The Directorate of Distance Education, Mother Teresa Women’s University was started in 1988 at Kodaikanal. Its mission is to empower women through education, especially women who for some reason are deprived of studying through the regular mode. The Directorate of Distance Education seeks to break the boundaries which block women from pursuing higher education by taking education to the homes of women who cannot go to regular college.

Our goal is higher education for every woman who aspires for it. We aim to extend not only equal but equitable opportunities of education to women who desire the privilege of higher education to be pursued at their own place and time, simultaneously with the demand of a job or domestic commitments. The Directorate of Distance Education is a boon to career women who aspire to enhance their personal and professional competence and to home bound women who wish to profitably use their time and resources to satisfy their deferred academic aspirations and also to the rural girls who have no access to the mainline educational system.

The Directorate of Distance Education now functions from Kodaikanal and also has its own Research and Extension Centres at Madurai, Chennai and Coimbatore and many study centres in major cities to reach out to more women and to offer more academic support to them. Keeping in mind the changing needs of our society the Directorate of Distance Education offers courses to equip women to enter into new areas in the world of Management, Business Administration, Information Technology in addition to offering add-on programmes in traditional disciplines. It has also extended its frontiers by offering Diploma and Certificate courses to those women who work at the grass root level in NGO management, Self Help Groups, Community Health Workers, Women Leaders in Political and Civic Administration.

Thus the Directorate of Distance Education is committed to provide access to affordable, supportive and flexible but quality education to all women seekers of knowledge from all walks of life.