature on the dimensions chosen for assessment. It was found that the orientation programmes were inadequate along all the three dimensions and needed to be strengthened, especially for the counseling role. Suggestions have been made for revamping the programmes.
