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.