SHILLONG: In its bid to move digital, the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) is now in the process of digitalising its learning materials for the students, who are studying different courses in the university.
Informing this here on Saturday, IGNOU, Vice Chancellor, Professor Ravindra Kumar said that the digital learning material would be made available to students apart from the printing materials.
“Digital format can be transferred in the smart phones of people and it would be a boon for students,” he said while recalling that sometimes it takes a long time to deliver the printing materials to students staying in distant villages.
With this move, the IGNOU which was spending around 200 cores every year for printing of materials would save around 75-100 crores.
When asked how the digital learning materials can be utilised by students of distant villages where internet connectivity is still a major challenge, he said university’s digital material will run on broadband connectivity in many areas where internet is a problem.
He also informed that the university has recently signed an MOU with National E-Governance Division (NEGD) which provides the university to continue with the digital materials under the Digital India programme of the Union Government.
Apart from opening 5000 digital learning centres in the country, the University is also harping on its Gyandarshan network which has been revived and people, who have Doordarshan in their television can have as many as 6 hours of live broadcast of educational TV programmes.
“We will open up these digital learning centres right to the block level and if we get cooperation, we may open the centres even at the Panchayat level,” he said.
Maintaining that the university has 9 lakh students in the country including around 67000 students from the North East region, he added that the University gets around 500 crores of funds and 20 percent of the allocation is spent on the North Eastern states.
Meanwhile, the University is also providing free course to transgender community, who are in poor economic strata. Kumar said that the university was charging the transgender community earlier for the courses but their numbers grew and the university decided to help them in giving them a better identity and respect.
The university has around 1000 transgender students and they are undertaking courses at all levels including Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. D).
The Vice Chancellor of the IGNOU was in Shillong to attend the meeting of the North East Council for IGNOU regional centres.
