Abstract
A number of factors worldwide, and especially in the third world countries, act as barriers against economically, socially, and politically vulnerable people, among which economic obstacles seem to be the most problematic for underprivileged and disabled groups and individuals who cannot afford to attend conventional educational institutions.
In the past two decades, Distance Education (DE) has aptly proved to possess the potentialities to fulfil the enormous responsibility of universalisation and democratisation of education by maintaining acceptable standards at the most reasonable costs through the optimum application of media and technology.
Globalisation in DE goes still further ahead by creating the possibility of worldwide access to telecommunication and to media products, where any distance learning operator may aim at extending the offer of its own DE products, experiences, and services to prospective learners, wherever they may be, its success being guaranteed by high quality, low costs as well as proper marketing and publicity.
This paper attempts to outline the contributions made by DE to moving towards "Education for All" in Asia with a focus on Iran's experiences on this issue. It also explores yet unrealised potentialities of this system to reach out to a wider population of vulnerable learners, and finally it elaborates on ways of how collaboration among DE institutions can enhance the ultimate goal of providing adequate education for all human beings.
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