JEDDAH, 6 November 2003 — The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) has introduced its long distance education programs to this part of the world. Its international division, based in New Delhi, has announced a list of 16 degree, diploma and certificate programs for students seeking them through long distance courses.
“We’ve been holding many exams for universities at the consulate. Availability of IGNOU programs is a step further toward helping students, especially girls, who may wish to seek higher education through correspondence courses,” Consul General Syed Akbaruddin told Arab News yesterday. “In fact, young men, who are already here and wish to upgrade their skills, will also find this beneficial. After all, IGNOU is a university whose academic excellence is recognized in India and abroad,” he said and hoped that Indians would utilize the opportunity offered by IGNOU.
IGNOU’s academic programs are already on offer in the UAE, Doha, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman in the Gulf; Maldives, Mauritius and Seychelles among the Indian Ocean island states; as well as in Singapore and in Kenya and Namibia in Africa.
The university offers its distance education programs in Ethiopia, Madagascar and Liberia in collaboration with the International Institute in Capacity Building in Africa, a UNESCO organization, and in Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland, Jamaica, Belize and Samoa in collaboration with Commonwealth of Learning, Vancouver, Canada.
The university, one of the mega open universities in the world that provides professional, academic and awareness oriented education through the open and distance modes of learning, claims that its self-instructional course materials are sought after by the open universities in many countries. It has licensed its course materials to open universities of Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and Kenya.
IGNOU has been catering for over 900,000 students through a network of 47 regional centers and over 1,000 student centers using the latest information and communication technologies, said Riaz Mulla of ATEICO Communications, who is locally coordinating the IGNOU programs.
“IGNOU’s features include internationally recognized Indian curriculum and extremely competitive cost of tuition,” he said.
The programs include MBA; M.A. in distance education; postgraduate diplomas in management, marketing, human resources, operations management and international business operations; B.Ed; B.A.; B.Com; bachelor of tourism studies; and certificate courses in teaching of English, health and environment, and consumer protection.
