1 Barriers to Development in Open Learning and Distance Education: Bangladesh Mostafa Azad Kamal Assistant Professor, Bangladesh Open University Sadia Afroze Sultana Lecturer, Bangladesh Open University Abstract Education is inevitable for Human resource development and then national development. However, in most of the developing countries, due to the limitation of resources it is almost impossible to educate all of their citizens through on-campus teaching. Huge amount of money is warranted to establish the infrastructure for on-campus teaching which is out of the reach of the developing countries. In this circumstances, to educate their huge population the developing countries are to depend on open learning and distance education system. However, a question still stands: can the educators dissimulate knowledge to the learners smoothly through this new system of education? Some recent research shows that the graduates of the open and distance learning institutions in the developing countries are treated as second-grade graduates. This paper aims to identify the barriers to the development of distance and Open learning system in Bangladesh and suggest possible alternatives may be followed to overcome the barriers. Keywords: Barriers, Distance education, Developing countries, Motivation, Alternative solutions. 1. Introduction Bangladesh is a highly populated (128 million, 1999) small country (1,47,570 sq km) in South East Asia. Since its independence Bangladesh is suffering from high poverty (42% people are below national poverty line, 1995/96), high illiteracy rate (male 49%, female 71% among people with age 15 and above, 1998), insufficient on-campus educational facilities for the people in general, etc. Due to economic constraints, it is not possible to provide the people with on-campus education, though improving and expanding education are essential ingredients of national development. In Bangladesh, all traditional educational institutions together can enrol only a portion of the long quay of aspirant learners. Reasons are: (1) for accommodating more students, more infrastructure have to be developed, which is costly, (2) there is no external