Australia is a large island located close to South East Asia. Its land mass has a total surface area of almost 8 million square kilometers. Most of the country is sparsely populated with small communities separated by vast distances. Much of Australia is a desert. In such a difficult geographical situation, distance education was the only way in which education could be taken to the significant segment of population. This system grew up as an alternative system to provide equal means of instruction and access to allsections of the society since the turn of the century at the school and the university levels.

In Western Australia there is twelve years schooling i.e. 1-7primary, 8-10 middle, 11 - 12 secondary mainly looked after by School of lsolated and Distance Education (SIDE), Perth and college and university education by Technical and Further Education (TAFE), an autonomous body. Both run their programmes in distance education by way of using interactive television and online computer network. Many other models and software are also developed by other institutions. In this paper an attempt has been made to highlight the significant achievement of Distance Education in Western Australia and its relevance to lndian Education.