November 15, 2009

LAUNCH OF IGNOU "OPENLETTER"

On the occasion of its Silver Jubilee Year, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) shall launch "OPENLETTER" a fortnightly newsletter of an International Standard in collaboration with ‘Indo Asian News Service’ (IANS).

In its forthcoming inaugural issue, Prof. V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai, VC IGNOU said that IGNOU has emerged as the largest university in the world. IGNOU has been chosen to host the Pan-Commonwealth Forum 6 (PCF6) in the Silver Jubilee Year, with the theme 'Access and Success in Learning: Global Development Perspectives'.

VC announced that On 19 November 2009, IGNOU enters its 25th year, a significant milestone in its illustrious growth. Today, IGNOU has a formidable profile. With 2.5 million students, 21 Schools of Study and a global presence in 34 countries and 52 Partner Institutions therein, IGNOU today has gone beyond this and is fast emerging as a “University of Choice”. It makes knowledge and skills “available to anybody, anytime, anywhere”.

The Commonwealth of Learning, Canada, has recognized IGNOU as a "Centre of Excellence in Distance Education Training".

Established in 1985, the university’s founding principles were clear: Social inclusion and democratisation of education. It was to provide a powerful alternative to the conventional system of education for the underprivileged.

November 03, 2009

IGNOU explores US Community College model to ensure massive outreach of education

New Delhi:What’s common among Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California, Ellin Collens, Space Shuttle Commander, Oscar Hijuelos, Pulitzer Award winner, a Chemistry Nobel Prize winner, George Lucas, Tom Hanks and Clist Estwood?  All of them started their education at Community Colleges in the United States of America.

IGNOU and American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) today on the campus started dialogues through presentations to evaluate strengths of American model of Community Colleges (CCs) under the aegis of US-India Educational Foundation (USIEF).

A two-member team of AACC, headed by Dr Judith Irwin, Director of International Programmes and Services of the AACC,  discussed a slew of novel ideas in the areas of social development through Community Colleges.

In his welcome address to Dr Judith Irwin, Vice Chancellor Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai said, “The purpose of this interactive is to evaluate and discuss the US model of Community Colleges and integrate it in the IGNOU system of Community Colleges. We at IGNOU and probably other Indian universities too would like to request the AACC to have a formal tie-up for Community Colleges in India . We will commission a focused team of the Community Colleges of IGNOU to discuss more with the USIEF to adopt the US system for the IGNOU Community Colleges.”

Of 700 applicants from all parts of the country IGNOU followed a rigorous process of assessment and standardization and registered 50 Community Colleges in July 2009. Prof Pillai said over 12,000 students from these colleges will take their first semester examinations in December 2009. Prof Pillai also assured audience and the distinguished guests to create a “single window” system for clearance of important decisions and recommendations with regard to CCs.

Dr Judith Irwin gave her presentation on behalf of the AACC, whereas four out of the 50 Community Colleges registered with IGNOU submitted their presentations.

Enthusiasm was very high even as Dr Judith through a presentation explained in details the American model of Community Colleges. In the US the Community Colleges constitute the largest segment of higher education. These include nearly 1,200 institutions with an enrollment of 11 million students, 6 million of whom are seeking a degree or certificate. According to an estimate, in the US, the Community Colleges ensure 83% of the tertiary education, of which higher education is only a part. Set against the achievements in the USA in India the figure is merely 11%.

The meeting of the Indian experts with the American educationists will more and more address the following in the coming days :

·        Community College System in the USA

·        Curricula through skill-based programmes

·        Use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in    

      the pedagogy in Community Colleges

·        Credit articulation and transfer agreement

·        Evolving paradigms

·        Standard Guidelines to individual colleges

Dr Irwin said in the Us there are 1195 CCs. Of these 177 belong to Independent Bodies, 31 to Tribal organiosations and 987 to the government. The CCs there have four categories, for Freshers, Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors. After the Associate Degrees, the freshers and sophomores go vertically mobile to do their graduations and post-graduations and also post-doctoral research. A host of modern vocation-oriented educational programmes and training are offered to students laced with placements, as all these are promoted and supported by the industries.   “The US CCs are accessible, affordable, adaptable, and accountable to all students, both internal as well as international”, said Dr Irwin. “Our alumni from the CCs include Pulitzer Prize winners, Nobel Prize winners, Chief Executives, Scientists, Governors, US Cogressional Rerpresentatives, Producers and actors of films, documentary films and athletes”, she added.

Over 46% of all post-secondary level education is in the CCs in the US, who study in a system of 6.5 million credit programmes, 5.5 million non-credit programmes and the average age of the enrolled students in the US CCs is 28, Dr Irwin said. The most community colleges provide open access, enabling both the US and international students to benefit from the high-quality and low-cost courses they offer.

These students are enormously diverse-in terms of goals, needs, backgrounds, and life circumstances. At the same time, these colleges increasingly recognize that their students will live in a multicultural, interdependent society. For this reason, community colleges are expanding their programs and services to embrace the "world community".

Asked about the acceptability in other countries of the US model of Community Colleges, Dr Irwin said, “As the primary advocacy, leadership, and service organization for community colleges in the United States, AAAC actively supports an international role for community colleges in all dimensions of worldwide education and training. It is evident that the community colleges are strategically positioned and experienced to educate and train individuals to function successfully in a multicultural and advanced technological environment that crosses all boundaries of education, communication, language and business. Community colleges are providing assistance to other countries such as China, Thailand and Vietnam where there is a heightened interest to adopt the US community college model.”

There are feelers, that the best of the American model of the Community Colleges would be considered for integration in the IGNOU Community College system. Stressing the point IGNOU Pro-Vice Chancellor Dr Latha Pillai said, “We are open to ideas. We shall explore for the best practices in the US system and examine whether these are compatible with Indian conditions. Definitely the best examples will be given proper attention.”

Referring to IGNOU’s recent tie-up with Indian Army for setting up Community Colleges to empower the in-service and retired personnel, Vice Chancellor expressed hope that in about five years time the IGNOU enrolment figure will reach 5 million, in which the enrolment in Community Colleges will be a major factor.  The Army colleges apart, scopes are wide open to turn many of the Common Service Centres in village panchayats into vibrant Community Colleges by that time. The American model is gaining on popularity increasingly world over, said Professor Pillai.

October 31, 2009

IGNOU’s novel school launches a mix of studies

New Delhi:IGNOU’s School of Inter-disciplinary and Trans-disciplinary Studies (SOITS) has recently launched a unique MA programme in Anthropology, titled as MA in Social Anthropology.

The programme ensures understanding of Indian communities, especially those ingrown in various tribes and folk cultures. It focuses on history, archaeology, gender and evolves around the fabrics of their lifestyles, beliefs, religions, class-consciousness and heterogeneous behavioural patterns. The study warps and wefts through a wide strata of various communities. A host of niche subjects -- like history, economics, sociology, cultures, Gandhi philosophy and studies thereof, which include contemporary Indian politics, polemics, conflict resolution moves and studies -- have been merged into a curricular discipline. This has made the programme unique by itself. It is a gamut of something about everything, enough for a bureaucrat or a policy-maker, such as bureaucrats, teachers, academic researchers, NGOs working among the societies of various castes and tribes groups, to know from what s/he has to work with.

For students of competitive examinations, the programme offers special insight in understanding the real India, diverse in cultures, colours and streaks and a constant wonder for the uninitiated.

The programme has been offered in face-to-face mode also. Eminent scholars in the subject -- like Prof R S Mann, former director of Anthropological Survey of India -- are taking regular classes during the sessions.

The SOITS is a unique school ever created in an Indian university. Nowhere a school or a completely academic department exists in the country to teach what the bureaucrats would want most to learn from a courseware.

The SOITS also offers an integral M.Sc. to Ph.D. programme in Physics and Astro-Physics launched in collaboration with Indian Institute of Astro Physics (IIAP), Bangalore.

A host of other external collaborators -- such as Puducherry-based SACAR for studies in Aurobindo Philosophy, Education, Psychology and Physiology, Delhi-based Chinmayanada Mission for Sanskrit studies, Vadodara-based Bhasha for Tribal Studies and Kolkata-based Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group for Migration Studies -- have joined IGNOU under the SOITS umbrella.

All these programmes have become very popular, says SOITS director Dr Nandini Sinha Kapur. The school is readying for launching a slew of seminar series to mark the Silver Jubilee Year beginning November 19, IGNOU’s Foundation Day, Dr Kapur added.

October 26, 2009

IGNOU,Ericsson ink pact for 3G Mobile in Services of education

New Delhi:IGNOU on Thursday (29 October, 2009) will sign an MoU with Ericsson India Pvt. Limited (EIL), an Indian chapter of Swedish multinational firm Ericsson, to start application of the third generation (3G) mobile in education delivery.

Students of IGNOU will soon get 3G Mobile services at a very nominal fees, say hardly Rs 20 or Rs 25 more than what they are paying for the normal admissions.

IGNOU Vice Chancellor Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai, Pro-Vice Chancellor Prof KR Srivathsan, who introduced the concept, and Ericsson chief Gowton Achaibar addressed the mediapersons to explain how the 3G technology would reach out the heterogenous echelons of IGNOU students communities.

“It is not the distance education alone, who are going to be the beneficiaries, from the 3G Mobile, even in the conventional university system the students using the technology will be at an edge over others”, said Prof Srivathsan, a distinguished technocrat and former director in IIT Kanpur and IIITM, Thiruvananthapuram.

India has recently launched the Third Generation (3G) Mobile Services. This MoU is aimed at effective use of facilities supported by 3G Mobile services in Open and Distance education. It is a state-of-the-art technology put to connect the remote area learners.

The common SMS today is already used in the course management through SMS alert services. With the 3G, students will be supported with access to parts of the course web pages, downloading files like Assignments and Video clips.

Prof Srivathsan said, “The 3G technology creates wider scopes for a learner. It is a small-screen mega performer which has a browser to scan, stream, build capacities of the users by getting materials at shortest possible application methods. The 3G technology helps a learner stream through video, audio and selective Internet browsing. Downloaded files may be played through laptop or PC. New notebooks with built-in 3G chip sets advanced e-learning services. This will allow consulting with academic counsellors, course coordinators, peer-to-peer discussions etc.”

A small laptop in the notebook built in 3G chip can be a wonderful utility tool for the distance education teachers, particularly for areas where infrastructure and electricity are not available enough. “The 3G technology ensures both web-mentoring and web-proctoring,” explains Prof Srivathsan, “web-mentoring means studying through the 3G chip, consulting with counsellors and/or engaging in peer-to-peer discussions.

The web-proctoring is more expert-driven. It means only the experts and researchers in the M-Learning technologies can participate to effect better application modules. Web-proctoring will ensure not only the two-way audio and video interactives, but also makes possible a delivery of classroom discussion or a seminar in a three-party module.”

He also gave an example, a sign language student, who is hearing and speech impaired, can take his/her classes through the mobile screen of the 3G model of mobile telephony. His/ her learning is more by watching the signs created by the interpreter. In this case a lecture is given at a place, the interpreter interpreting it through sign language is stationed at a different location and a speech and hearing impaired learner watching the signs of the interpreter from a different place. All activities at three points take place simultaneously. The 3G technology can make this possible.

Explaining the students profile at IGNOU, Vice Chancellor Prof Pillai stressed the heterogeneity of the communities of IGNOU, “We are not like the conventional universities. Our students come from all types of communities of the country. They are disadvantaged BPL families, lower income groups, middle class societies and also are highly articulate professionals like engineers, doctors, scientists, professors etc. We cater to all kinds of life of the country. Our 2.5 millions student bases are powerful receptors of the G3 technology.”

Answering a question about the burden of cost on the students communities, Prof Pillai said, “In most cases our students earn and learn. They can provide for the 3G Mobile services for education. Even then, from this collaboration we will charge them hardly Rs 20 or Rs 25 for the 3G Mobile services. But the real cost is likely to be from the TRAI and other services providers.”

Ericsson president Mr Gowton Achaibar in his address stressed, “We Ericsson and IGNOU would create an eco-system for the G3 Mobile technology applied in education. India has about 20% of the world’s population. If we create an ecosystem, delivery of education through the 3G Mobile will become a great success story.”

Replying to the costing aspect for thetechnology being used by students, Mr Acahibar’s deputy P Balaji, chief of marketing said, “The cost will be only for the installation on natural estimate.”

The technology has a niche area of functioning for the university. The cost will increasingly come down with enrolment figures going up. IGNOU is at an advantage in this situation. At present IGNOU disseminates education to over eight (8) million homes through the Edusat-mediate beams of DTH services. Increasingly IGNOU is putting into applications the latest Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to reach out to the unreached in the remote areas of rural India.

Scientists at IGNOU constantly evaluate the latest ICTs to press into services of education. This MoU by IGNOU is yet another niche area specialisation for developing domain knowledge and application scopes.

Swedish firm Ericsson is a trusted name at Communication Networks, Global Telecom Services and Multimedia Solutions. A mega firm with turnover worth SEK 209 billion, Ericsson R&D makes communication around the globe easier by helping operators to bring new services to their customers.

Ericsson ensures faster reliable and cost-effective network infrastrcuture.

Its technologies converge telecom, media and Internet to ensure value-added communication beyond traditional mode. It delivers the complex networks – such as IPTV, Mobile TV, music solutions, messaging and possibility to share information with consumers -- whenever and wherever they want. It ensures expertise at consulting, systems integration, education and support services. According to a company presentation, Ericsson ensures passing of over 40% of world’s mobile traffic through its network. It delivers a new radio-based station which broadcasts every 90 secs. Ericsson has about 24,000 patents to its credits.

October18, 2009

IGNOU steps up RIVET-EZ move to educate & train BPL youths in six states

New Delhi : Orissa’s Phulbani (Kondhmal district) is now in for a good news. Indira Gandhi National Open University will start here from the January session offering vocational and training programmes to educate and train youths from Below Poverty Line (BPL) families in tribal areas of this and five other states. A sprawling house in the district has been hired. Five vocational training and educational programmes have been identified to begin with.

The programmes are :

Certificate in Computer Basics
Certificate in Advanced Computing
Certificate in Job Training
Certificate in Interview Etiquette, and
Diploma in Advanced Computing.

IGNOU Certificate programmes are for six months each. The Diploma programme will be for a year. After clearing the certificates or the diploma, the successfully passed youths will be given employment. The students will be given opportunities to enroll into the programmes of IGNOU on a flexi-mode of learning system.

The programmes will be conducted through a Common Service Centre (CSC) in each village panchayat office at six states – Orissa, MP, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.

All programmes will be carried out online from application to certification stages. For this, the process is on for hiring services of trained teachers from nearby areas to teach and guide the IGNOU students in every village panchayat.

The pass-out students will be employed in various industries in East Zone of India. Initially, the programmes will be run from the hired house until the construction of the Regional Institute for Vocational Education and Training for East Zone (RIVET-EZ), gets completed and handed over to IGNOU. The RIVET-EZ will primarily cover six states – Orrissa, MP, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.

According Prof. Pandav Nayak, former Vice Chancellor of Utkal University and the Officer on Special Duty (OSD) for the RIVET-EZ project, which was cleared by IGNOU Board of Management on November 19, 2008 at its 97th meeting chaired by Vice Chancellor Professor V N Rajasekharan Pillai, construction of the building will soon start. The Council for Integrated Tribal Research and Programmes (CITRAP), which is a non-governmental body taking care of the regional tribal area development, has already allotted a 16.8-acre plot to IGNOU. The CITRAP has joined IGNOU in the project on a public-private partnership understanding. Educational Consultants India Limited (Ed.CIL) has been appointed as the Project Management Agency (PMA) and assigned the responsibility to submit the master plan for the RIVET-EZ in a time-bound task.

For the CSCs, recently IGNOU has signed a memorandum of agreement with SREI Sahaj e-Governance (SAHAJ), a Koltata-based educational and vocational training NGO. The SAHAJ has already obtained a mandate from the Union Department of Information Technology (DOIT) to set up over 27,000 CSCs at six states in the village panchayat level within the current fiscal. The six states are Orissa, four districts of north-west Tamil Nadu, Bihar, eastern UP districts (from Lucknow to Varanasi), Jharkhand and West Bengal. All these areas do not strictly fall under IGNOU’s RIVET-EZ jurisdiction. Nevertheless, according to vice president of SAHAJ, Dr Ranabir Das, who is also the nodal officer incharge of the IGNOU educational and training programmes, the SAHAJ will use all these CSCs for running the RIVET-EZ programmes in its target areas.

Confirms Dr Nayak, “Since the SAHAJ has already started working in villages which do not fall in the RIVET-EZ jurisdiction strictly, and because of the fact that the IGNOU’s RIVET programme will gradually be expanded to cover entire under-developed areas of the country, we have agreed to take our programmes also to the existing SAHAJ target areas.”

For the youths of the BPL families in these under developed tribal areas, the CSCs at village panchayats will ensure an environment both for learning and employment. The concept of CSCs is particularly helpful to women and children of the villages and the BPL families who for various socio-economic reasons cannot travel a distance to attend a school or training institute for education and vocational apprenticeships. The CSCs will provide these opportunities.

The RIVET-EZ is a part of development programmes of IGNOU through education and training to the grassroots. For the eight states in the North East, a RIVET-type IGNOU Institute of Vocational Education and Training (IIVET) has already been made functional from a hired house at Shillong, Meghalaya. Four more RIVETS will be set up soon for other zones of the country.

October12, 2009

IGNOU inks MoU with AEPC for a slew of skill-based Programmes

New Delhi:IGNOU today signed an MoU with Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) for a slew of apparel industry specific educational programmes. AEPC comprises Apparel Management and Apparel Training and Design Centres (ATDC) which are non-profit industry-managed organisations promoting manufacture and exports of garments, education and training in the domain.

The MoU was signed by IGNOU’s Registrar (Administration) Dr U S Tolia and AEPC Director General for education and training Dr Darlie Koshy in presence of Vice Chancellor of IGNOU Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai and AEPC Chairman Mr Rakesh Vaid.

The MoU aims to institute educational programmes in the skill-based domain of apparel, garments, fashion designing which will ensure employment to a large cross-section of the society. The two arms of the AEPC, Institute of Apparel Management (IAM) and ATDC, have already developed a few programmes for niche areas of functioning in the apparel industry. This MoU will ensure IGNOU certification and scaling up for further domain knowledge. It is hoped that the MoU will boost professionals in ‘fibre to fashion’ chain of textile, apparel and retail industries.

The MoU also ensures exploration of possibilities to set up Activity Centre to create avenues for gainful employment in textile, apparel, lifestyle and retail sectors.

A joint coordination committee consisting of five experts will be set up comprising IGNOU and AEPC experts and academics related to the textiles industry. The tie-up will especially address following areas of interests:
• Exclusive use of networks of IGNOU, IAM and ATDC to get skill-development of the unreached segment of the society,
• Innovative tech-voc academic programmes by share of expertise,
• Joint market surveys to develop need-based approach to help the professionals in their career pathways,
• Creation of ICT-driven delivery culture
• Development of new concepts and white papers for bridging education and industry requirements.

There are 52 ATDC facilities in the country which will be used to provide vocational education certifiable by IGNOU according to the IGNOU standards. Confirming this Dr Koshy said, “The programmes will be technical and vocational. These will be for certificates, diplomas and degrees. All programmes will be in modular manner between IGNOU, and AEPC’s arms ATDC and IAM”. Various models to make use of the ATDC network will be explored following the MoU, such as distance education model, community colleges, open education norms etc., said Koshy.

Vice Chancellor Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai lauded the AEPC for the move to educate and empower lakhs of youth who want to join the apparel industry for gainful careers. This initiative will underline IGNOU’s commitment to the goals of the National Skills Mission, which target creation of livelihood opportunities for needy individuals.

October 8, 2009

IGNOU signs MoU with Papua New Guinea Varsity of technology

New Delhi:Indira Gandhi National Open University today signed a generic memorandum of understanding with an island nation on the Pacific, Papua New Guinea’s University of Technology (PNG UNITECH), for a slew of educational and training programmes. This makes IGNOU’s presence in 34 countries with 53 partner institutions (PIs) abroad.

The PNG UNITECH has a dedicated Open and Distance Learning department, which will further its ODL outreach in collaboration with IGNOU.

The IGNOU programme at the PNG UNITECH are likely to start from July 2010 session. According to Dr Silima Nanda, director incharge of IGNOU’s International Division, the identification of programmes for education and training, meetings of the joint coordination committee etc will take about 3-4 months. As the country has its session beginning from February and ours in January and July, some standard understanding will have to be developed before the IGNOU programmes take off in the island nation.

The MoU envisages development of cultural, educational and scientific ties of cooperation between the two universities. The MoU will also encourage academic exchange and collaboration to advance education and training in the two institutions.

Besides usual common goals of higher education and training, the tie-up aims to offer degree, diploma and certificate programmes at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels and stress Research and Development, application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) education and interactive multimedia and interactive education deliveries. The stress will eventually expand the educational horizon of the island nation especially in areas of ODL, multimedia and ICTs.

To these goals, a network for cooperation in the field of higher education will be developed in distance education. There will be faculty exchange and sharing of experiences time to time, said the MoU. According to the representatives of the PNG UNITECH, the expertise from IGNOU and joint R&D projects, applications of ICTs and multimedia in distance education will develop the island university greatly to start newage
academic programmes.

Said Professor Mohammad Abdus Sattar, the UNITECH’s pro-Vice Chancellor for academic affairs, the island has 400,000 sqaure kilometres in area, six universities and about 30 colleges of all types. The UNITECH intends to bring in modern curricula for students. It has 13 degree programmes which includes four (4) in engineering, three (3) in natural sciences such as agriculture, food technology etc., environment research and management studies among others. The UNITECH has three (3) affiliated colleges which are technology oriented for forestry, timber, nursing etc and seven research centre.

October 8, 2009

Admissions at IGNOU for January session are on in full swing

New Delhi:Admissions for January session 2010 to all 310 programmes at Indira Gandhi National Open University advertised in national dailies on May 24, 2009, are on in full swing. Thirteen (13) more programmes have been added to the list for the January session, taking the number of programmes on offer to 323. The campus and its Regional Centres are humming with hectic activities.

Mr K Laxman, who looks after the students registration, said today that applications for admissions without any Late Fee will be received till 31 October 2009 for the January 2010 session at all regional centres as well as at the concerned schools. Those who would miss the last date may still apply for enrolment till November 30, 2009 with a late fee of Rs 200 only.

Prospectuses will be available at all the Regional Centres as well as the counter at the Headquarters.

Many programmes in areas like Tourism, Hospitality, Optometry, Education Technology, Fashion, Merchandising, Textiles, Folklore, Aqua-culture, BPO, Actuarial Science, Animation, Aviation etc. are among the newly developed programmes on offer. These are for studies at various levels, from Diploma to PhD.

Details of programmes, eligibility of admissions, names and contact numbers of programme coordinators with their email address are all printed in the prospectuses. Students will also be able to access all these information in the website, www.ignou.ac.in.

IGNOU has ensured that a student can walk-in for admission anytime of the year. They can also register online for any programme according to their suitability of time and eligibility.

Admissions to Community Colleges registered with IGNOU are also open. Over 100 Community Colleges have registered with IGNOU since the launch of the scheme on July 4 last. Out of these, admissions are being granted to 58 Community Colleges at present. In all 9,111 students have taken admission in these 58 colleges, said Laxman. Students intake and launch of programmes at other Community Colleges are in progress, he added.

September 29, 2009

IGNOU extends date for submission of exam forms

New Delhi:Indira Gandhi National Open University has extended the last date for submission of Examination Fees for the December examinations without any late fee upto October 1, 2009

The decision has been taken because the banks will not function on September 30, said a recent notice.

September 29, 2009

IGNOU workshop evolves guidelines for setting up Community Colleges

New Delhi:IGNOU recently released a slew of recommendations to institutions registered with it for starting Community Colleges. The recommendations were made by experts at the conclusion of the three-day workshop to “Develop guidelines for preparation of Text-Books and Training Manuals” for these colleges.

Explaining what these colleges have to do to meet the requirements of IGNOU’s Degrees and Certificates, the convener of the workshop and director of Student Services Division of the university Dr C K Ghosh said :

•IGNOU will train the trainers and resource persons, who develop coursewares at Community Colleges at every region, to ensure compliance of standard requirements.
•All such colleges will have to be provided with the university’s standard norms for fixing the required credits for achieving certificates and the norms must have to be strictly translated into the Text-Books and Training Manuals.
•Each Community College will have to be provided with standard sample Text-Books and Training Manuals to develop their own coursewares.

At brainstorming sessions for three days, issues were discussed threadbare to evolve guidelines. Experts agreed that the level of programmes will be uniform at all Community Colleges. In cases of full-time face-to-face classes, a credit will consist of 15 hours of attendance and in part-time situations it will comprise 30 hours. A student will be required to study for creditisation as under :

•A Certificate 16 to 20 credits
•A Diploma 32 to 36 credits
•An ADP 64 to 68 credits (ADB stands for Associate Degree Programme)
•An UG programme 96 to108 credits (an UG stands for Under Graduate programme. The undergraduate programmes are 3 years for a BA, BSc and 4 years for technical subjects.

There will also be non-credit programmes for certification and these will be customized according to need of the state and the concerned trade or individuals.

Students for the ADPs will have to be 12+2 pass-outs for direct entry. Those who could not complete or do their Plus 2 stage would have to come through Bachelors’ Preparatory Programme (BPP) of IGNOU or through a Bridge Course of an Open University.

For students aspiring to get admitted to a Certificate programme at a Community College, the entry level is only class 8th pass-out, or through a bridge course of an Open University. Any formal qualification will not be required for taking admission for a certificate in certain special vocations where the applicant is already employed in a domain knowledge scenario.

Experts were unanimous over the issue to development or academic programmes on vocations. It has been decided that the stress will be on Local-needs, addressing issues in the Socio-Economic Milieu and there would be regular need analyses to identify broad areas of state-needs.

That eventually led to addressing programme contents. For Foundation Courses, said the draft recommendation under consideration of the competent authority at IGNOU, the coursewares would comprise training on skills development in soft areas, language,
functional English speaking, computer literacy, communicative arts and entrepreneurial; for Application-oriented Sunjects there would be internships, hands-on training and extension apprenticeships.

The three-day workshop was chaired by IGNOU Vice Chancellor Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai. Were among the eminent experts in Community College concept, who attended the workshop.

Fr. Xavier Alphonse S.J., ICRDCE, Chennai, Mr. Vikas Singh, Director, Crux Management Services P Ltd., Hyderabad, Ms. Nalini Gangadharan, Chairperson, CAP Foundation, Hyderabad, Dr. Stephen J. Muthu SJ, Director, Madurai Community College, Dr. Ms. Ordetta Mendoza, Stella Maris College, Chennai, Prof. Anil Bhattacharya, Former Professor of Physics, APC College, New Barrackpore, Kolkata, Prof. JK Sharma, OSD, Institute of Management Sciences, University of Lucknow, rof. S. Neelamegham, Director General NIILM, New Delhi, Prof. Sunita Sengupta, FMS, University of Delhi, New Delhi, Dr. Pankaj Sinha, Associate Professor, FMS, University of Delhi, Prof. HM Mishra, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administrations, Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, Prof. Bharati Sharma, Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi and Prof Vijay Kapur, ex-IAS and former Seattle University (USA) professor at Community Colleges.

IGNOU Pro-Vice Chamcellor and incharge of the Community College Scheme Dr. Latha Pillai, and eminent scientist in Information and communication technologies (ICTs) Prof KR Srivathsan were also present at the workshop.

September 23, 2009

Meira Kumar launches IGNOU Foundation Course in Bhojpuri

New Delhi:Remember that lilting Hindi film song – Ganga Maiya Tohe Piyari Charhaibo, Saiyan se Karde Milanwa -- of 1960s? Indians born after 1960s may not be able to relate to its significance today. But such is its charm and cadence, the song is nostalgically appreciated even today as a symbol of ethos of Indian society.

While launching an IGNOU programme of Foundation Course in Bhojpuri today here at India Habitat Centre, Lok Sabha Speaker Smt Meira Kumar referred to the cadence of the language and its rich vocabulary which has developed its literature.

Addressing a gathering of IGNOU academics and mediapersons, Smt Kumar said in Bhojprui that over 20 crore people speak in this language. They are spread in all parts of the country and also live in substantial number in Trinidad & Tobago, Fiji, Mauritius and Surinam. As a language Bhojpuri is so rich that it has an epic, powerful vocabulary and people willing to interact in natural inter-personal communication. “Barhka kaam bhaila,” she said in Bhojpuri to the applause of the gathering, adding that the word ‘piyari’ is just not Hindi or Bhojpuri, but is a symbol of Indian essence and divinity.

IGNOU Vice Chancellor Professor V N Rajasekharan Pillai announced to set up a Centre for Bhojpuri language and Literature and Culture in the campus.

According to the scheme of the foundation course at IGNOU, students of BA, BCom, BSW will have options to offer Bhojprui as a course. This is the beginning only. Soon the language will be on offer for Certificate, Diploma, Degree, MA and PhD programmes gradually, announced Prof Shatrughna Kumar. Introduction of Bhojpuri in the programme is Prof Kumar’s sole initiative. “There will be many more opportunities to learn the language in depth and also culture its literature”, he said.

If a language has developing and constantly evolving literature, running over centuries and spoken with verve by over 2 million people, why cannot it be included in the 8th schedule? The question was dogging, though unexpressed in the launch ceremony.

Asked in the sidelines separately, about the prospect of the language’s being included in the 8th Schedule of Constitution, Prof Kumar said that would depend on the empowered committee to make the necessary recommendations. “In the last meeting they did not consider it, even though huge humanity speak in the language.”

The 8th Schedule today lists only 22 languages of India. Bhojpuri, with over 20 crore speakers, definitely has a chance to be included in near future. Besides India, it is spoken far and wide in Mauritius, Fiji, Trinidad & Tobago and Surinam.

Sahitya Academy sources also do not seem to have any clue. The premier institution of the country’s literature and language does not carry out promotional programme on Bhojprui. Asked, a senior official said in confidence, “We do not promote it, though probably the language deserves a better treatment in terms of inclusion in the 8th Schedule.

However, the empowered committee in the government system is yet to begin thinking over the issue. A sustained social inclusion of language is possible only if there is a proper effort to recognise it as a national language. Until that happens, Amitabh Bachchans and Mithun Chakrabortys may continue to stir Bhojpuri nostalgia, without cementing much gain for the literarti in Bhojpuri.

September 16, 2009

IGNOU starts bus services for on-campus full-time students

New Delhi:IGNOU has started  bus services for its students enrolled in on-campus, full-time programmes. It will be IGNOU special bus service. Two buses will start from Khokha Market of Saket to the IGNOU campus and return from IGNOU Academic Complex to Khokha market in Saket, everyday.

The schedule is as under :

From Saket (Khoka Market)

Bus No. I   :   0830    0915            1000            1045            1130   
Bus No. II  :   0845    0930            1015            1100            1145

From IGNOU

Bus No. I  :      1400    1445            1530            1615            1700
Bus No. II :      1430    1515            1600            1645            1800

Bus Stops inside IGNOU campus
1.         Parking Place near main gate.
2.         T-Junction near Block-7.
3.         EMPC Junction.
4.         Convention Centre.
5.         Academic Complex (Guest House side).

Flagging off the bus services for the students today in the afternoon at the IGNOU Academic Complex, Vice Chancellor Prof VN Rajasekharan Pillai hoped such development s will boost community life in the campus. Students will not be required to pay any fees for availing themselves of the bus service.

Vice Chancellor Professor V N Rajasekharan Pillai has fixed a deadline of October 31st for completion of the construction of the classrooms.

September 15, 2009

IGNOU targets real-life vocations in maiden workshop for Com.Colleges

New Delhi:With a view to empowering the grassroots disadvantaged youths of India, IGNOU today started a three-day National Workshop on Development of Text-Books and Training manuals for Community Colleges.

Three programmes are being considered through these colleges -- Certificate, Diploma and Associate Degree Programme (ADP). It is a story of development of grassroots India more than just education delivery.

Twentyfive eminent experts from across the country have arrived to discuss, deliberate upon and standardise text-books and training manuals on a broad range vocational areas where untrained humanity is engaged in the country to earn livelihood.

These experts are from various Community Colleges who are running  237 programmes, many of which are general subjects taught in all universities. The workshop aims to standardise the niche vocational subjects only. There are suggestions for multiple modes of teaching and training for many areas, which also need to be standardised

On completion of the ADP, a student will get direct admission to the third year of degree course for his/her degree, if s/he so desires. Otherwise, in each course they will be empowered with certification.

IGNOU, by way of being the premier Open and Distance Learning institution in the country, has phenomenal expertise in the area of development of self-learning materials (SLMs).

The programmes are targeted to be the need-based of the community and State-needs education. The Community colleges will be given total autonomy as regards to the conduction of the programmes. Every community college will be required to create three regulatory bodies, which are : a Community College Board, an Academic Committee, and an Examination Committee.

So far 62 Community Colleges have been registered with IGNOU. There are a few Community Colleges already being run by NGOs and central universities like, Pondicherry University, Puducherry and MS University, Thirunelvelli. These apart, the Indian Army has about 47 regimental centres, which will be turned into community colleges

Welcoming the experts, Vice Chancellor Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai, said that IGNOU will not present any text-book to the community Colleges, but will offer the framework of curricula so that the colleges are able to create their required text-books and training manuals. There will be total freedom and autonomy for the colleges, IGNOU will only offer guidelines. “Institutionalising of Community Colleges is what we are doing,” he said.

IGNOU Pro-Vice Chancellor Dr Latha Pillai, the person behind the IGNOU Community College Scheme, said, “It is the first cycle of the scheme at present. We have received offers to register with IGNOU from various institutions interested to set up Community Colleges at their institutions. Some focus on teaching, some on training. But we would like to see blending of the both for proper Community Colleges. We have selected 72 institutions from the Indian Centre for Research and Development of Community Education (ICRDCE). We will take ideas from experiences from institutions like Pondicherry University and  M S University to develop a standard framework of models. We would love to see it in Reverse Transfer model. That means, enabling students, who have enrolled in conventional universities, to join the Community Colleges too for honing their innate skills and enhancing employability.”

Dr C K Ghosh, Director of IGNOU’s Student Services Unit, who convened the workshop, suggested that the workshop should be able to complete the process of developing the Text-Books and Training Manuals on face-to-face model, and not exactly on the IGNOU ODL style of SLMs, because students in these colleges will pursue studies in face-to-face and part-time classrooms. However, the texture of the course materials must be in SLMs pattern so that they feel interested and drawn towards the programmes, he advised.

Prof. Vijay Kapur, retired IAS who joined as adviser (project) of IGNOU and who taught for four years in a Seattle (USA)-based Community College, said that studying in Community Colleges in the USA for one’s degree is not considered inferior to the conventional system. Rather they are considered superior in many ways to the graduates from the conventional education system because they also have hands-down real-life experience.  Professionals, school drop-outs and those interested to update professional skills for getting jobs, are people who study in the USA systems, he added.

Dr Xavier Alphonse, Director of ICRDCE, who is working for development of the Community Colleges movement in the country for over two decades, suggested three methods to approach the framework for text-books and training manuals:

·        Foundation Course and a certificate to the learners

·        Designing the courseware to ensure vertical mobility of  learners, and

·        Ensuring Placement with Internship at an industrial setup.

September 14, 2009

IGNOU workshop for text-books, manuals of Community Colleges begins today

New Delhi:IGNOU has convened a three-day national workshop on “Development of Text-Books and Training Manuals for Community Colleges” from Tuesday (15-17 September) in the campus.

The expected outcome of the workshop is a set of guidelines preparation of the Text-Books and Training Manuals for the Community Colleges. Many eminent personalities, who have significantly contributed to development of such Text-Books and Training Manuals have confirmed their participation in the workshop.

The Community College is a novel idea to help the millions of school and college drop-outs and those disadvantaged humanity who cannot pursue higher education because they find entry to a conventional system  difficult. These Colleges offer tailor-made educational programmes which address local needs. They use approaches most acceptable to workers in a given society.

The national workshop will look into areas of typical programmes at community colleges. These are :

• Computer Literacy
• Soft Skills
• Tailoring
• Fashion Design
• Mobile Phone Servicing
• Motor Cycle Repair
• Desktop Publishing
• Embroidery
• Pre-primary Teachers’ Training
• Clinical Laboratory Assistance

Says Dr CK Ghosh, who is coordinating for the workshop, “An important task on hand in respect of the scheme is to develop Text-books and Training Manuals for the Community Colleges. IGNOU, by way of being the number one Open and Distance Learning institution in the country, has phenomenal expertise in the area of development of Self Learning Materials (SLMs). As the programmes of the Community Colleges will be handled primarily in face-to-face mode, the colleges will be in need of Text-Books and Training Manuals. Keeping the autonomy factor in mind the role of preparation of the said documents will be entrusted with the colleges with suitable guidance from IGNOU.”

The conventional system of education always has been based on the concept of “Learning to know”. That did not help enough to democratize education in the country. This alternative mode of education through Community Colleges is an initiative to that direction.

Says Dr Latha Pillai, Pro-Vice Chancellor of IGNOU, “It is an alternative education system which aims to empower individuals through appropriate skills development leading to gainful employment. Certification by IGNOU will ensure them gainful employment. It encourages students who may want to attend a three-year degree but are not academically, personally or economically ready to begin study in the formal system. In a community college a student can choose to work towards a associate degree (two-year) in hundreds of academic and technical fields, which will enable them to get admitted to a regular college or university for completion of a degree. The students have choices to pursue continuing education in whatever format suitable to them, face-to-face, online, full-time, and part-time.”

According to the IGNOU Community College scheme, these colleges will have functional autonomy. They will set up three regulatory bodies :

• Community College Board
• Academic Committee
• Examination Committee

September 9, 2009

IGNOU,U21 Global hold Webinir to interact with enrolled students

New Delhi:Indira Gandhi National Open University today (Sept 7, 2009) conducted a Webinar on its Executive MBA in IT Management (EMBA) programme. The EMBA is programme developed according to requirement of the IT industry and was recently launched by IGNOU in collaboration with Singapore-based Universitas 21 Global (U21 Global).

The Webinar – a seminar held on the web -- was aimed to address its students across the world.

Fortyeight of the enrolled 63 students of this collaborative programme joined the Webinar. They interacted with their teachers and spoke from India, Australia, Singapore and UAE. The entire programme has an innovative approach to issues and topics of Executive MBA in IT Management. Students posed their queries and discussed solutions.  

The Webinar was conducted from IGNOU by Prof  K Subramanian,  Director of IGNOU’s Advanced Centre for Informative and Innovative Learning (ACIIL) and Prof Vijay Kapoor, Executive Director, and from Singapore by Prof Win Lam, Dean of U21 Global.

Vice Chancellor Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai presided over the Webinar.   

The Webinar was recorded and uploaded to the niche web portal for EMBA in IT Management Programme, www.u21global.edu.sg, for students who could not join today, due to time variance. However, the recorded Webinar can be opened anytime from anywhere in the world by the enrolled students at their pace and convenience.

It is for the first time any university in the country conducted a Webinar to discuss educational points with its enrolled students across the globe at an interactive session.

Sources at U21 Global say that the portal www.u21global.edu.sg has an icon ‘e-class’ in which all students will put questions or queries about anything with regard to the course materials, and the programme, which will be answered through the same within 24 hours by the concerned teacher of the EMBA programme. All 63 students had logged on today at various times to the e-class to attend their courses of studies. They will soon be invited for orientation programme called Students Orientation Programme (SOP) and will be asked to pose  questions and queries in the ‘e-class’ which will be answered with 24 hours by the concerned teachers as teacher-to-students interactives and also by peer-to-peer solutions.

According to the terms of the collaboration between IGNOU and U21 Global, students will follow the course materials of the U21 Global for Executive Certificate in Global IT Management (CGITM). Thereafter, they will have to pursue IGNOU course materials for six months and will qualify for the Executive MBA in IT Management (EMBA) degree. Thus they will get two certificates. The entire programme will require one and a half years of studies online.

September 8, 2009

20 classrooms Block at IGNOU campus by Oct-end

New Delhi:IGNOU is humming with students activities. Over 350 students have started attending their regular face-to-face classes. To meet the space requirement, today (September 8, 2009), on the National Literacy Day, the university laid its foundation stone opposite its Convention Centre, for a 20-classrooms block  for running on-campus face-to-face programmes.

Vice Chancellor Professor V N Rajasekharan Pillai has fixed a deadline of October 31st for completion of the construction of the classrooms.

September 8, 2009

IGNOU Launches novel course on Folkfore and culture studies

New Delhi:IGNOU’s School of Interdisciplinary and Trans-disciplinary Studies  (SOITS) has developed an innovative Diploma Programme in folklore and culture studies, ‘PG Diploma in Folklore and Culture  Studies (PGDFCS)’. From this July 2009 session, the students get an entirely novel offer in culture studies, comprehensive and detailed, with anecdotal references to the ethos of cultures of the world.

It is a synergistic approach to studies of cultures and folklores of the world, with special reference to Indian tradition. Indian culture is entwined in the ethos of life of the subcontinent on which the SOITS  has laid thrusts for studies.

The Programme fee will be Rs 2,000 only. The students will be given one to four years to complete the Diploma in flexi-mode, through the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) method.

The programme, PGDFCS, is the brainchild of SOH’s Associate Professor of English, Dr Nandini Sahu, who belongs to the IGNOU School of Humanities. She said, “The PGDFCS students will have to study for 30 credits under five courses. These are : Folklore and Culture : Conceptual perspectives;Tradition, Identity and Cultural Production; Cultural and Societal Transformation; Tribes of India: Identity, Culture and Lore; and a Project Report of 20,000 words, based on the studies of the aforesaid four courses. This Project Report would constitute  the special aspect in this Programme. The students will have to go through various theoretical approaches and undertake case studies to understand and approach   folklore and cultures” Dr.Sahu informed. She further added that the course can be very interesting with units based on folk art, oral and written traditions of folk literature, folk music, dance, drama, puppetry, archiving, tribes and the forest and the preservation of culture.

Four blocks are the basic structure of each course on which the Project Report has to be written. The School expects that the students will study meticulously enough to be able to develop a standpoint about how best the cultures and folklores can be preserved. Stress has been given to enable the learners to look at future of the civilisation while keeping the past untainted from aberrations or wrong interpretations.  To ensure that, classical approaches to the preservation of cultures , the issue of language death and language preservation also have been discussed in the programme.  

September 4, 2009

Gyan Deep:Indian Army - IGNOU Community Colleges Launched

New Delhi:Indira Gandhi National Open University and Indian Army today (Friday, September 4, 2009) signed a memorandum of understanding to start 47 Community Colleges at Regimental Army Training Academies, which will be turned into Army-IGNOU Community Colleges. These colleges collectively will be called Gyan Deep.  

The MoU seeks to confer educational certification to soldiers within the parameters of IGNOU system, and recognise the “in-service” training done on them at the Army Training Academies. A 5-member Joint Consultative Committee (JCC) representing IGNOU and the Indian Army will be formed to put in place a structured curriculum for a two-year (four semesters, 64 credits) Associate Degree and well-defined guidelines for in-service soldiers to enhance their education and upgrade skills.

According to the MoU, a soldier, desirous to enhance his educational standard, will take admission to a Community College in his/her training academy and will pursue the course according to his/her time and pace. After completion of two years, s/he will be entitled for an Associate Degree. If the candidate wants to pursue higher education after acquiring the Associate Degree, s/he will be given lateral entry to the third year of the three-year degree course for graduation. The certificate will empower him/her to get the second career after retirement from the Army. The MoU envisages that the training modules for the Associate Degree will be designed and provided by the Army and IGNOU academics, while the certification will be done by IGNOU. The joint development of the training modules for the degrees will be need-based and decided by the JCC, which will also look into award of credits and other related matters. A liaison cell for the Army will be set up in IGNOU headquarters. 

It is a historic MoU in the lexicon of the Indian Army, as, for the first time a strong step has been taken forward to utilise services of about 50,000 retiring soldiers – an of asset of disciplined, hardy, trained, intelligent human capital --  in the nation building processes. The degrees acquired through the community colleges will empower them enough to secure a second career in a vocation after retirement from the Army.

A community college is an alternative system of education which aims to empower individuals through appropriate skills development. The educational programmes in these colleges are tailor-made to the local needs and state-based requirements. The programmes are generally most acceptable to workers in the target communities. The training and education in the community colleges help students get gainful employment, as the programmes are designed in collaboration with the local industry and communities.

Community colleges are wonderful opportunities for the school drop-outs, lateral entrants into the higher education and those in the workforce who find entry in the formal system rigid. The soldiers, who gather immense real-life experience, hardiest training, have wonderful tenacity to work hard and for long hours find getting a job very difficult, as they don’t generally have formal academic qualification. The certificates gathered through the community colleges will provide them with necessary qualification and also will ensure them the need-based skills development training required by the target communities.

Otherwise also the community colleges will provide the fastest option for a student who wants a career-oriented qualification and may not even require a three-year degree. For example, a student, who takes one-year diploma of 32 credits as a pharmacy technician or a 16-credit certificate in insurance in a community college, may take education in other course from IGNOU’s 310 programmes. His or her credits will be transferred to speed up his or her education and degree on successful clearance.

For Army personnel, the community colleges are of high relevance. The Indian Army recruits personnel with three broad categories of educational qualification – below 12 class, class 12 pass and graduates and above. After serving the Army and retiring at a young age of 45, they often come across stiff competition in the job-market for a second career due to lack of a formal degree. Education and training of the highest order are required for the army personnel.

Touching upon this, Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) General Deepak Kapoor said, “We are moving toward a future of real-life high technology, knowledge and competitive opportunities. We need a very high order of trained, professional and competent Army. The soldiers are expected to be the role models to the society. As we need a very young Army, we take them even before they are 10 plus or 10+2. for 20 or 25 years they give the best time of their youths and at 38-40 they have to retire to serve themselves and the society. We need to exploit their discipline, capabilities to work hard and training. That is why there are demand of ex-service personnel in enterprises, industries and security. A formal degree such as this opportunity offered by IGNOU will enhance both their education, capacities better second career.”

Welcoming the MoU, Army Adjutant General Lt Gen Mukesh Sabharwal termed the new move as “a fusion of visions of COAS and IGNOU VC Prof Pillai who had the nation at their heart.”

Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai, IGNOU VC, referred to the national skills level of workforce. “It is about 5%, according to an ILO study, as against over 80% in advanced countries. It is an initiative for certification of skills, knowledge and training. This will create a revolutionary education system in the country in the areas of capacity-building, skills upgradation and vertical mobility. IGNOU has a lot of skills and skills development materials which it will make available to the Army. A person recruited by the Army gets real-life experience in training, knowledge and skills. Their entry into the Community College system will not only increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of the country to education and higher education, it will also impact the Gross Graduation Ratio (GGR). This is a major revolution. The universities and the Higher Education institutions of this country should take this model. This MoU will also ensure optimal utilisation of intellectual and infrastructural opportunities of the country.

Pro-Vice Chancellor Dr Latha Pillai, reminded the audience that the community colleges are the best linkages between the left-out and the entrants to the higher education. “IGNOU and Army have potentials to make the Community College Movement successful, she said, adding, “After all, the community colleges are of the communities, for the communities and by the communities.”

In his vote of thanks, Director-General (Manpower Planning & Personnel Services) Lt Gen V K Chaturvedi said, “Nothing empowers a soldier more than knowledge. The degrees will stem the loss of the immense  experience of the human resource, retiring from the Army.”

September 2, 2009

IGNOU is gearing to take Community Colleges to N-E.

New Delhi:North East states will soon set up a score of community colleges. About 30 organisations from eight north-eastern states of the country faced a screening interview board at IGNOU headquarters last Thursday (20 August 2009) and presented their claims for setting up a community college in each of their premises.

An introductory meeting was held after the screening. The university’s designated unit, Educational Development for North East Unit (EDNERU), has decided to assign a community college to any applicant institute which is established and has adequate infrastructure to run the community vocational classes. Among applicants are some who are  already running orphanages, homes for the elders and women destitutes and engaged in other charitable work.

Asked how many Community Colleges would be set up in the NE in the first phase, PVC Prof Om Prakash Mishra said that proposals were still coming. IGNOU will at present grant permission to about 25 established institutes. It will scan other applicants gradually.

“Our initiatives to foster and promote Community Colleges in the eight states of the North-East India would further deepen IGNOU’s commitment and penetration. Being the largest player in educational area of the North East, the Community College Scheme would further add to IGNOU’s vision and mission to the region,” he said.

In his inaugural address to the applicants, Vice Chancellor VN Rajasekharan Pillai explained how popular these colleges are in the Western countries. The concept needs to be developed well in India, he said, because India has the largest youth population of which only 5% in the age-group of 20-24 have obtained vocational skills through formal means. Industrialised countries have over 60% to 90%. “At present in the country, we have only 2.5 million vocational training seats, whereas 12.8 million enter the labour market every year,” he added.

IGNOU is working as the facilitating agency for such colleges.  EDNERU deputy director Dr Jayashree Kurup briefed the applicants about the tasks of work they have to undertake should they be granted the Community Colleges. The context is the new initiatives to promote educational development both soft and hard skills in the Community Colleges.                  

The scheme is already operational in southern part of India, in about 120 institutions and NGOs. IGNOU will not directly fund the prospective institutions, but will put all efforts to bring funds to these institutes from various ministries and departments of the government.

A community college aims to generate skilled manpower in the job market. It has an open access admission policy. The students can enter and go out at any time s/he desires, suiting to his/her timings. The target groups for such colleges are drop-outs, late entrants to higher education and working people who find entry into the normal system of education rigid. The students are allowed to pursue continuing education through all meaningful formats – face-to-face, online, full-time, part-time. IGNOU has put a system in place by which the educational and vocational empowerment of students will be faster and they will be able to go for career-oriented qualification in which a three-year degree certificate will be required. On completion of the first two-years, with their time and space, the students will be eligible to get the Associate Degree. After that, if a student is willing to further his/her education and training, may be given direct entry to the third year of three-year degree course to get a graduation degree.

Quotable quotes: 

1. Community Colleges gels well with what Late Prime Minister Smt. Indira Gandhi said, “Education should inculcate a life-long habit of learning. And today, that is all the more necessary, because the corpus of knowledge in increasing at a tremendous pace.”

2. To quote National Knowledge Commission chairman, Sam Pitroda, “A community College is neither a people’s movement nor a parallel system of education. It is just a way of restructuring our education system, so that we can provide all opportunities to a large number of people with the ability to migrate. I see Community Colleges as instruments of mobility”.

3. Prof. VN Rajasekharan Pillai : “The government plans to open more Community Colleges across the country with focus on skill development, during the Eleventh Plan period. Such colleges provide an open-access admission policy.  It fulfils the mandate of the National Skill Mission and bring hopes to drop-outs and lateral entrants to higher education.”  

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September 2, 2009

IGNOU reactivates collabaration with LBSNAA.

New Delhi:Indira Gandhi National Open University recently has reactivated collaboration with Mussoorie-based Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) for a masters programme, MA (Public Policy), for civil servants. The university is planning to launch it by mid-September.

A Joint Consultative Committee will soon be formed with representation of academics from both IGNOU and the LBSNAA. The JCC will ensure that the Ayyar Committee recommendations for continuous education of  civil servants are well implemented. The training in the programme, and standard must respond to the norms of accreditation and assessment of IGNOU for certification. Coordination of the MA (Public Policy) is Prof. Pardeep Sahni.

IGNOU Vice Chancellor’s adviser for special projects Prof Vijay Kapoor, (IAS 1977 batch of Bihar cadre), said that the dissertations from the civil servant probationers need to meet the standard of IGNOU. Once it is charted down, the JCC will sit for meeting for the programme.

Necessity of the programme was felt owing to the changing social scenario of the country, to which the civil servants have to be highly focussed, particularly in matters relating to public policies of the government. The MA (Public Policy) will give special light in these areas.

September 2, 2009

Sheila Dixit Launches IGNOU MA in Gender Studies Programme.

New Delhi:Chief Minister Smt Sheila Dixit today in the IGNOU campus launched the IGNOU programme of MA in Gender Studies in face-to-face on-campus mode. Thirteen students have been given admission after tests and scrutiny, two are male applicants.

The programme have been developed by IGNOU School of Gender Development Studies for the current session. The school is functioning under the direction of reputed Hindi poet Savita Singh and is being supervised by PVC Dr Latha Pillai.

Women are the sources of power, which determine the power. Yet they are  not given proper equal treatment in the society even after much spadework having been done today.  Mentioning that the women are increasingly being viewed in the country as a source of economic prosperity and policy-making influence, Smt Dixit, in her inaugural address said, “We have brought the difference in male-female birth ratio by launching the ‘Ladli Scheme’, which is in sheer contrast to the birth ratio in Punjab and Haryana. We need to take similar schemes everywhere, in states, Parliament and in the UNO, if we can do that it will indeed create the model movement for a justiceable society.”

Lauding the IGNOU programme, she said, “IGNOU has introduced a lot of path-breaking innovative educational programmes for development of the society, but perhaps, this programme is so far the best of all.”

The Friday seminar was opened by veteran CPM politburo member and a Rajya Sabha MP Smt Brinda Karat. In her address Smt Karat said that Germaine Greer spoke about ‘feminism’. That is good in some way, but “Germaine Greer did not see the Dalit women of India, poverty-stricken slum-dwellers, women bred in rich Indian culture and ethos, so her concept does not address the entire world of women. In contrast to hers, Indian society believes in ‘womanism’, a term which is getting currency today.”

Mentioning efforts of Indian women for bringing in changes in their life for equality in rights, status, policy-making machinery and power, Smt Karat commented that even in the temple of democracy, Indian Parliament, sexist views are expressed without adequate protests. Discrepancies are galore, a glaring example is in the Judiciary, where, out of 620 High Court Judges, women judges number only 45.

Smt Karat complained that women are not given their rightful equality to males on pretexts of merit and capabilities. She challenged, “Question of merit of women is the most incorrect idea. In education women are outscoring males for quite some time now. In fact we need to think about creating a reservation in other way round”. But in agriculture, industry, job-market, politics, power-share, women have been pushed behind with unreasonable arguments.

Brinda Karat referred to the recent permission of 50% seat reservation in panchayats, and expressed that the same should be granted in assemblies and Parliament also to ensure equal opportunities for women.

She mentioned three factors which relate to Indian women’s status in the society.
The First is the denial of rights to women arguing merit, which is incorrect.
The Second is inadequate judgment of power, as wisdom in the decisions of the most powerful people should be examined in the first place, and that is not done, causing injuries to women cause. In this case, even some women are antagonistic to women causes, because they are bred in patriarchal ideologies.
And the third is, slow and steady change of mindset, which of late has started helping the woman. “There are welled-up supports from our male colleagues, which defies the patriarchal mindset of the society.”

The seminar came to end with PVC Professor Omprakash Mishra’s tongue-in-cheek comment, “The seminar on ‘Women in Power’ has turned into a seminar on ‘Women and Power’ There are women always who influence power in our society.” 

August 13, 2009

IGNOU Starts first on-campus master's Programme,in Social Work.

New Delhi:What is common in Florence Nightingale, Mother Teresa,  Baba Amte, Acharya Vinoba Bhabe? Not alone that they all served the communities in their times to take the concept of service to humanity to a dizzy level of excellence, but also that, they never went to a school or college to learn social work. If they had gone to schools or colleges of graduating in social work, they probably would have been famous much before when they were – is the common refrain in the new School of Social Work (SOSW) at Indira Gandhi National Open University.  

On Thursday (August 13, 2009), at EMPC facility of the university, IGNOU launched its first ever face-to-face on-campus master degree programme in Social Work. The two-year degree is titled as MA in Social Work (Philanthropic). The total number of students admitted in the first batch is 20, after written tests and scrutiny.

Addressing a gathering of the IGNOU faculty members, invited guests from Jamia Millia, Aditi College of Delhi University led by Dr Sanjay Bhat. head of the department of the DU Social Work, and others and the inducted students, PVC Dr DK Choudhry said, “Social Work emerged as a discipline over a century ago in the West. In 1898, Mary Richmond, who was involved in philanthropy movement in the Americas, appealed for formal training in social work. She was the author of the first social work textbook, ‘Social Diagnosis’. In response to her call, a New York charity organisation began a six-week training programme in social work and philanthropy. Soon, that programme was developed into a yearlong tryst with the New York School of Philanthropy, which later rechristened itself as New York School of Social Work.”

Today across the world, there are over 2,000 schools of social work. India alone has over 250, mostly spread across the south India and Maharashtra. All religions have tenets in social service. India tops in them, hence why not a school to train how to take care of the destitute, orphans, streetchildren, social outcaste, leprosy-affected, physically challenged  etc.

Lauding the initiative, Vice Chancellor Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai expressed hope that the new batches of philanthropists will emerge every year after two years from now who soon will become the harbingers of social change. Eminent social workers, empowered by aptitude and qualification according to the UGC norms, will take their classes in the campus and guide them in the field work.

The programme is the brainchild of the Vice Chancellor. Welcoming the inducted students, Professor Pillai said, “You will see here how the Information and Communication Technologies inherently merge in the studies. The application of ICTs in the masters programme will become an important tool for social mobility. There are good opportunities in careers in social work throughout the world.”

Professionals in the field of social work have been charted for the face- to-face classes.  The students were given enlightening guidelines about the course by Joseph Sebastian, CEO of Indo-Global Social Services Society (IGSSS), who himself is likely to take a few important classes.

Director of the SOSS, Prof. Gracious Thomas gave a detailed outline of the programme and how students would study it in the classroom sessions. He also called upon the selected students to receive the first course book from the Vice Chancellor.

September 2, 2009

IGNOU extends admission date .

New Delhi:Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) today extended the date for admission to 129 programmes mentioned in its Common Prospectus and 125 programmes listed in Separate Prospectuses up to August 17 with late fee of Rs 200.

This was announced by Vice Chancellor Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai at a videoconferencing with IGNOU’s regional directors, which was telecast live on the university’s Gyan Darshan channel.

Date for admission to 58 programmes, including Ph.Ds, for which  entrance test, interview, and face-to-face schedules were announced earlier, will remain unchanged, said Officer on Special Duty  for Students Registration (OSD-SRD) of the university, Mr K Laxman.

September 2, 2009

IGNOU launches e-Learning Centre at Alexandria University.

New Delhi:Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) yesterday (Thursday, July 30) launched an e-Learning Centre at Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt, through videoconferencing at its e-African Satellite-mediated Network facility.

Vice Chancellor Professor V N Rajasekharan Pillai launched the centre. Egyptian ministers for Higher Education Dr Hany Mahfouz Helal, Communication and Information Technology Minister Dr Tarek Kamel and President of Alexandria University, Prof Hassen Nadir attended the launching ceremony and applauded. Many dignitaries including Indian Ambassador to Egypt Mr Ramachandran Swaminathan also attended the launch. IGNOU’s move to take e-learning facilities and education to the Egyptian university was the first ever by any university from India. It is among many other similar developments under the Pan African e-African Network Project which are in the pipeline.

Professor Pillai was accompanied by Director of IGNOU’s International Division Dr Silima Nanda and Joint Secretary of Telecommunications Consultant India Limited (TCIL), Mr JS Chhabra. The IGNOU e-Learning Centre in the Alexandria University will be managed, maintained, serviced by TCIL engineers at Alexandria.    

India launched the Pan African e-Network Project in 2004, following former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam’s proposal at Johannesburg (September 16, 2004) to connect all 53 African Union nations  by Satellite and fibre optic cable network to provide tele-education, tele-medicine, Internet and Voice-Over Internet Protocol (IP) Services. The ministry of External Affairs is the responsible body for the project whereas the TCIL is the implementing agency.

IGNOU is the nodal agency of the e-African Network Project for handling academics, logistics, and operational aspects with technical support from TCIL. This apart, IGNOU will also disseminate education in subjects like management and education in post-graduate, graduate and certificate levels.

The tele-medicine education will be provided by six super-spacialty hospitals of India, namely, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences of Kochi, Appollo Hospital of Channai, CARE Hospital of Hyderabad, Fortis Hospital of NOIDA, Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre of New Delhi and Narayana Hrudayalay of Bangalore.   

As on July 23, the total number of African countries which signed aqgreement with India is 40, four latest were Cape Verde, Lesotho, Liberia and Swaziland. The pilot project of the Network was started on March 5, 2007 from IGNOU studio in a teleconferencing mode. 

September 2, 2009

IGNOU signs up with Rail Institute to groom new genre of skilled Personel .

New Delhi:Indira Gandhi National Open University today (August 4) signed a broad perspective MoU with Institute of Rail Transport (IRT) to develop a gross framework of training and academic collaboration. The principal objectives are to develop high quality educative programmes of international standard in rail transport management.

IGNOU Vice Chancellor Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai and Chairman of the Railways Board Mr  ---------------- supervised the function, which was attended by a host of members of the  Railways Board and a number of top-notch officials of the ministry.

The MoU envisages that appropriate mechanisms will evolved for effective generation of skilled officials in management of the complex world of rail transport, relative application of ICTs, ports, containers, logistics management and many other associated training and education. A slew of academic programmes in various levels from short-term trainings to Certificate, Diploma, Bachelor’s, Master’s and Ph.D. Degrees will be offered at all IRT study centres spread across the country along the railways with a view to democratising employment-oriented education and training.

The MoU is very close IGNOU’s cherished goal to set up study centres using the railways’ fibre optic cable network at stations all over in the country to make access of education and vocational training easy to youths in the vicinity of the stations. 

IGNOU’s Centre for Corporate Education, Training and Consultancy (CCET&C), which will join the IRT experts in the Joint Coordiantion Committee  to develop the framework, will introduce the university’s assignment components for continuous learning inputs, evolve and set up study centre concept suitable to IRT context and introduce the latest ICTs in the pedagogy.  IGNOU will define criteria of admission, finalise the registration processes with the IRT, design courses, delivery of training and education, review mechanism, redesign IRT’s existing courses suitable for certification and develop effective students support network using the IRT facilities across the Indian railways.

The IRT will bear the entire cost of the project. It will identify experts in rail transport ad develop materials for training. The IRT will also identify study centres where the courses would be run, appoint coordinators, at all training centres, identify training areas, pay consultancy fees to faculty, appoint exclusive consultancy at CCET&C and also financially support at least two Research Assistants for their PhDs.

The share of the fees will be at the ratio of 30:70 favouring the IRT. The copyright of the study and training materials will be held by the both institutions jointly. 

The broad framework is likely to generate a good number of skilled handlers and experts in rail transport areas.

September 2, 2009

IGNOU signs up with rail institute to groom new genre of skilled personnel .

New Delhi:Indira Gandhi National Open University today (August 4) signed a broad perspective MoU with Institute of Rail Transport (IRT) to develop a gross framework of training and academic collaboration. The principal objectives are to develop high quality educative programmes of international standard in rail transport management.

IGNOU Vice Chancellor Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai and Chairman of the Railway Board Mr SS Khurana participated in the function, which was attended by a host of members of the  Railway Board and a number of top-notch officials of the ministry.

Addressing a gathering of Railway Board members, officials and mediapersons, Professor Pillai said, “This MoU will go a long way to start new domains of education delivery in the country as we are looking forward to take education to interiors of India alongside the railways. The IRT centres will be a sound step to develop rail transport-related vocational education and training and skill development of the youths, which will ensure their employability. It could become a mofdel for many other areas.”

Lauding the IGNOU offer, the Railway Board Chairman Mr Kurana said, “IRT will benefit from the IGNOU expertise and make education more real and broadly recognised.”

The MoU was signed by Dr US Tolia, Registrar of IGNOU and Dr AP Ramanan, Executive Director of IRT.  

The MoU envisages that appropriate mechanisms will evolved for effective generation of skilled officials in management of the complex world of rail transport, relative application of ICTs, ports, containers, logistics management and many other associated training and education. A slew of academic programmes in various levels from short-term trainings to Certificate, Diploma, Bachelor’s, Master’s and Research programmes will be offered at all IRT study centres spread across the country along the railways with a view to democratising employment-oriented education and training.

IRT has trusted training culture in rail transport management over decades. It has institutes in all corners of the country. It runs four dedicated training cum education programmes in the rail transport domain. Boosted by IGNOU’s expertise and distance education pedagogy and supported by IGNOU certification, IRT hopes to hone its students’ skills further. 

IGNOU’s Centre for Corporate Education, Training and Consultancy (CCET&C), which will join the IRT experts in the Joint Coordination Committee to develop the framework, will introduce the university’s assignment components for continuous learning inputs, evolve and set up study centre concept suitable to IRT context and introduce the latest ICTs in the pedagogy.  IGNOU will define criteria of admission, finalise the registration processes with the IRT, design courses, delivery of training and education, review mechanism, redesign IRT’s existing courses suitable for certification and develop effective students support network using the IRT facilities across the Indian railways.

The IRT will bear the entire cost of the project. It will identify experts in rail transport and develop materials for training. The IRT will also identify study centres where the courses would be run, appoint coordinators, at all training centres, identify training areas, pay consultancy fees to faculty, appoint exclusive consultancy at CCET&C and also financially support at least two Research Assistants for their PhDs.

The broad framework is likely to generate a good number of skilled handlers and experts in rail transport areas.

September 2, 2009

IGNOU steps up moves to increase overseas outreach.

New Delhi:Indira Gandhi National Open University decided to extend the outreach of its 52 overseas partner institutions by bolstered logistics and back-end support. Though the majority of students it enrols are non-resident Indians, the number of nationals of local countries are increasing.

At a gathering of about 20 coordinators from 13 nations which joined the three-day meeting that concluded on Friday, Vice Chancellor Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai said, “You are IGNOU’s representatives abroad. We shall work to fulfil all your plans and programmes in terms of logistics. We shall remove all bottlenecks that impede in development work through capacity-building.” A number of industry-oriented programmes have been taken up by the partner institutions for launching in their respective nations.       

On Thursday evening, 13 ambassadors and their representatives attended the dinner thrown by Professor Pillai in honour of the coordinators of the countries. The 13 nations were Kenya, Ethiopia, Nepal, Afghanistan, Kyrghyzstan, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Singapore. The envoys and coordinators by and large acknowledged that the Open and Distance Learning as pedagogy is going to be the future look of higher education world over. They appreciated that increasingly countries are being drawn to the ODL and are looking up at IGNOU for their ODL programmes. 

During the three-day conference, a slew of issues related to promotion of education from India (IGNOU), quality of education, employability, equivalence of degrees from IGNOU and from universities in those countries and mutual exchange of capacity-building came up for discussion during the meeting. Most suggestions from the coordinators were accepted for consideration by the various competent authorities in the university. A single window International Desk will be set up in Student Registration Division (SRD) and Students Evaluation Division (SED), each, for speeding up coordination with the partner institutions in matters relating to queries about confirmation of admission, receipts, assignments, results, grade etc. IGNOU is likely to recruit a few people through fresh advertisement to man these Desks.

At present, IGNOU programmes run by the coordinators at International PIs are Management, Masters, Computers, B.Ed, and Tourism Studies. The recent bouquet of programmes in Urdu and other Languages, Health, Social Work, Sustainable Development etc. are also gathering people’s attention. IGNOU’s new School of Foreign Languages (SOFL) was an immediate draw for the coordinators for business, commerce, conference and tourism translations.

The issue of holding examination according to Indian Standard Time (IST) came up for discussion quite often in the conference. At many countries, the IST is advanced by three or more hours, which means the students will have to take examinations very early in the morning everyday. In places like USA, it is in the middle of the night. Suggestions were: Either issue a different set of question papers for the PIs or despatch the question papers in advance.

To both suggestions, SED expressed reservations, keeping in mind the correct uniformity in evaluation processes and the chances of leakage through advance technologies of communications. “Fair deal must be given to all examinees both in India and abroad”, affirmed Registrar SED Dr Srikant Mohapatra. “The question papers are at present being disseminated through our embassies in the PI countries. The embassies are doing wonderful job, which include quality invigilation at the times of the exams. It will not be fair to disturb the system,” he observed.

The conference has become a regular platform for the PIs. Issues like inter-weaving of information and communication technologies in academic programmes, delivery mechanism etc are thought-provoking. Says, Dr Silima Nanda, Director of International Division of IGNOU, "The PIs are our promoters. We are expanding through their support and cooperation. They work just as our Regional Centres work within the country. The annual conference, therefore, is the proper platform for mutual sharing of ideas of both IGNOU and its overseas PIs. "

September 2, 2009

IGNOU training of urban co-op bank managers for loan recovery begins.

New Delhi:IGNOU’s School of Law (SOL) today started a four-day residential training programmes of Cooperative Bank officials on Securitisation Act and various socio-economic aspects associated with the Act, in collaboration with National Federation of Cooperative Urban Banks & Credit Societies Ltd (NAFCUB). The programme will focus mainly on “Legal aspects of Recovery Management and Securitisation and  Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest (SRFAESI) Act 2002”.

About 20 senior executives from urban cooperative banks across the nation have joind the training sessions. Various ideas relating to machinery available for recovery of loans under various laws for urban cooperative banks, legal impediments for enforcing the SRFAESI Act, proper execution of loan documents, important provisions of the SRFAESI Act 2002, Debt Recovery Tribunal Act 1993, Civil Procedure Code 1908 and the Limitation Act 1963 and Enforcement of Security Interest Rules 2002, will be discussed.

Eminent speakers will deliberate on these issues. According to sources in the SOL, some of them are experts from the Reserve Bank of India, reputed financial institutions and the faculty from the SOL. It is likely that the lectures of the RBI experts will be telecast live through the University’s Gyan Darshan channel.

Inaugurating the programme at IGNOU Convention Centre, IGNOU Pro-Vice Chancellor Professor Om Prakash Mishra lauded the efforts of empowering the bank officials with inputs of knowledge and training in matters relating to loan recovery in rural scenes, on which the cooperative banks exist. “NAFCUB has come out with a very difficult topic. In 2008, Honourable Supreme Court observed that bank loan recovery agents must be given training. We thought that this is an area we should explore to work. There is a difference between cooperative banks and commercial banks. Of the two groups, the cooperative banks are in greater disadvantage, given the type of clientele they have to handle and parametres they have to follow. But cooperative banks also enjoy one basic advantage. They are closer to people than the commercial banks. They know their people. Indeed, the cooperative banks were created to help farmers. Without loans, cooperative banks cannot exist. At the same time, without recovery of the loaned amounts and rotating them for further loans, the cooperative banks cannot exist. Therefore, there is a necessity to train the recovery officials.”

Good drafting for an Act is very necessary to rule out ambiguity in purpose and action. The draft of the Securitisation Act came under scanner in the meeting by the officials enrolled to take the training.

Chief Executive Office of NAFCUB Mr D Krishna was present in the inaugural function. Referring to the cooperative banks’ challenges in rural and urban India, Krishna highlighted certain areas where the NAFCUB is approaching the government for empowerment. The NAFCUB deputy director Yogesh Sharma explained that for better management of the recovery problems, the bankers need to know their customers and credit appraisal documents. The SOL, a vibrant school of IGNOU, is mulling to organise more training classes for managers of urban cooperative banks and recovery machinery.     

September 2, 2009

IGNOU to host the global telecentre academy for telecentre operators.

New Delhi:Indira Gandhi National Open University today hosted a two-day meeting of vice chancellors from universities of a consortium of 15 countries with a view to setting up skills development training centres and education in all village panchayats in the country and in rural settings globally. The countries which joined were USA, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Philippines, Uganda, Mozambique, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Thailand, and India. A global hub academy will be created and a consensus on it shape and action plan will be arrived at after the meeting.  This will be announced on Tuesday at the Press Conference.

The meeting was convened by IGNOU to arrive at a consensus for a Letter of Interest (LoI) or an MoU to be signed by the members from the country in the consortium.

The meeting was a follow-up of Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s declaration made last year for setting up a Skills Development ministry to stimulate collaboration and convergence among institutions which can develop skills among unskilled youths in India.

Addressing an erudite gathering of the vice-chancellors, deputy vice chancellors and rectors,  Secretary of the Department of Information Techonolgy (DIT) Dr R Chandrashekhar said, “DIT is all set to roll out 1,30,000 telecentres in the panchayati areas by the mid-2010.” To the same goal, a Canada-based organisation, International Development Research Centre (IDRC), which runs telecentre.org Academy globally in partnership with a number of universities around the world for development of the grassroots population of the concerned countries, came forward to join the Indian movement. The ongoing meeting will set up a Consensus for an action plan and creating a Global Hub.

According to IDRC official Dr Basheerhamad Shadrach, who also doubles up as an anchor of the global telecentre.org Academy, the move towards establishing a consortium of universities is to certify the telecentre knowledge workers for a diploma program in over 20 nations to begin with.  Dr Shadrach highlighted the salient features of the Academy which includes a global course curriculum delivered in more than 10 languages tailored to individual learner in his/her learning needs.

A number of Indian private organisations which are already working in this field -- such as Shrei Sahaj e_Village (eastern India), Pay6 (in 18 states), Spanco (Maharashtra), Network for Information and Computer Technologies (MP), Infotech (Chhattisgarh, MP) etc. -- have been roped in the IDRC-sponsored telecentre-org Academy initiative to tie up with IGNOU to launch a Global Hub for grassroots learning processes.   
The Meeting is an outcome which the Information Technology Department (DIT) of the Government of India was mulling since 2002.

Dr Chandrashekhar said, “Already about a lakh telecentres have been set up. The Government feels that the scheme has to be expanded to each panchayats of the country nationwide and also help those who will need it. Though in the beginning it looks like a cyber café in rural settings, where you can do everything a cyber café provides for, it will soon evolve into a learning centres for the rural women and youths who cannot afford to cover distance for formal education.”

Mr Chandrasekhar appreciated the role played  by telecentre operators in fulfilling the Government’s commitment towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Currently the telecentres are handling three problems, language, lack of IT literacy and that of basic literacy.  Dr Chadrashekhar suggested, the telecentres can be cleverly dovetailed into a social empowerment tool. “IDRC can put all techniques to assiduously work out on it.”

The telecentre.org Academy is a unique partnership programme, steered by the telecentre.org, which is a global group promoting telecentres around the world. After the tripartite agreement signed, the Global Hub will assume a name. The hub will train over a million people around the world in information entrepreneurship, which will emerge as a new profession in developing nations. 

The information entrepreneurs will staff over 500,000 telecentres around the world, half of which will emerge in India alone in the name of Bharat Nirman Common Service Centres (BN CSCs).

Speaking on the occasion IGNOU Vice Chancellor Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai highlighted that the Bharat Nirman Common Service Centres will deliver high quality government to citizen (G2C) services in rural areas. With a view to boosting public-private partnership (PPP)  a bouquet of private players have been assigned responsibilities to carry out the scheme at rural settings.  The services are being brought to the door-steps of the rural homes, at an affordable, flexible and democratised means. The national purpose to upscale the standard skills of the rural workforce will naturally be boosted by this effort.

Professor Pillai detailed what the global hub academy will carry out, “A global curriculum and course structure will be created to fulfil the learning needs of the telecentre operators around the world. A set of common standards which will underpin implementation of the global course will be agreed upon. Similarly, a process of certification and linear academic growth path for the learners also will be agreed. The Letter of Interest or the MoU whichever we will be creating will define an operational framework for the participating universities, the telecentre networks and the host university that will steer the work of the academy.”

By auditing the global hub courses, an unemployed youth in developing nation can easily find a job as a telecentre operator.  The academy of the global hub shall continue to encourage the alumni of any course with options to continue his/her academic career path to the extent of even obtaining an MBA in social entrepreneurship offered by IGNOU.

September 2, 2009

IGNOU hosts telecentre.academy hub,a global charter made .

New Delhi:Universities from 15 countries, including IGNOU, today signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for a telecentre.org Academy to be established soon. The Academy will have its hub at IGNOU campus, and will function like a school. A global charter has been constructed for application.

At a meeting with mediapersons this evening at India Habitat Centre (Magnolia Hall), Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai announced that the telecentre.org Academy in each village will gradually turn into multimedia centres for both Business to Citizens (B2C) and Government to Citizens (G2C) spread across the countries where the signatory universities function and also to other parts of the world in the long run. “It will be a hub of learning through the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) -- such as computers, Internet, mobile Telephony and others – to empower and educate various skills of the people in rural areas. The training of skills will encompus just about everything in line with what the Government of India’s Department of Information Technology (DIT) was envisioning since 2002.”

The telecentr.org Academy in India will currently function to implement 1,30,000 telecentres set up by mid-2010 with the help of other private telecentres already working in this direction. It is thought that the telecentres in rural settings in India alone will generate about one lakh jobs soon within a year as telecentre operators after they get trained in the existing telecentres. Therefore, the current drive will be to train the existing operators.

Asked about the quality of the training and their employability in the international markets, Professor Pillai said, “That is exactly why this meeting for two days was convened. We want a standard curriculum for running and training in these telecentres implemented in all signatory countries. The standard will be rigidly followed and upscaling standard also will be monitored by the committee entrusted with the responsibility of managing these centres. Certification from the universities in the respectve region will empower the successful candidates for employments world over. Stric accreditation and assessment mechanism will be in place to certify the upscaling of the skill of the candidates.”

The genesis of this meeting and consensus was in 2004 when Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh announced formation of a Skills Development ministry with a view to bolster skills level of average workforce of the country. The Canada-based IDRC, which was already working in this direction in other parts of the world, soon joined hands with IGNOU to take the challenge globally.

In India, each telecentre is likely to become a Community College near the doorstep of rural and urban people who are disadvantaged about pursuing education and drop out of school and colleges.  Soon after these telecentre may also become the hub for higher education pursuits at grassroots level.

The mediapersons were addressed by Professor Opuda Asibo John, Vice Chancellor of Kyambogo University, Kampala, Uganda and Professor Raul Sanchez, Vice Chancellor of Universidad de La Fontera, Temuco, Chile, among others.

Members of the delegates of universities from 12 countries were present in the Press Conference. The countries present at the Conference were Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Uganda, Mozambique, Philippines, Hungary, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Thailand and India.      

September 2, 2009

IGNOU starts masters in Actuarial Science on-campus Classes.

New Delhi:Indira Gandhi National Open University recently  (Monday, 17 Aug, 2009) stated its on-campus face-to-face masters programme in Actuarial Science. Twentyfive boys and girls have been given admission after written tests and interview. .

Actuarial Science was conventionally a part of economics studies. It is only recent times, the importance of the subject as an intensive pursuit in studies of actuarial aspects of the knowledge economy has been realised. There are only a handful of institutions where actuarial science as a subject is being taught and certified. IGNOU’s on-campus programme for an MSc in Actuarial Science has drawn huge responses From about a thousand applicants, only 25 students have been shortlisted through a written test and interview.

Stressing the need of the programme, IGNOU PVC Dr D K Chauhdhry detailed how with the growing economy of India, the actuarial aspects of economy is also inflating. Therefore, demands for actuaries in business of insurance, statistics, BOP services, funding agencies like World bank, ADB etc. assets management in commercial banks, loan-issuing finance companies, and a slew of others business areas, demands for actuaries is increasing everyday.

Addressing the enrolled students, Director of the IGNOU School of Vocational Studies (SOVET), Prof C G Naidu said, “It is a high demand niche area subjects. Actuaries are busier than top-notch executives of the country. Actuaries handle multi-disciplinary subjects, and their life is induced in constant application of mathematics, statistics and interpretative activities, which talk reality. Actuaries therefore take a no-nonsense approach to dogging issues in economics for the organisation they serve. This course will help students get entry level manager’s jobs through apprenticeship.”

Teachers of SOVET, who introduced themselves to the enrolled students, and all of them are very young and budding talent in their respective industries, detailed how the course will be taught in classrooms, some will be telecast live on the Gyan Darshan channels of the university. There will be two special Apprenticeship Papers in the MSc in Actuarial programme. One of them is Actuarial Risk Management, which is a novel innovation in the courseware, as no university world over ever developed on the area, though real-life business practices always handled these. IGNOU’s SOVET has developed this area with a concrete comprehensive pedagogy and applications at apprenticeship.

Veteran actuary Mr S J Gidwani, Secretary General of Mumbai-based Institute of Actuarial Society and Insurance Institute of India, explained the call of actuaries in the development and growth through honing knowledge economy skills. “The highest penetration of the science in the insurance industry has been made in Taiwan and Korea. It is over 11% more than what they have done in China and 5% more than what have been achieved in India. Toda actuarial science shares about 21% of the market economy in India, which is however, 2% less that  what was achieved in 2005. In these countries about 25% revenue comes through application of principles of actuarial science in non-life insurance. The studies will help us contribute more in generating GDP growth in the economy. Knowledge of actuaries are vital even in technological fields. You can make a lot of difference in the way the society you live in conducts.”

Consulting Actuary of the Oriental Insurance Company, Prof. Y P Sabharwal explained how meaningful and serious jobs the actuaries do in a civil society. “It is a different multi-discipline course in which equation of Information Technologies (ITs) and statistical interpretation are the basics. Any figure that actuaries give, is the final on which even the top brass of the organisation generally don’t have a say but only have to abide by. Their interpretation is data-driven and therefore cannot be rulled out of reckoning by any stroke of imagination. The actuaries can make or break an organisation, financially. That’s why this course needs to be studied  through rigorous practices.”

Both Mr Gidwani and Prof Sabharwal have been charted in the panel of teachers of the IGNOU programme of MSc in Actuarial Science. Happy at their acceptance of the offer, Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai, Vice chancellor of IGNOU said, “It is a very different area of science. IGNOU has been running many face-to-face programmes in institutions of core scientific areas in various regions of the country. But for the first time 16-programmes have been started in the campus in face-to-face mode. Of these Actuarial Science programmes has been an immense draw. We shall work out with the Actuarial Science Society of Mumbai to ensure practical training sand Apprenticeships. The syllabus has been made compatible to world-class actuarial practices and studies. Let us develop this programme as the Model Programme of Actuarial Science, and also as one of unique institute-university collaboration.”  

Addressing the young lecturers, Professor Pillai said, “Along with enrolled students you also can contribute to this capacity-building mission of IGNOU.”

September 2, 2009

IGNOU symposium on OER ends with Action Plan.

New Delhi:When you search for a study input in the google, it is like boiling the ocean. But if you search for it in a dedicated Open Educational Resources (OER), it is doable. Not only that you can get many inputs from various universities on the same subject, and enrich your knowledge. If you want a degree or a certificate for your knowledge, you have to take admission to a particular university and take the tests recommended by it. The OER is exciting too, because the future higher education or knowledge gain will become absolutely information and communication technology centric (ICT-centric), world over.

The two-day symposium on OER by Indira Gandhi National Open University ended with firm notes of  a six-point Action Plan taken for a year: (i) Existing ICT facilities and unused options will be expanded and exploited fully; (ii)  Content repositories will be developed in as many subjects as possible, (iii) Translation of those content will be organized steadily, (iv) Scope of Community Radios will have to be enhanced, (v) Common access to OER will be created through free softwares like Skype, and (vi) Metadata will be created.

Due to sudden exigencies NKC Chairman Mr Sam Pitroda and IGNOU Vice Chancellor Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai could not be present in the Press Conference. Former PUne Iniversity Vice Chancellor and an adviser to NKC Prof Ashok C Kolaskar and MIT Dean and another adviser to NKC Prof. Vijay Kumar took questions from mediapersons.

Addressing  mediapersons, Prof Kolaskar said, “We have planned to develop a mechanism to create and make accessible standard, quality, usable and appropriate coursewares for Open and Distance Learning (ODL), Open Education (OE) in forms of repositories. There will be open access opportunities. These open coursewares (OCWs) are partly available in many pars of the country at present. China for example, has the maximum courseware made accessibly open, so are OCWs of many Ameican and European universities. But we don’t have the mechanism to access these free of cost, nor does everybody know the standard techniques of accessing them. This symposium addressed these issues for one and a half day, ending today.”

Asked what the current project wanted to achieve, Prof Kumar said, “All these are dependent on government policies. There is policy requirement in Intellectual Property Rights issues relating to access and use of the indigenous knowledge subjects, advocacies, infrastructure development, utilization of fibre optic cable network. So this project is in a pilot stage. We shall create mechanisms to make sure that the OER in indigenous knowledge be usefully exploited. Many countries have already formed OER Consortium for the same purpose.”

Stress has been made for developing IT mechanism for accessing and preserving traditional knowledge codification, in which case even translation will not be a priority area, as the codification itself can lead to understanding. However, as Prof. Pillai had stressed in his inaugural speech, there has to be a mechanism in place to identify and document prior art.   

The symposium ended with the notes of firm resolution to acknowledge the role of multi-media application, to make programmes interesting to draw popular attention for the reference and use of the OER, educate the drop-outs about the wonders the IT opportunities have for them. It also resolved to develop community-level partnership in each country about issues like general education, computer literacy, documentation of environmental and  ecological stock, systems to bring in the sync the players of all types – governmental, private, semi-governmental, individual, and communities.

“We need to develop creative commerce in which employability will be ensured and share alike thought process to make all these happen,” said Prof Vijay Kumar. The current Action Plan is for a year.

September 2, 2009

IGNOU discuss Knowledge commission recommendations for an action plan.

New Delhi:Indira Gandhi National Open University today (Aug 20, 2009) started a two-day symposium on Open Educational Resources for Network-Enabled Education. The symposium aims at drawing a consensus for a standard Action Plan to identify   implications and implement the strategies for the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) Recommendations on Distributed Educational Opportunity for the common people.

Chairman of NKC Mr Sam Pitroda was the chief guest of the symposium. Joint secretary of Ministry of Human Resource Development Mr N K Sinha, Eminent professors Ashok C Kaloskar, Dr BK Gairola, Professor Vijay Kumar from Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Dr Subbaiah Arunachalam of IIT Madras, IGNOU PVC KR Srivathsan, former IIT, Kanpur Director and IIIT-M Director, Prof. Kushal Sen of IIT Delhi and a host of IT luminaries joined the discussion.  

The whole question is about developing the knowledge economy and just not about IT education among masses. Stressing this point, in his key note address, Mr Pitroda said,

Welcoming Mr Pitroda and the galaxy of IT scientists and professionals, Vice Chancellor Professor VN rajasekharan Pillai the strengths of IGNOU as having the wide range  of quality materials. IGNOU recently signed MoU with telecentre to develop quality managment of tele education centres with support of over 15 universities of the world. He mentioned about IGNOU’s quality of resources, and requested the luminaries to examine how these materials can be made easily accessible to everyone for a sound knowledge economy of the country.

He said, “Enhancing the reach of education is the main aim for us, and the deliberations on OER will facilitate this aspects of open access, in the light of the recommendations of the National Knowledge Comission appointed by the Prime Minister of India. The NKC's recommendations have also facilitated the initiation of the National Mission of Education (NME) through ICTs. There are many porjects such as eGyanKosh, NPTEL SAKSHAT which are in operation in the country. OER issues and opportunities would be the focus of the deliberations, and facilitate concrete steps and framework towards implementation of the same.

“The NKC was established to build capacity to develop knowledge, it was not about education, it was about knowledge. Thus, we covered: literacy, libraries, transalation, affairmative action, knowledge networks, etc in almost all areas; creation of knowledge, and how it is created: copyright, patents, etc. including traditinal knowledge. There is no documentation of over 12,000 Indian medicinal plants in India. A foundation was established 15 years ago. Role of knowledge as governance was also discussed. Similar is the status of Indian ecological resources, environment,” we need to work on these Documentation is necessary. Initially we did not have money. Now we have. Here is a technology which can document everything for even the common for easy access. We will not have any problem relating to Intellectual Property Rights,” he said.

He said that all recommedations are on the web. Over 300 were given by NKC. Many have been used now, such as Right to Education. Another recommendation was for a National Knowledge Network (NKN) with have been 10 GB bandwidth to increase collaboration. We produced fibre much more than we could use. So why not use them. “We started dialogue with Railtel, Powergrid and decided to use these fibre optic cable network for bandwidth. “Unfortunately education and health sectors did not exploit the advantage of the fibre optic cable network and the bandwidth opportunities.  Many websites in India, including the IITs do not have good websites. With so much IT capacity, things are not happening. We have to learn how to use the IT effectively,” He stressed.

Mr N.K. Sinha highlighted the government steps taken for exploiting the IT initiatives through the NKC. Sinha elaborated how the sectors like education, health, repositories are successfully exploiting the bandwidth advantages gradually and steadily. He stressed the government steps on the recommendations of the NKC and hoped by the next two yearsm things will look up much brighter.

He touched upon a slew of points, “Every content should have metadata from the perspective of individual learners. How to do it is the issue? Community of experts can help to organize it. At the same time our documentation network should be strong enough to make one able to access courseware of other universities, colleges, databases of researches properly. That will also erode most part of the irritants on Intellectual Property Rights issues. That is why we need the Open Courseware (OCW) avavilability.”

IT professors Prof. Ashok S. Kolaskar, Prof. Vjay Kumar, Prof. Subbaiah Arunachalam and ther speakers insisted that the nation must be able to build up a strong National Knowledge Network to make the OCW possible. That would help students communities from all parts of the world, even peper-to-peer solutions of problems through chat, wikis, interactive Web 2.0 advantages. Empowerment to these directions is complete, if we do these, they stressed.

PVC Prof K R Srivathsan and Prof Uma Kanjilal, Director of IGNOU School of Social Sciences, explained with convincing illustrations how IGNOU had already made the spade work in the realm of OCW and knowledge networking.

Teacher training was an important aspect in the entire symposium, as the speakers seriously examined the situation where the students are willing to learn and master computers and the Web, whereas the teaching communities are playing truants. “We need to address this situation seriously”, said most speakers, “as teachers must appreciate that the nation has to progress to a seamless education domain, where technologies make solutions easy.

Students need to use the resources made available through the networking in virtual platforms, and “we have to facilitate the Virtual Knowledge Resources and Management(VIKRAM)” said a speaker. India needs to identify resources on global benchmarking of resources, they concluded, as the IT luminaties sat down to address situations for a plausible Action Plant of the NKC at IGNOU, which will be announced tomorrow.

September 2, 2009

IGNOU starts classroom teaching of masters in journalisim and mass communication.

New Delhi:The approach road to IGNOU is likely to get a facelift. Today Union Urban Development Minister Dr Jaipal Reddy promised about that. His promise was candid and in sync with the tone he addressed the modern day journalism when he spoke on the occasion of the commencement of the IGNOU School of Journalism and News Media Studies (SOJNMS) MA programmes in Journalism and Mass Communication (MJMC) and Electronic Media Production and Management (MEPM).

The two programmes have been developed with world-class inputs from professionals and academics in the profession of journalism and mass communication. The courseware in print were distributed to the selected students.

He said that the modern age is said to be characterised by freedom of press. Yet, ironically, in half the world there is no freedom of Press, said Union Minister for Urban Development Dr Jaipal Reddy, who had a good stint at journalism all his life. “In India we only think that it is free. However, journalists have to abide by facts. Nepolean who was a continental conqueror once said, that he was more afraid of three hostile newpapers than a thousand canons. That is the power of the media.”

Addressing a chock-a-block auditorium of IGNOU faculty, 25 selected and enrolled students and mediapersons, Dr Reddy insisted that reporters must be factual absolutely, “As Sir Piscot said ‘Facts are secret but comments are free’, you must be objective, as objectivity is absolutely ideal. We must be true to facts as closely as possible. Though facts are interpreted by people according to their taste and mindset, yet the facts when reported cannot be ruled out.” 

Dr Reddy was highly critical about the 24-hour channels which churn out stories most of which are not correct. Theirs is more ‘Churnalism’ than Journalism as in 24-hour slots they have only to churn out news which are generally incorrect in perspectives and vision, he said. Referring to  the last elections he said that all newspapers and channels were convinced that the NDA would  thump back to power, with BJP with the single party majority, he said, the results are before everybody to see. The media thereafter never  discussed why they misled people by such prediction. Similarly, the case of criticism of our RBI policies. “After the global economic slum down today we have found that our central bank is the wisest bank of all other central banks of other countries. Why media is not addressing this now?” he queried.       

Dr Warren Mallor, the UNESCO and representative to India, who wields immense experience and propounded new concepts in the filed of mass communication, Mr Vinod Mehta, editor-in-chief of Outlook and a member of the Editor’s Guild of India and senior journalist of The Week magazine Mr Sachichidananda Murthy were the Guests of Honour.

On-campus training by the SOJNMS will now onwards be a regular feature at IGNOU Headquarters, as the school aims at leveraging opportunities of a slew of new media into the mass communication studies. The programmes are the first efforts of the school to teach masters programmes in face-to-face mode. Explaining the courseware SOJNMS director Dr Shanbhu Nath Singh said that the curriculum has been drawn from a combination of UNESCO guidelines and world leaders’ inputs about journalism and new news media, which thus is a benchmark of studies in the field. As such, it is the first time any university is addressing the issues dogging the fields of journalism and mass communication world for decades. For newsmen and the television crew these coursewares are likely to be a trusted materials for gathering of knowledge and implanting it in real life functioning.

Technical competencies alone will not suffice. There has to be intellectuial competency. Students must get an over view of the worldwide idealism, philosophy and intecctual maturity before practicing journalism. Stressing this point, veteran journalist Mr Vinod Mehta said,  “You are entering in a golden time of Indian journalism. Two things have strongly emerged for journalists, high salaries and glamour attached to the job. Even 10 years back there was no money was there. Mothers won’t allow their daughters choose journalists as life partners.”

Today’s journalist must learn hard way the art of writing and communicating. He said, “The new trend is the electronic media. It is a difficult world, not intellectually, but by the yardstick of stamina. They have to wait for hours to get a sound bite form a political leader, and eventually that would be a no comment. In print journalism, though the rule of professional work is no difference, you will have to get through to the truth. One way of getting to the truth is to be grounded well in the profession. There are rules, which you have to learn. There is no short cut to it.”

He denounced the Sting Journalism as Lazy Journalism. One danger that larks about a journalist is his tendencies to become an idealist. That dissipates with time. “But idealism is good, as long as you remain a journalist. Don’t become a cynic or a fisters. You have to be pragmatic,  must have the zeal to change the face of this world. That way you excel always. Don’t lose the burning desire for changing the things and bring the difference,” was his advise to the students.

UNESCO representative to India, Dr Warren Mallor, a retired academic, referred to Marshal McLuhan’s theory of communication to say that the concept of Global Village has been entirely changed today with the advent of Internet. “The concept Global Village was in fact is now narrowly focussed. Things changed very rapidly. Ruper Murdoch himself was questioning the changes. There are opportunities in the worlds of delivery in the fundamental premises of journalism, in which, factually presented objects, authenticated information have to be disseminated.” Dr Mallor promise many more programmes of the UNESCO to IGNOU.

Presiding over the function, Vice Chancellor Professor V N Rajasekharan Pillai said, “The SOJNMS is going to be a flagship school of IGNOU to harness media, for education, capacity building for effective use of media for education and development. We have all imaginable media inputs in your programmes, radio, TV, satellite, mobile and internet. This univ is a success story of democratisation of education, training models for capacity building.”

In her welcome address earlier, PVC incharge of the school, Dr Latha Pillai said, the school has been envisioned to be setting new benchmarks in JMC. The school is settinmg new trends and leveraging the institutional linkage to create industry-academic fusion at media studies.”

September 2, 2009

Experts laud 'Hinglish',Indian themes in English Writing .

New Delhi:Think of a Shakespeare emerging from Hinglish world of art. Is it unlikely? Or a diasporic language confluenced into a coined term, say, HindostanEnglish, or the like?

The language and expression thundered as dogging points of reference at the Second International Conference on ‘Contemporary Indian Writers in English : Assimilation and Denial’ organised at India International Centre (IIC) on January 19-20 last, by the School of Humanities of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), jointly with the IIC.
Indian Writers in English (IWE) were broadly discussed in six brainstorming sessions on varied sub-themes -- narratives of the nation (India), rebellious resolutions, poetics,  publishing blues -- touching an IWE’s writing life.

Octogenarian doyen of Indian Classical Dance, Art and Architecture Kapila Vatsayan set the tone for the conference by raising a core question, “What exactly is meant to be contemporary?” She flayed the mindset of elite Indians tuned by Macaulay in mid-thirties (1935). “We should get our perspectives right”, she stressed lamenting, “we are still belonging to colonial mindset that Indian culture is subordinate to English. You stressed ‘Assimilation’. It’s assimilation of what and of which cultures? You have to rethink wherefrom to begin. Is it from Raja Rao, Salman Rushdie, Kamala Markandaya, Amitabh Ghosh, where? Mulk Raj Anand’s ‘Coolie’ is not at all a prodigal son’s return to native land. It is an existential expression of modernity.”    

Columnist Gurcharan Das  treaded a rebellious track  askinf for more space for Hindi-mixed English. Sadly, Oxford University Press editors, Gatenby and Hornby, were not present or they might have tinkered with columnist Gurcucharan Das’ caustic remark about chaste English in the sessions, albeit with a pinch of salt. Terming chaste English as “colonial”, he said, “Common Indians don’t speak shuddh Hindi either, because they don’t find their life reflected in it, but feel happy in mixing up English words for expressions in their day to day life. This may not be acceptable tochaste English speakers, though a language evolves itself always. Today 28% Indians learn English. By 2020-25, the percentage will go up to 50, maybe.” Targeting the English speaking world in India, Gurucharan Das said, “I am looking forward to a Hinglish producing a Shakespeare just as post-Anglo-Saxon Latin Europe did one for England. New Hinglish may naturally produce new Kalidasas”. 

Before him, former Sahitya Akademi Secretary Tamil poet Dr K. Sachchidanandan charmed the audience with his innumerable citations languages mixing with one another in novels by Indian writers, as much as, it did by IWE.

References to Kamala Markandaya were made avidly in the conference as American University Professor Charles Larson, in his key note address, explained how fluid, polished she wrote while incorporating Indian life and settings as her sub-themes in her novels. Professor Larson detailed conflicts she withstood while writing in England and subsequent successes culminating numerous accolades including best novel award for her ‘Nectar in a Sieve’ by the American Library Association in 1955. Markandaya’s daughter Kim Oliver was present all through the sessions awed and inspired by references to her mother.

What after all is colonial about English or for that matter of any language? - was the war cry from Hindi poet Stephanian English speaker Ashok Vajpai and Vajpai readily questioned Gurcharan Das’ and Vatsayan’s queries about contemporanity and historicity thereof.  

That being the backdrop of the seminar, speakers after speakers goaded imagination of the audience with exuberance and eloquence even when discordant notes were not unexpected.

The speakers in the session chaired by senior Delhi University Professor of English Malashri Lal indeed sounded original verve in English linguistics, which is evolving in the subcontinent. IWE offers astute critics even among the creators and often ropes other Indian languages in use in their writings. Central issues of the conference even strayed with various gender-specific references to denote Indianness, but stuck to the main goal – to gain awareness among students about qualitative scope in IWE.  

September 1, 2009

Gillard lauds IGNOU-QUT collaboration for 3 Programmes .

New Delhi:Australian Deputy Prime Minister Ms Julia Gillard today launched three newage ICT-centric academic programmes of IGNOU developed in collaboration with the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). “It is a very special launch as IGNOU is the world’s largest university and it is an excellent opportunity for Australia and India together to demonstrate quality education for today’s students and also those of tomorrow. Australia shares India’s interest in the world of learning.”

In reply of the question from former Times of India Resident Editor Mr Ramindar Singh about the steps her Government might have taken to protect India students from ethnic backlash in Australia, Ms Gillard mentioned in details that a new rule of registration of students has been put in place, to watch students’ stay in the country. She said that all protective steps  have been taken to register the students intake and protect them from any inconvenience situations. 

According to the partnership, the students will take admission in IGNOU for courses developed in collaboration with the QUT. After completion of the parts of education at IGNOU, the rest of the course will be completed at QUT. The students will get dual degrees one each from both the universities. The collaboration is broadly being viewed as a yardstick of excellence and equity. Stressing this, QUT Deputy Vice Chancellor Prof Arun Sharma said that the collaboration of three newage programmes is likely to be a testimony of future collaborations between the two universities. “In this collaborationwe shall combine excellence and scale. How do you scale ande excel in the projects is something we will find out and that will be the testimony of the future endeavours, “ said Prf Sharma.

For quality education and perfect teaching-learnings processes, India needs millions of teachers, Emphasising this, Professor V N Rajasekharan Pillai said, “India today needs about 22 lakhs additional teachers for the primary section alone in view of the implementation of the recently passed Right to Education Bill. They must be well trained themselves first before taking up teaching at primary levels. The teaching-learning process can be successful only if the teachers are trained enough. The collaboration will look into this area.”

IGNOU has introduced the Research and Training Assistantship programmes since 2007. About 100 Research and Training Assistants (RTAs) are pursuing research in various disciplines while teaching at IGNOU. These RTAs, after clearing their Ph.Ds, will become trained teachers. This is just an augury. A few hundreds of teachers will emerge this way and the collaborations are being viewed as a process to create more and more trained teachers in respective fields. The Dual Degree of the doctoral programme at the QUT is a solid step towards that goal. This also responds well to the Millennium Goals for development in India.

Students’ safety in a land of studies, therefore, comes natural to the mind of concerned people. Thanking the Australian Deputy Prime Minister, Prof Pillai said that the new registration rule initiated by the Australian government is likely to help greatly. It is because a slew of cutting edge programmes in the disciplines of Built-in Environment and Engineering, Creative writing, Education, Health, information Technology, Journalism, Life Science, Management, Media, Communication and Law are being developed under this collaboration.                 

According to Prof Sharma, there are about 60,000 students admitted in Australian universities as on date. At QUT the number is about 500. “But the students at QUT are pursuing their research topics and are well safe in every aspect of life. They are overwhelmingly enjoying their stay in Australia,” he said in answers to mediapersons.

August 31, 2009

Julia Gillard launches IGNOU-QUT collaboration initiatives .

New Delhi:Australian Deputy Prime Minister Ms Julia Gillard MP today launched three newage programmes developed under collaboration of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and Queensland University of Technology (QUT). 

Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai presided over the launch ceremony, which was covered live to all IGNOU Regional Centres in the country. The Regional Directors were present to watch the live coverage of the ceremony.
Entire faculty and staff of IGNOU were present in the launch.

The QUT was represented by Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research and Commercialisation) Professor Arun Sharma, an eminent ICT scientist of Australia who co-founded National ICT Australia Limited (NICTA). NICTA is well-known to be Australia’s national centre of excellence. Prof Sharma is also the President of the Australia India Business Council (Queensland Chapter).

The programmes are : ICT-Enabled Diploma in Primary Education (DPE), Master of Intellectual Property Law (MIPL) and Doctoral Programme for Research and Training Assistants (RTAs).

The ICT-Enabled DPE programme is aimed to train teachers of primary education to enhance quality of teaching at the grassroots level in a country. Teachers at schools must be trained well to teach at primary stage of education as that alone can build the fundamentals of children. The programme has a molecular approach. It has four objectives : (i) To develop knowledge and understanding Primary School Curriculum, (ii) to develop skills in transacting the prescribed curriculum effectively, (iii) to acquaint the participants with factors affecting child psyche, individual differences in a classroom, learning and motivation processes etc., and (iv) to appreciate the role of teacher in socio-cultural milieu of a society. The programme therefore targets the untrained and undertrained teachers. Since the programme is delivered through information and communication technologies (ICTs), the outreach among the target group can be far and wide. At present both IGNOU and QUT are considering how the DPE can be made ICT-enabled for greater international outreach.

The MIPL is a new specialist Dual Degree Masters Programme in Intellectual Property Law offered exclusively Online and jointly by IGNOU and QUT. It is meant for professionals cutting across disciplines exclusively. The MIPL is open to all Graduates. The law graduates get an option to study a semester in the QUT, Australia provided they clear the English language test prescribed by the QUT. On clearance of the semester and the duration of the MIPL programme, the law graduates will get Dual Degrees –from the QUT and the IGNOU. The two-year degree course also include papers in International and comparative intellectual property laws, Patents, Copyright and Design laws.

Doctoral Programme for the RTAs is an innovative approach to research and development. It is IGNOU’s novel move launched in 2007 to enhance quality of research in general and capabilities of research scholars in all disciplines.  It is also the brainchild of IGNOU Vice Chancellor Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai. Under the IGNOU-QUT collaborative programme, area of studies are : Built-in Environment and Engineering, Creative Writing, Education, Health, Information Technology, Journalism, Life Science, Management, Media, Communication and Law. The selected candidates will work under the joint supervision of IGNOU and QUT. The admitted students will be required to complete the initial period in IGNOU and then will move to the QUT to complete their theses. The programme is launched by the IGNOU’s Research Unit, in collaboration with the QUT, for the Dual Degree Ph.Ds.

Good response to the Dual degree programmes have been received at IGNOU headquarters.