Directorate of Distance Education in accordance with the suggestion of the Distance Education Council (DEC), was established in 1994. It was the first of its kind in West Bengal. It evolved and developed since its inception and now in 2008 it has a good infrastructure of its own. Situated in the Golapbag Campus, the DDE has a beautiful building of its own. It houses all the administrative departments of the directorate and holds counselling sessions for different courses it runs.

       The principal objectives of the Directorate are -
       (i) To provide, subject to fulfilment of minimum eligibility criteria and other requirements as may be prescribed by the University from time to time, wider access to higher education to persons of all ages and sex residing in any part of the country - particularly to working persons - who, for different reasons, cannot undergo the higher courses of studies as regular full-time students of the University.
       (ii) To provide a system of student-centered self- paced learning which will neither be entirely separate from nor wholly independent of the formal, full - time campus system of education as traditionally followed in University departments of studies and
       (iii) To provide means of improvement / upgradation of professional skills and competence of individuals who wish to take education as a life - long activity.        At present DDE conducts a total of fourteen courses, of which ten are post-graduate and four under-graduate. There are eight conventional courses [MA in Bengali, English, History, Philosophy, Political Science, Sanskrit, M.Com. and M.Sc. / MA in Mathematics] and two professional courses at the post-graduate level [MBA in Insurance & Risk Management and PG Degree in Remote Sensing & Geographic Information System (GIS)]. Four professional courses offered at the under-graduate level are: B.Sc. Hons. in Bioinformatics, B.Sc. Hons. in Environmental Science, BA Hons. in Interior Design and BA Hons. in Fashion & Apparel Design. DDE is also considering a proposal to introduce M.Sc. in Computer Science, MBA & LLM through distance mode. Learners from places all over West Bengal enroll themselves in these courses. Among them 68 percent are from rural areas, while the rest from urban background.

       In accordance with the guidelines of the Distance Education Council, New Delhi, the University of Burdwan has appointed one core faculty in each of the subjects run by the DDE. Another achievement of the DDE is that the students of the DDE enjoy the benefit of the placement cell of this university along with regular students.