By Kamel                                        H.B. No. 1404

      75R5281 JSA-D                           

                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

 1-1                                   AN ACT

 1-2     relating to the authority of public institutions of higher

 1-3     education to offer courses by distance learning.

 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

 1-5           SECTION 1.  Section 61.051(j), Education Code, is amended to

 1-6     read as follows:

 1-7           (j)  No off-campus courses for credit may be offered by any

 1-8     public technical institute, public community college, or public

 1-9     college or university without specific prior approval of the board,

1-10     but the board may not prohibit any of those institutions from

1-11     offering or conducting a course for credit by instructional

1-12     telecommunication or other distance learning method to a person who

1-13     receives the instruction at an off-campus location that is not a

1-14     facility owned or operated by the institution if the course is

1-15     otherwise within the approved curriculum of the institution.  The

1-16     board may not prohibit a public junior college district from

1-17     offering a course for credit outside the boundaries of the junior

1-18     college district when such course has met the requirements for

1-19     approval as adopted by the board.  The board shall establish

1-20     regulations for the coordination of credit activities of adult and

1-21     continuing education by public technical institutes, public

1-22     community colleges, or public colleges and universities.

1-23           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the

1-24     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

 2-1     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

 2-2     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several

 2-3     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,

 2-4     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its

 2-5     passage, and it is so enacted.