Tele-education service to 53 African nations: IGNOU

New Delhi, Jun 2: The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) will soon provide Tele-Education services to all the 53 countries of the African Union(AU). Telecommunications Consultants India Limited (TCIL) and IGNOU have signed an agreement to set up a satellite and Optic Fibre based "Pan-African e-Network" connecting India and 53-member countries of African Union, Vice Chancellor Prof V N Rajasekharan Pillai said here today.

IGNOU's services will consist of preparing the electronic content in different educational courses for various African countries, covering post graduation, graduation and Diploma/ Certification level programmes in the fields of Science, Engineering, Arts, Business Administration, Healthcare, Nurses' Training, Teachers' training etc. as desired by the Ministry of External Affairs/AU/Individual African countries participating in the network.

The University will also arrange for delivering of lectures/e-content as per schedules drawn by TCIL in consultation with MEA, IGNOU and the experts from the identified Universities in Africa.

The main obligations of TCIL will be to establish a Tele-education studio with associated hardware/ software for Tele-education application at IGNOU campus and to establish communication links for Tele-education services.

UNI