Online instructors need to take on a multi-dimensional role and to be an effective online educator they are required to possess a varied and wider range of competencies. Preparing teachers for online education involves preparing them for a wide variety of roles and developing related competencies. However, the extent of emphasis required to be placed on each of these roles or competencies during a teacher training program may vary according to its culture and the context. The investigation reported in this article obtained expert opinions with regard to the priority and criticality of eight online instructor roles identified in earlier research on online education. Pedagogical roles received the highest priority by the respondents, followed by professional, evaluator, social facilitator, technologist, advisor, administrator, and researcher roles. These results have implications for teacher education and further research pertaining to the context in India.Keywords: instructor competency; online learning; teacher preparation Introduction Many teachers regard face-to-face communication as a preferred mode for teachinglearning, in spite of the dramatic progress taking place in online education. While online communication rarely makes emotions and gestures as explicit as they would be in a face-to-face context, it does have the potential for people to converse with intensity, depth, and meaning. Klein, Spector, Grabowski, and de la Teja (2004), while developing competencies for online instructors, re-examined the competencies for face-to-face settings and came to the conclusion that competencies for online instructors were not substantially different from those in face-to-face settings at a high level of abstraction. This may also imply that certain levels of equivalence exist between the instructors involved in these two modes of education. In other words, the competencies and roles required to teach in an online environment are not fundamentally different from those for teaching in a face-to-face situation. For example, listening skills are important in both contexts. However, the significance and demonstration of these competencies may vary according to the context or the roles one is assumed to undertake while teaching. That is to say, that how a teacher listens effectively in different contexts may require different skills.

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Poverty has many dimensions and does not merely entail low levels of income or expenditure. According to Sen (1992), poverty is the lack of capability to function effectively in society. Inadequate education can thus be considered a form of poverty. Education is widely accepted as the main exit route from poverty. It is the backbone of growth and development of individuals and the nation. However, its achievement continues to elude many who are poverty stricken. This paper articulates the issues of education and poverty which is related to that of chicken-egg relationships. The study used secondary data from eight provinces in Kenya. The study correlated the poverty headcount with the educational indicators. It emerged from the data that provinces which had less poverty levels (Central-30.4% and Nairobi 29.5%) experienced high literacy rate, high enrolment and low dropout rate, while regions which had higher levels of poverty headcount (North Eastern-73.9% and Coast-69.7%) experienced low literacy rates, and poor academic performance. The study Concluded that extreme poor are denied access to education, poverty hampers learning in developing countries through poor nutrition, health, home circumstances, quality, costs and inadequate resources for education. The study recommends the government to introduce/re-introduce/strengthen school feeding programme, subsidize school uniform and address the issues of opportunity cost for the extreme poor among others. Key words: education, economic growth, poverty, relationship.

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