Empowering Airmen
‘Akashdeep’, a partnership between IGNOU and the Indian Air Force, is designed to enable all serving airmen to obtain Bachelor’s degree in any stream within eight to 13 years of service.
After successfully launching ‘Gyan Deep’ — an Army-IGNOU Community College Scheme — to empower jawans, IGNOU has now brought the Indian Air Force (IAF) under its ambit.
IGNOU and the IAF signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at the Air Force Auditorium in New Delhi on December 20 for enabling nearly 100,000 in-service airmen to earn Bachelor’s degree in streams like arts, science, business and music etc., within eight to 13 years of their service.
“Two great events have occurred in the recent past. Sachin Tendulkar has completed his 50th test century and the IAF has signed an MoU with IGNOU for recognising service training for higher education of airmen and NCs(E). This shall encourage the younger generation to join the IAF,” said Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal P.V. Naik.
Vice Chancellor V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai said the move would get “a large pool of qualified officers to join the People’s University. This collaboration will provide a large number of people to undergo a systematic training and will work equivalent to a few universities put together.”
“There’s a lot of educational infrastructure and opportunities available outside the formal education boundary and IAF is one such entity,” Prof Pillai added.
“Although the training imparted to the airmen at various institutes prepares them for the air operational tasks and job-related duties, they suffer on the formal education front owing to their professional commitments. This, however, will not be the case now,” said Air Officer In-Charge (Personnel) Air Marshal K.J. Mathews.
The IGNOU-IAF ‘Akashdeep’ Project will register the existing airmen training institutes as Community Colleges, which will maintain a high degree of autonomy.
The Joint Basic Phase Training (JBPT), Module-I and Module-II will help the airmen earn credit points, which would be transferred to IGNOU to help them earn Certificates, Diplomas and Associate Degrees in arts, science, commerce, business administration, hotel management, hospitality services, medical services, para-medical services, office management, automobile trade performing skill, music and instrumental music.
The Associate Degree of community colleges, as explained by Air Marshal Mathews, consists of a minimum of two years which can be completed in four semesters of study, comprising 64 credits in all.
The first semester, called the basic foundation course with the JBPT phase comprising 16 credits, is a compulsory subject for one to be eligible for a certificate course. For those airmen who have not completed their Class 12 studies, JBPT will be counted as the bridge course to bring them at par with the 10+2 qualification.
The second semester is the applied professional course in the chosen programme comprising 16 credits with a compulsory subject where Module-I training stands as their eligibility to gain a diploma (minimum one year).
The third semester includes qualifications attained through the knowledge upgradation course in Module-II. And lastly, the fourth semester includes qualification attained towards knowledge upgradation through compulsory internship project and project work obtained during On-the-Job-Training (OJT).
“Module-II and OJT together will constitute third and fourth semester and would make them eligible for award of an Associate Degree. The 64 credits obtained on successful completion of the Associate Degree will become transferable towards the completion of 96 credits in all, to obtain a Bachelor’s Degree,” added Air Marshall Mathews.
Pro-VC Latha Pillai described the IGNOU-Air Force initiative as “a modest attempt to make education for the men who guard our borders, borderless.”
The Community College Scheme of IGNOU will soon be extended to the Indian Navy for the benefit of the servicemen, she added.
