MoA Signing Ceremony of IGNOU with Overseas Study Centres

The Indira Gandhi National Open University, set up in 1985 was initially mapped as an Open University at the national level extending its jurisdiction all over India. Since 1997, IGNOU’s academic operations were extended to the overseas through a collaborative mode and the students taking admissions are mostly from the Indian diaspora.

In 2014, a view was taken that keeping in perspective the statute of the University, the Overseas Partner Institutions should be renamed as Overseas Study Centres, meeting all criteria as outlined by the Ministry. In October 2015, MHRD conveyed the approval of the Visitor for IGNOU to establish Nine (09) OSCs outside India in countries, namely, Sri Lanka, Kuwait, Oman, Mauritius, Nepal, Ethiopia, Kenya and Ivory Coast. Out of these 9 OSCs, Coordinators from 4 OSCs visited the University to attend the MoA Signing Ceremony held on 4th Dec. 2015 in the IGNOU headquarters.

These Coordinators were from GCUE (Kuwait), Glory Institute (Oman), ICA (Nepal) and NIT (Nepal). The approved Overseas Study Centres will offer IGNOU’s academic programmes such as Masters, Bachelors, PG Diploma, Diploma and Certificate programmes, approved by the statutory bodies of the University. The fresh admissions (January 2016 session) from these OSCs will commence from 10th December 2015 and the last date of admissions has been kept as 31st Jan. 2016 (without late fees).