Although the silver jubilee celebrations of the Indira Gandhi National Open University (estb.1985) were dutifully inaugurated in Delhi on November 19 last year, there seems little awareness or pride in the unique achievements of the world’s largest distance education varsity. Autar Nehru & Summiya Yasmeen report
However in the national capital the silver jubilee celebrations of India’s pioneer distance education varsity, established in 1985 by a special Act of Parliament (IGNOU Act, 1985), were dutifully inaugurated on November 19 (‘Foundation Day’) last year by President Pratibha Patil, who commended the world’s largest distance education university with a massive enrolment of 2.89 million students for “reducing disparities in education by extending opportunities to villages and remote areas, and in generating a movement that will impel people to acquire knowledge and skills”. But typically, this landmark achievement of one of the country’s handful of institutions of higher education excellence attracted minimal media interest.
Yet there are reasons why the nation, particularly its aspirational middle and lower middle classes, should celebrate the contribution of this low-profile high-tech institution to the national development effort. For one, in a country where a mere 12 percent of youth in the age group 18-24 are enroled in higher education institutions (cf. 25 percent in China and over 60 percent in the US), over the past 25 years this path-breaking institution has provided over a million students access to higher education through its flexible open and distance learning (ODL) delivery model. Currently 15 percent (1.8 million) of the 12 million students enroled in India’s higher education system are enroled in IGNOU. Last year, it awarded degrees, diplomas and certification to 137,000 students countrywide, and on average 200,000 students sign up for IGNOU study programmes every year. In sharp contrast the country’s 15 IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) and eight IIMs (Indian Institutes of Management) admit 8,300 and 3,000 students respectively per year.
Promoted by the Central government with an initial grant of Rs.2.93 crore to provide “higher education to large sections of the population and particularly disadvantaged segments of society”, over the past quarter century IGNOU has played a significant role in expanding the access of India’s educationally short-changed youth to higher education. From an initial offering of only two study programmes to 4,528 students in 1987, IGNOU has steadily expanded to lay claim to the status of the world’s largest open university offering 338 (including 16 vocational) programmes through its 21 schools of study and 21 centres and institutes to 2.89 million students. This mammoth student population, set to cross the 3 million milestone this month (April), is tutored by a core faculty of 400 supported by a team of 36,000 academic counselors operating from 61 regional centres and 3,000 learners study centres.
A former vice chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi University and Cochin University of Science and Technology (both in Kerala), and former visiting professor (chemistry) at the universities of Tubingen, Mainz (Germany) and Lausanne (Switzerland), Dr. Pillai has a long and distinguished career in the top echelons of Indian higher education. In 1996 he was appointed director of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council, and then elevated to the office of vice-chairman followed by acting chairman of the University Grants Commission (2003-2006) before being appointed as vice chancellor of IGNOU in October 2006. Since then Pillai has more than doubled the university’s study programmes and registered students.
One of the major infirmities of post-independence India’s government-dominated education system is that during the past half century insufficient capacity has been created in tertiary education. As a consequence a mere 12 percent of youth in the age group 18-24 is able to enter the higher education system. Into this breach, IGNOU has stepped in to make a major contribution.
Currently its scholastic menu includes 338 diploma, certificate, bachelor’s and Master’s study programmes delivered by 21 schools of study including agriculture, education, computer and information sciences, management studies, health sciences, social sciences, health, engineering and technology, among others. These 21 schools/faculties are supported by more than a dozen chairs specially constituted to conduct research and development in academic disciplines in consultation with industry, public and private research institutions (see box).
Though established as a Central university vested with the power to design its own syllabuses, curriculums and award degrees, in its early years IGNOU didn’t enjoy a high academic reputation. In the public perception its study programmes delivered through postal tuition packages were regarded as inferior to those dispensed by bricks-and-mortar colleges and universities. However in 1992, IGNOU received a status boost when the University Grants Commission officially declared its degrees/diplomas/certificates on a par with certification granted by conventional universities. Subsequently in 1994 the Association of Indian Universities also acknowledged the status parity of IGNOU degrees. Moreover in 1993, IGNOU was designated the first centre of excellence for distance education worldwide by the Canada-based Commonwealth of Learning. Such national and international validation of its distance education model encouraged the IGNOU management to gradually expand its academic programmes.
With most of its course content available in the digital form, in June 2008 IGNOU launched an exclusive internet portal — e-Gyankosh — to store, index, preserve, distribute and share the digital learning resources developed by its 21 schools of studies, with an investment of Rs.5 crore. Currently 40,000 self-instructional print materials and over 1,600 videographed lessons/lectures are available on e-Gyankosh.
Given its leadership role in pioneering and incorporating new ICT and internet technologies in education, it’s unsurprising that IGNOU is the preferred partner of the Union HRD ministry for collaboration in the domain of ICT-enabled education. A case in point is the Sakshat e-learning portal designed and developed by IGNOU for the HRD ministry’s National Mission in Education through ICT.
While IGNOU has undoubtedly made distance education more student-friendly, acceptable and respectable by integrating new ICT and internet technologies, it has also reached out to conventional bricks-and-mortar institutions by offering its study programmes on their campuses. Under a unique ‘Convergence of Open and Distance Learning and Conventional Systems scheme’, launched in 2007, IGNOU offers its undergraduate, postgrad, diploma and certificate programmes to students in partner colleges and universities through the conventional as well as distance learning modes. Under the scheme, partner institutions can offer IGNOU’s undergraduate/ postgraduate programmes to new students after college hours, while students already enroled in full-time undergrad/postgrad programmes can opt for its short-term value-added certificate and diploma courses and/or pursue dual degrees. Thus far 30,000 students from 411 colleges and universities countrywide have signed up for additional IGNOU certification.
Currently 11 Master’s degree programmes are being offered to 218 full-time students by eight schools of study. The most promising of these is the Master’s programme in mass communi-cation offered by the School of Journalism and New Media Studies. “This postgrad programme is unique and has been specially designed in collaboration with Unesco and international communication experts. Graduates will be jointly certified by Unesco and IGNOU. We plan to roll it out across the country and Asia through the distance education mode this year. Moreover we have also introduced a programme in community radio operation and management,” says Prof. Shambu Nath Singh, director of the school.
Moreover the university offers a one-of-its-kind BA in applied sign language — designed in collaboration with the University of Central Lancashire (UK) — to 30 hearing impaired students. Another notable learning programme launched by the IGNOU community of 413 teachers and distance learning professionals is Gyan Deep. Inaugurated on November 19, 2009 by President Pratibha Patil, IGNOU in collaboration with the Indian Army plans to offer two-year vocational education degrees to 50,000 soldiers who retire from the army every year.
Yet perhaps the most high-potential initiative to be launched by IGNOU in recent years is its community colleges programme. Against the backdrop of a mere 3.5 million Indian youth enroled in vocational education and training (VET) institutions (cf. 90 million in China), IGNOU’s community colleges programme launched in partnership with government and private sector organisations, promises to contribute in a big way towards skilling India’s 450 million low-productivity workforce. Under the scheme, partner VET institutes and community colleges offer IGNOU’s two-year associate degree programmes to students through the traditional class-room instruction model. Since its inauguration in July last year, 300 private community colleges across the country have signed up with IGNOU to offer its skills-based associate degree programmes in business, office practice, accounting, agriculture, computer technologies, textile and fashion design, hospitality, tourism and para medicine to 11,000 full-time students. On completion of the two-year associate degree, students who wish to study further have the option of lateral entry into the third year of a bachelor’s degree programme with IGNOU.
Nevertheless although IGNOU has expanded higher education capacity and democratised it, in the public mind there’s still a persistent doubt about the quality and general acceptability of IGNOU certification. It’s an open secret that most employers tend to prefer conventional over distance education graduates. “There is a question mark over the quality of distance education delivered by IGNOU. The concern in Indian industry is about the quality of students enroling, quality of curriculum and mode of delivery and therefore the final product. Definitely, in the job market, distance education graduates are less valued,” says Anjan Das, senior director (education) at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) headquarters in Delhi.
The relatively lower standing of IGNOU graduates and diploma holders in the job market is obviously the outcome of its policy of inclusiveness. Whereas all reputed colleges and institutions of higher education stipulate high secondary and higher secondary cut-off percentages for admission, to fulfill its mandate of inclusive education, IGNOU admits students with minimal pass percentages. Therefore there’s an inherent trade-off between its second chance and inclusive education goals, and the uneven quality of the average IGNOU alumnus.
Yet if 25 years on, despite its many innovations and major contributions to expansion of higher and vocational education IGNOU has not fired the national imagination, this is mainly because of its historical legacy as a government institution firmly tied to the apron strings of the Union HRD ministry. And typically, given the socialist mindset of government bureaucrats and academics, minimal attention was accorded to marketing, promoting and building the IGNOU brand. For instance in fiscal 2009-10, a mere Rs.5 crore, equivalent to one percent of revenue, was spent on advertising, sales promotion and brand building. And even this modest outlay for advertising is five times higher than it was until the new management under Dr. Raja-sekharan Pillai took charge and metamorphosed IGNOU.
Moreover with this pioneer distance education institution’s income from students’ fees aggregating only Rs.266 crore (in fiscal 2008-09) against its annual expenditure of Rs.494 crore, IGNOU is critically dependent upon the annual grant of Rs.80-100 crore it receives from the Central government. Hence room to exercise financial or administrative autonomy is limited, and the IGNOU management is obliged to fall in line with the heavily subsidised tuition fees and faculty remuneration norms of Central universities.
Therefore 25 years after IGNOU registered its first distance learning students, its management has taken fresh guard and is set to build a second innings. For one, it has actively engaged itself with the objectives of increasing the percentage of youth in higher education from the current 12 percent to 15 percent by the year 2015, and skilling India’s low-productivity workforce. The incumbent management of IGNOU believes that by partnering with bricks-and-mortar universities and harnessing the power of ICT technologies, IGNOU can play a major role in expanding access to higher education and popularising vocational education and training.
“IGNOU has prepared a detailed 10-year action plan with three focus areas — skills development, gross enrolment ratio (GER) enhancement and teacher training. In the area of skills develop-ment, IGNOU has already begun networking and collaborating with public and private education institutions to provide skills-oriented training. Our target is to train 1 million school and college drop-outs every year by providing them VET through PPP (public-private partnership) institutions. To enhance GER in higher education by 1 percent per year, we are working on convergence of the conventional system with technology-enabled ODL models. And in the area of teacher education, we will be utilising ODL models including satellite technologies to train and retrain 200,000 teachers every year. IGNOU is strongly committed to harnessing the power of technology and the resources available in the formal sector to deliver high-quality distance education to those who cannot access conventional higher education,” reaffirms Dr. Rajasekharan Pillai.
Of the 200 million children enroled in the country’s 1.25 million primary schools, only 39 million complete secondary school and a mere 11 million enter higher education institutions. Moreover only 5 percent of 21st century India’s 450 million low-productivity workforce has received formal vocational education. These dismal statistics could dramatically change for the better if IGNOU comes of age and replicates itself in state capitals across the country.
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