 Perumalsamy Renga Ramanujam (born 1954) M.A,(Madurai Kamaraj University); PGDES, M.Litt, Dip. In Russian, Ph.D (CIEFL), Certificate in Curriculum Development in DE (OU, UK) is a Professor of Distance Education at the Staff Training and Research Institute of Distance Education (STRIDE) at the Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi. He earned his Ph.D. from the Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages (CIEFL), Hyderabad, India, joined IGNOU in 1986 and has contributed substantially to the development of the Staff Development Programmes of IGNOU: Diploma in Distance Education (DDE) which was upgraded in 1994 as Post-graduate Diploma in Distance Education (PGDDE), and Master of Arts in Distance Education (MADE) in 1993. He was appointed as Director, STRIDE through open selection for the period August 2000-August 2005.
Professor Ramanujam was the Coordinator of Rajiv Gandhi Fellowship Scheme (1996-2004) and STRIDE-IICBA (UNESCO) scheme (2000-2004) under which the Post-graduate Diploma in Distance Education and Masters in Distance Education are offered to international students. He has published 4 books (single authored) and about 60 papers, and edited 2 books. He has visited Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand, the UK, the USA, Germany, Dubai the Gambia, Ghana and Ethiopia to present papers and give lectures to international audience in the field of Open Distance Learning. He is also the Coordinator of Research activities of STRIDE. His specializations are: Open Learning Disability Studies and English Literature. He was the Programme Coordinator of Revision of the 10 courses pertaining to PGDDE and MADE (The revised courses are being offered from 2001 onwards). He was Review Editor of Indian Journal of Open Learning (1992-1996), and its Editor for the period 2000-2002.
He has conducted about 250 workshops to train distance educators and administrators to develop and deliver Open Distance Learning programmes and has given sonsultancy to design 600 units/lessons in different disciplines at the IGNOU and other Institutions of Open Learning in India, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and other developing countries. His publications are extensively cited by well-known scholars of Distance Open Learning internationally. He was consultant to UNESCO-IICBA to plan collaboration in the field of distance education between IGNOU and Africa and subsequently the IICBA-IGNOU scheme has been operating since 2000 covering 7 countries of Africa. He has also worked as Resource Person/Consultant for UNESCO, UNICEF, World Bank, WHO, and other international organizations. He is presently working as Higher Education reforms in India, Governance of Open Universities and Quality Issues in Open Distance Learning.
Correspondence: Professor P.R.Ramanujam, Professor of Distance Education, STRIDE, Block 14, Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi 110 068, India.
E-mail: ramanujam_p_r@hotmail.com; ramanujampr@yahoo.com |
