JS-29.1
Ignou- Paradigm Shift for Higher Education in India
India’s higher education system is largest in terms of number of institutions and third largest in terms of enrollment next to China and United States. Total approximate number of institutions imparting higher education in India is 26,000 whereas it stands at 6,706 in USA and 4,000 in China.
Despite massive expansion, there is mismatch between the demand and supply of higher educational institution in India. Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) for higher education in the country is very low at 16.23 per cent as compared to the world average at 27.06 per cent.
Open distance learning is one of such strategy which aims at universalization of higher education, to address the barriers of higher education
IGNOU- Indira Gandhi National Open
The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU),established by an Act of Parliament in 1985, has continuously striven to build an inclusive knowledge society through inclusive education. The mandate of the University is:
- Provide access to higher education
- Offer high-quality, innovative and need- based programmes
- Reach out to the disadvantaged by offering programmes at affordable costs
- Promote, coordinate and regulate the standards of education
- Adopting a variety of media and latest technology.
IGNOU, the National Resource Centre for Open and Distance Learning, with international recognition and presence, provide seamless access to sustainable and learner-centric quality education, skill up-gradation and training by using innovative technologies and methodologies and ensuring convergence of existing systems for large-scale human resource development.
IGNOU has been conferred with awards of excellence by Commonwealth of Learning (COL), Canada, several times. Recently, it was listed 12th in the webometric ranking of Indian Universities, based on the caliber of its presence on the Internet.
The University is committed to quality in teaching, research and extension activities through ODL system.