IN PRINT
To make education inclusive, the government is aiming to get at least seven million students, largely from the underprivileged sections, enrolled in distance eduction programmes, said Union Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal at the convocation of the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU).
Sibal said that distance education can help in achieving the gross enrolment ratio (GER) of 30% by 2020.
"Distance education has became popular because it offers people from rural, working class communities access to higher education. We are thus targeting an enrolment of at least 7 million students, with a majority from the disadvantaged sections and locations, during the next few years," he added.
"The GER in higher education is presently 13%, which is 10% below the world average. I am trying to raise it to the global average by 2020, which by then will be around 30%," he said.
Speaking on the occasion, IGNOU Vice Chancellor Professor V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai stressed the initiatives taken by the university to promote the GER and said, "120 districts were identified with the GER between 3.0 and 7.0 where IGNOU can tap the prospective learners in the age group of 18-23 years. Both enrolment of fresh learners by IGNOU and retention of learners in the IGNOU system are being addressed to."
The VC added that the university is playing a key role in creating 500 million certified technicians and skilled workers by 2020.
Stressing the university's growth story in the past four years, Pillai said IGNOU is uniquely poised to enter the 555-5555 Decade of Innovation.
"IGNOU's approach in this Decade of Innovation is to achieve inclusive and sustainable growth in education, skill development, healthcare, energy, agriculture and infrastructure."
"The university also plans to design learning and training modules, courses and programmes through which learners can pay skills providers directly and make the knowledge and skill acquired bankable through testing and certification, converting them into diplomas, higher diplomas, associate degrees and degrees," Pillai added.
Source: igovernment
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Prof.(Dr.)Sanjiv Marwah Tue, 2011-04-05 10:20
In the mad race of raising Gross Enrollment Ratio which is largely a western parameter we are missing the quality bus as a nation. Studies have repeatedly shown that very high proportion of Indian Engineers and other graduates are not employable. India with rising opportunities in Agriculture and service sector needs different kind of skillset which can be contributed by Distance education and E-learning initiatives.In fact Distance education can play a very important role in skill enhancement for the Indian society which is certainly eager to learn more. The present state of affairs in distance education is appalling. it is used by large no. of Universities to impart poor quality degrees. Distance Education should focus on Skill impartment and not on Degree allotment. I hope government looks into this carefully and not use Education policy to meet political objectives. Thank you
.JPG)
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