Chandra B. Sharma, PhD (Hull, UK)
Chairman, National Institute for Open Schooling,NOIDA,
India
Professor of Education, School of Education, Indira Gandhi
National Open University, New Delhi - 110068
E-mail : cbsharma01@gmail.com, cbsharma@nios.ac.in
Dr. Chandra B. Sharma the Chairman is Professor of Education on
deputation from the School of Education, Indira Gandhi National
Open University, New Delhi. He has recently been on a three
member committee constituted by the Government of India to draft
the Distance Education Council of India Bill 2015, likely to be
placed before the Parliament . This Act will set the
future of distance education in India. He has been the Director of
the Distance Education Programme of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan
(DEP-SSA) an MHRD-IGNOU project. DEP-SSA was a national project of
the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) Government of
India. The project assisted all Indian states in preparing master
trainers for quality improvement of Elementary education. He has
served the open distance learning (ODL) system for nearly two and
half decades. Before joining the ODL he taught at the Jawaharlal
Nehru University (JNU) New Delhi. He has been on various statutory
bodies (Academic Council, Board of Management/Board of Governors
etc. and also the Visitor's (President of India) nominee on
selection committee) of various ODL as well as traditional
institutions. He has been nominated by IGNOU as well as invited to
national committees on various areas like 11th Plan, Sarva Siksha
Abhiyaan (SSA), Rastriya Madhyamik Siksha Abhiyaan (RMSA), National
Mission on Education - Information and Communication Technologies
(NME-ICT), UGC Visiting Committees, National Assessment and
Accreditation Council (NAAC) teams, National Council for Teacher
Education planning as well as visiting teams, DEC-UGC-AICTE
inspection committees etc. He has written as well as taken part in
many national as well as state level educational planning
discussion and brainstorming. He has also been invited to be
Visiting Professor at various universities, besides been invited by
international agencies like the World Bank for research
studies.
As an academic he has planned, designed and developed curriculum
of many courses and been on the curriculum design committees (CDC)
of various central as well as state universities. He also designed
and developed a series of audio programmes for in-service trainee
teachers of IGNOU. The audio programs cover the complete primary
teacher education curriculum. As Program Coordinator for the
Research Degree programme of the School of Education, IGNOU he has
been involved and instrumental in the development of the first
research degree course of IGNOU. He was with the Kota Open
University (Rajasthan) where he contributed to the development and
design of various courses. He had initiated newsletter of the
university and was instrumental in starting many other
activities.
Dr. Sharma obtained his doctoral degree in Education from the
Hull University (UK) where he went on a Commonwealth Scholarship.
The title of his Ph.D. thesis was Multimedia approaches to teaching
literature. Dr. Sharma had obtained his M.Phil. from the Jawaharlal
Nehru University, New Delhi on Language Teaching through
Television. Dr. Sharma has been interested and has developed keen
expertise in the use of media and technologies in providing
education through distance mode.
In the recent past Dr. Sharma has been working on developing
better coordination and networking in South Asia, with the goal of
developing mechanisms to augment interaction amongst various
institutions and individuals. Prof. Sharma was invited by the
Linnaeus University (Sweden) to deliver the key note address on
Entrepreneurship and Education in India, and half a dozen other
Nordic Universities to lecture on educational collaboration with
Indian universities during March-April 2014.
Dr. Sharma has published a number of articles in Indian and
foreign journals and has presented papers in conferences in various
countries. He was offered Korean Govt. Scholarship to research at
the University of Seoul during 2003-04.
He has been involved in editing of various journals including
Associate Editor of the Staff and Educational Development
International (SEDI), a referred journal published from New Delhi,
and been on the Editorial Board of many journals on education
including the Indian Journal of Open Learning (IJOL) published by
IGNOU. He has edited many courses offered by state as well as
national level ODL institutions. He has also extensively lectured
through the EduSat and Interactive Radio.
Dr. Sharma is married to Sarita Sharma, a software engineer and
is blessed with a son, named Partha Sarathi Sharma, who obtained
his BTech (Mechanical) from the Indian Institute of Technology
Bombay (IIT-B) and now prepares to pursue his Master's in Finance
from the MIT Sloan (USA).