Capacity building for teachers stressed

Mysore, Mar 3 (UNI) Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) Vice-Chancellor Prof V N Rajashekharan Pillai today emphasised the need for embedded technology for the teaching facility to ensure quality higher education for the overall development of the country's economy.

Delivering the keynote address at a national conference on quality assurance in open distance learning institutions, organised by the Karnataka State Open University here, he said capacity building was necessary for teachers, right from the kindergarten to college level, and encouragment from the Union and State Governments was needed to take up various programmes in this direction. The programmes taken up by IGNOU in this regard were not enough.

Prof Pillai said that even though the country had more than 350 universities and 18,000 colleges for higher education, it was reaching only 7.8 per cent of the population. The Union Government had taken up the uphill task of taking the percentage to nine-ten per cent by 2020 and increasing the number of varsities to 1,500.

Lamenting that the country had only five per cent skilled workers when compared to South Korea's 80 per cent, he opined that even if distance education institutions enhanced at least ten per cent of skilled workers, the productivity might be doubled.

About 150 delegations from various institutions were attending the three-day conference, marking the tenth anniversary of KSOU.

UNI