The Hindu : National : IGNOU to open four new schools

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Feb 19, 2007
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National

National

IGNOU to open four new schools

Parul Sharma

Potential to generate direct and indirect employment

NEW DELHI: Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) will launch four new schools beginning July this year.

The new schools — Foreign Languages, Vocational Studies and Training, Translation Studies and Training and Gender and Development Studies — have been approved by the expert committee.

"The proposals will be placed before the Board of Management and Academic Council of the university this month and their recommendations will be implemented during the XI Plan. We plan to start these schools from July this year," IGNOU Vice-Chancellor V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai said recently.

The School of Foreign Languages will offer certificate and diploma programmes in Japanese, Chinese, German, French and Arabic catering to those working in BPOs and trade and commerce industry, while the School of Vocational Studies aims to upgrade skills through short training programmes.

"There was a lot of demand from various quarters to start courses in foreign languages. Our School will be different from others in that we will not teach the literature of any particular language but will be focussing on increasing the communication skills of our students. It is mainly intended for the graduates. We are collaborating with different foreign institutions and embassies to develop the study material for these courses," he said.

IGNOU's regional centres will play a key role in the operation of the School of Vocational Studies. The courses will be designed according to the developmental requirements of a particular region. So these centres will work with self-help groups and non-government organisations to identify the learners of a region, evaluate their learning capacities and aptitude and then decide on the courses that need to be introduced to provide certifiable skills to the workforce.

Skill enhancement

"Productivity of a country is directly proportional to the skilled workforce. Less than 6 per cent of India's total labour force is skilled. We want to enhance the skills of the existing workers and improve their core competence. This is why we do not have any basic minimum educational criteria for this School," Prof. Pillai added.

Talking about the other two schools, he said it was important to introduce Gender and Development Studies and Translations in a dynamic country like India in the era of globalisation.

"There is a need to expand the quantity and improve the quality of different translations, be it from one Indian language to another or a foreign one. We want to provide students systematic training and basic computer software required for handling translations."

Highlighting the direct and indirect employment generation potential of translation activities, Prof. Pillai said the translation industry could absorb a substantial part of educated unemployed youth of the country.

As for making study material for the various courses offered by IGNOU online, the Vice-Chancellor informed that from next year students can access both the print as well as the online version of study material for all courses, including the new programmes.

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