Premier open university of the country, Indira Gandhi National Open University, popularly known as IGNOU hosted its 30th Convocation Ceremony on Thursday, 13th April 2017.
During the ceremonial celebrations, more than 2,35,000 students were conferred degrees, certificates and diplomas.
The Minister of State for Higher Education, Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey was present at IGNOU on the occasion. While addressing the gathering, he announced that the leading varsity will now venture into the digital education sphere. Adding to that he said the IGNOU has launched 11 free Massive Online Open Courses, also known as MOOC.
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The university is already a pioneer in providing excellent distance education to students. Now with its free MOOC courses, IGNOU will be able to expand its digital education horizon and benefit a large pool of students who are eager to learn and gain knowledge at any point in life.
Moreover, Dr. Pandey added that the HRD Ministry has handed over the channels of 'Swayamprabha' and 'Swayam' to IGNOU in order to enable it to bring about a digital revolution in higher education.
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At present, certificate course in E-learning and certificate course in Russian are functional. Apart from that, 9 new MOOC courses have been introduced by IGNOU.
The VC (Vice-chancellor) of IGNOU, Professor Ravindra Kumar revealed that more than 1.5 lakh students opted for admission to these MOOC courses in the January 2017 cycle itself. He added that the candidates can now edit the already filled-in information and finally submit the same to the university. Moreover, the fees module has been shifted to the last stage and the system has become extra student-friendly, he said.
Apart from that, IGNOU has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Kendriya Vidyalayas across the nation. Through this partnership, IGNOU will conduct its term end examinations in these schools.