The World Council for Regular and Distance Education (WCRDE) is an internationally renowned accreditation and membership organization for Universities, Institutions/Colleges, Schools, Publications, Individuals/Faculty and the regular, open and distance education community, and is open to all schools, educational institutions/colleges, universities, educational authorities, individuals and pulications.

The organization mainly functions to develop education quality standards that aim at making the development of all educational sectors.

The WCRDE is first internationally renowned accreditation and membership council for education community which intends to operate of international agency to introduce the WCRDE certification for education quality standards.

The well-defined and objective of WCRDE's accreditation and membership brings independent information to both students and education professionals.

Accreditation and membership through WCRDE will help students and parents make a more informed choice and will also help an Universities, Institutions/Colleges, Schools, Publications, Individuals/Faculty training provider or distance education provider demonstrate to the international student body that they are a high quality institution.

Our international accreditation and membership allows students to gain a realistic and honest picture of what an institution is really like in terms of quality, resources, student support and ethics.

The WCRDE has a partner status with International Nobel Peace Prize Recommendation Forum -INPPRF , and International Student Exchange Cards India Limited. WCRDE main aim is to promote quality education throughout the world and use of new idea and innovation.

The WCRDE is supporting all Government Education systems, norms and regulations and code of ethics.

Mission

1. To promote Regular and Distance Education internationally and take whatever measures are necessary to this end.
2. To represent the interests of its members at International level with regard to the authorities, other educational Committees, the mass media and the public, in as far as this is not left up to the members.
3. To promote educational contact between all Universities, educational institutions, educational authorities, and individuals and to promote all regular, distance learning, international/national conferences etc.

4. To monitor and ensure the keeping of the existing system-specific rules, to develop a set of standard rules and to draw up an International education Calendar.
5. To encourage all Universities, educational institutions, educational authorities, and individuals can connect in professional communication in the field of flexible education.

Values

The following signifies the core values that the WCRDE symbolizes through our Team.

WCRDE believes that the needs of the learner must be central and advocates for student success.

WCRDE is focused - WCRDE is a global organization which involves intellectuals in decision-making, in cooperative action and in cooperative problem solving.

WCRDE is transparent - intellectuals are able to follow the activities and decisions of WCRDE.

WCRDE aims for global and gender equality in its structures and activities.

WCRDE believes that education is a universal right and should be available for all with no reservations.

WCRDE is a global non-governmental organization (NGO) having partnership status with International Nobel Peace Prize Recommendation Forum-INPPRF with which it shares its key aim - the attainment of quality education for all.

Purpose and Goals of WCRDE

1. To improve the Quality standard of education in all countries.
2. To educate the Quality Management system among public.

The Research and Innovation Special Committee was established by WCRDE with the global focus to:

Initiate a meta-study of qualitative on the state of research and innovation in open, distance, flexible and online education, including e-learning

Identify the grand challenges of research in open, distance, flexible and online education, including e-learning

Encourage cooperation amongst WCRDE members on research and innovation (Research & Innovation); and

Advise the WCRDE Board Members on Research & Innovation issues.

Research and Innovation Special Committee - final report

The WCRDE Research and Innovation Special Committee conducted research in 2016 to better understand the state of research and innovation in open, distance, flexible and online education, including e-learning across WCRDE members. The Special Committee is led by Prof. Thiyagu Nagaraj, Registrar at International Non-Olympic University India.

This research was conducted in the form of a survey disseminated to WCRDE Board members in January to April 2016. Analysis of data demonstrated a number of trends as well as insight into next steps.

In concluding this stage of the research the following elements were reported:

That the respondents targeted for the survey was correct for their ability and knowledge of their institutions strategies.

That a wide range of educational institutions from within the WCRDE members responded, ensuring that the data was not skewed toward predominantly large or small institutions.

That resource is primarily provided centrally for innovation in learning and teaching however, however, predominately this equates to a low percentage of total spend across the institution.

Educational institutions highlighted that future research might focus on Massive Open Online Courses and Open Educational Resources. Although, flipped classrooms was a reoccurring theme which is in line with broader developments globally within the education sector. Quality issues remain a topic of concern.

The WCRDE's Bringing Educational Resources for Teachers in Africa (BERTA) and Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa, (TESSA) project aimed to provide teacher educators based in African higher education institutions with the opportunity to engage with examples of distance and eLearning courseware made available as Open Educational Resources in an activity-based way. African educators were invited to take part in a short, open online course to improve skills in learning design, IT for learning and creativity.

The course, which ran twice during 2016, was a product of the WCRDE BERTA and TESSA project and the Hands-On IT project. It was run by WCRDE Special Committee members. Thousands of people from more than 50 countries participated in the course. The first edition was delivered in the form of a pilot course in English followed by a second edition offered in seven languages including English, Spanish, French.

The course provided the following opportunities:

Learning how to design IT-based learning activities.

Working in small groups with educators from diverse backgrounds around the world.

Observing, practising and learning about methods for peer review and peer mentoring.

Activities that participants produced could be reused in their actual training plans.

Facilitators were experts in Open Distance Learning, Creativity and the Learning Design Studio.

The Research and Innovation Taskforce was established by WCRDE with the focus to:

Initiate a meta-study on the state of research and innovation in open, distance, flexible and online education, including e-learning

Identify the grand challenges of research in open, distance, flexible and online education, including e-learning

Encourage cooperation amongst WCRDE members on research and innovation; and

Advise the WCRDE Board Member on research and innovation issues.