This article describes the results of an inquiry undertaken to identify the learner-instituteinteraction in a teacher education programme offered in India. The purpose of this studywas two-fold ---to investigate some of the factors influencing learner-institute interaction as perceived by the adult in-service trainees and to see how these factors were related to the problem of isolation faced by distance learners. The study also reports how distance administrators tried to remove some of these factors and learned to accept others as socioculturalconstraints to interaction.