"Education is a liberating force, and in our age it is also a democratising force, cutting across the barriers of caste and class, smoothing out inequalities imposed by birth and other circumstances."
- Indira Gandhi
IGNOU, DELHI
The Indira Gandhi National Open University was established by an Act of Parliament in 1985. Today, it serves the educational aspirations of about 1.5 million students in India and 35 countries abroad through 11 Schools of Studies and an elaborate network of 58 regional centres, 7 Sub- Regional centres, 1400 study centres, and 41 overseas centres. The University is making all efforts to take higher education to the doorsteps of the hitherto unreached. Apart from teaching and research, extension and training form the mainstay of its academic activities. It also acts as a national resource centre; and more importantly, functions as an apex body to promote and maintain standards of distance education. Based on its contribution in Distance Education the Commonwealth of Learning has recognised it as one of its ‘Centres of Excellence’. It also has the unique privilege of hosting the Secretariats of SAARC Consortium of Open Distance Learning (SACODIL) approved by Heads of Govts. of SAARC Nations and Global Mega Universities Network (GMUNET) initially promoted by UNESCO.
In order to fulfil the vision of democratising higher education and providing access to all segments of people, the University:
- Imparts education and knowledge through various flexible means suited to the open and distance education mode, including information and communication technologies
- Provides higher education and training to large sections of population, particularly the disadvantaged segments of the society
- Promotes national integration and the integrated development of human personality
- Encourages, co-ordinates and assists open universities and distance learning systems to improve standards in such systems
The University offers 130 academic programmes that are need-based, innovative and vocation-oriented with a focus on socio-economic development and serving the disadvantaged. The programmes are at the Awareness, Certificate, Diploma, Degree(Bachelors, Masters & Doctoral) levels and offered through multiple instructional package with the convergence of different methodologies and technologies.
IGNOU, AGARTALA
The IGNOU, Regional Centre Agartala was established in the year 2001 under North East Educational Development Project to cater to the ever burgeoning need to develop human resources in the region. Lack of adequate skilled manpower has been a stumbling block in the composite development of the North-Eastern region of the country and Tripura is no exception in this regard. The Govt. of India has introduced various projects and programmes in the North- East region of the country. “Educational Development of North-East and Sikkim ” is one such project sponsored by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) from a Non Lapsable Central Pool of Resources (NLCPR) of the Planning Commission. The objectives of the project inter-alia entail: Creating educational accessibility by establishing the learning centres/ tele -learning centres covering the remote and far off places of the States of NER. Planning and implementing the need based entrepreneurship and training programmes in collaboration with other State/Central agencies to increase the employment opportunities of the North-East. Establishing Multi purpose community work centres in each state to have a permanent feature for training the unemployed youth. Thirty four study centres are currently in operation in the region. Among these, five are Study Centres (SCs), twenty eight are Programme Study Centres (PSCs) and one is Special Study Centre (SSC).These Centres conduct various study programmes offered by the university. A Tele-Learning Centre (TLC) was set up in the year 2003 at the Regional Centre to conduct BCA and MCA programmes and for coordinating CLP among the CICs of the State.
