IGNOU to Launch World’s First Online Sand Art Course

Indira Gandhi National Open University, in collaboration with HRD Ministry, will launch world’s first online Certificate Course in Sand Art in March 2018. Padma Shri Award-winning artist, Mr. Sudarshan Patnaik will take classes for the enthusiastic participants. It was the dream of Mr. Patnaik to take the popular art form to art enthusiasts, and IGNOU has realised his dream by framing an online course in sand art.

An official associated with IGNOU revealed that the course would begin before March 31, 2018, and the varsity has started the process to initiate the course. Video lectures have been prepared and the course is fine-tuned as per Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) norms.

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Mr. Patnaik expressed that he wished India to become the first country across the globe to offer such training to sand artists. A platform is highly essential for upcoming sand artists to exhibit their talent to the outer world. He submitted the syllabus course design to the varsity a year ago and had been eagerly waiting for the response. Finally, the varsity has approved the course and assured that it would be launched in March 2018, he added.

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Recently, an official from IGNOU visited the IGNOU regional centre at Bhubaneswar and finalised the modalities of the course with Mr. Patnaik.

Mr. Patnaik has been imparting sand art training through his open-air Gold Sand Art Institute, located at Puri Beach. He termed the ‘Sand Art’ as a practical art, and more practice is essential to get perfection. IGNOU’s online Certificate course on Sand Art will have a systematic process of making sculptors in the sand, he highlighted.