IGNOU emerges as largest Varsity offering education in 35 nations

New Delhi, Mar 26 (UNI) Indira Gandhi National Open University has emerged as the largest mega university offering education in India and in 35 other countries around the world.

Prof S C Garg, Pro-Vice Chancellor and Director, International Division of IGNOU, informed this in a release today.

IGNOU's academic programmes are on offer in Gulf countries like UAE, Kuwait, Muscat, Bahrain, Doha, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, in Indian Ocean rim countries like Mauritius, Maldives and Seychelles and SAARC members Nepal and Sri Lanka and South East Asian countries like Indonesia, Singapore and Myanmar.

In Africa, IGNOU's academic programmes are being offered in Kenya, Namibia, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Liberia, Madagascar and two centres in Ghana under collaboration with IICBA-UNESCO. In collaboration with Commonwealth of Learning and Rajiv Gandhi Foundation Scheme (COL-RGF) , the students are admitted to PGDDE and MADE programmes from Lesotho, Nigeria, Swaziland, Namibia, Jamaica, Seychelles and Samoa. IGNOU programmes are also being offered in Kyrgyzstan and Fiji.

IGNOU has recently signed MoUs for offering IGNOU's programme with Universal Empire Institute of Technology, Dubai, Wisdom Institute of Technology, UAE, the University of Fiji, Distance Education Modernisation Project, Ministry of Education in Sri Lanka and Virtual University of Tunis, Tunisia, said Prof Garg.

As an outcome of the deliberation of GMUNET and ICDE, proposals have been received from the Open university (United Kingdom), University of South Africa, Open UIniversity Terbuka (Indonesia) and Zimbabwe Open University to develop joint programmes and enter into arrangements for faculty exchange to promote systematic research.

Under partnership arrangements to offer IGNOU programmes in respective countries, negotiations are taking place with Payam-e-Noor Univerity, Iran, University of Modern Sciences, Republic of Yemen and Afghanistan International University of Mangement Sciences.

Sharing of IGNOU's course material with Makerere University, Uganda and Adult Learning and Distance Education Centre, Ministry of Education, Seychelles are also being considered, he informed.

In pursuance of the decisions taken in the second meeting of Board of Governors of SACODil, all Open Univeristies in the SAARC region have agreed to mutually recognise first degree programmes. An agreement for credit transfer to facilitate learner mobility and faculty exchange is under active consideration, said Prof Garg, who is also secretary of SACODil.

UNI AJ MSJ RN1436