It is mandatory for any institute to get an affiliation before it can hand out a degree. The affiliation needs to be in the form of deemed university or with the University Grant Commission. Some universities are also affiliated to the All India Council for Technical Education or the AICTE. The AICTE governs engineering colleges mainly and even some management colleges. Colleges such as XIMB, XLRI Jamshedpur, IMI Delhi etc. are governed by the AICTE. The IIMs are however governed directly by the Ministry of HRD, Government of India.

Distance education directorates function a little differently than regular universities. Distance, Open and Online education institutes need to be affiliated to the Distance Education Council or DEC. The degrees conferred on students by such institutes are recognized by UGC and the AICTE.

If you intend to get MBA done through correspondence, then you should go through the affiliation that each university offers. Go for an institute whose degree is approved by UGC and AICTE.

Even among distance education centers, surveys are conducted to judge the quality of education imparted by them. There are more than 300 open learning centers in the country and 178 of them offer degrees. Surveys are regularly conducted among them on a number of heads. Weights are assigned to different aspects and then an average is constructed among them. The individual scores are also highlighted in the survey report which brings to light the weaknesses and strengths of a particular institute.

The heads that have been considered for 2014 rankings are quality of education- the text books followed, e-learning opportunities, the syllabus prescribed etc. The facilities offered to students are considered- the ease of enrollment, transfer of books, assignments etc. and the quality of students- pass percentage and transparency are also judged. Some institutes have performed well on some counts while others have not done that well.

Some of the institutes that have made it to the top 10 are:

Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi

Sikkim Manipal University, Gangtok

Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad

Symbiosis Centre for Distance Learning

Annamalai University

Any student, who is interested in an MBA program through distance education, needs to be familiar with the course offered and the results of the survey of Distance MBA Universities in India 2014 Rankings. It will help him or her judge the best institution.

The requirement for top AICTE recognized Distance MBA is not much. Most institutes require their candidates to be graduates in any discipline, while some have a cap of 40% on the graduation percentage. Some programs also require experience. IGNOU is the only institute that requires you to pass OPENMAT/CAT/MAT. The admission to distance MBA program depends on the availability of seats as direct admission is adopted by most universities.

Most universities have begun their admission process for the year 2014. The complete detail for admission along with a prospectus can be downloaded from the official website of the colleges.