Education, Careers & Professional News
IGNOU To Launch Seven New Courses
Virtual classroom will be possible soon
i EDUSAT network soon in rural and remote areas
ii Digital content delivery to be made possible
iii 8,000 students have enrolled for course in SHGs
iv Agriculture education to be introduced
CHENNAI: The Indira Gandhi National Open University will offer seven new courses this academic year, starting July.
The university will also enhance its EDUSAT capability, setting up a network of delivery nodes in rural and remote areas.
At present, EDUSAT intervention is being carried out on a trial basis in six centres in the State. Once the technical glitches are ironed out, full-fledged programming will start, K. Soundravalli, Regional Director, IGNOU, told presspersons here on Friday. Virtual classroom, video-on-demand and online admissions and examinations would be possible soon.
Of the new courses, five will be post-graduate programmes in dietics and food services management, economics, public administration, rural development and sociology, besides a postgraduate diploma in community cardiology and a diploma in hospital waste management. The community cardiology course is a continuing medical education programme, which requires a MBBS degree.
The new courses would be in addition to 101 programmes now offered. The response to the 15 courses introduced last year was good. The university catered for 1.3 million learners in India and 30 other countries, and had a network of 48 regional centres, six sub-regional centres and 1,200 study centres. It also used information and communication technology (ICT) to reach out to remote and rural learners. Very soon, digital content delivery through multimedia CD-ROM and the Internet would also be possible.
The Chennai region alone had 94 study centres, and 26,000 students enrolled in 2004-05. Till now, over two lakh learners enrolled. MBA, B.Ed., BCA, MCA and B.Sc (Nursing) remained the most popular courses.
As the IGNOU was the nodal agency for the EDUSAT, all regional centres, State Open Universities and leading technical institutions were made receiving nodes.
A number of educational institutions have come forward to use the EDUSAT, and the Tamil Nadu Virtual University is in charge of content generation, Dr. Soundravalli said.
The university`s prison outreach programme so far enrolled 300 jail inmates.
The six-month course on `Empowerment of women through self-help groups` produced 8,000 students, and its legal literacy component was successful. Special projects for the disabled were worked out in collaboration with the Rehabilitation Council of India.
The IGNOU would soon offer agriculture education for farmers and the rural community
Sources: Online Resources