The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Four-member team inspects facilities available at university

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Tuesday, Aug 26, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Four-member team inspects facilities available at university

Staff Reporter

It checks infrastructure to grant recognition for distance education courses

MADURAI: A four-member team of Distance Education Council inspected facilities available at the Directorate of Distance Education of Madurai Kamaraj University here on Monday to grant recognition for the university’s programmes.

The team, headed by Latha Pillai, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), inspected the admission centre, examination centre, press, production and distribution of study materials, quality of study materials, media production centre and grievance redress mechanism.

Other members of the team were Meena Talwar, Professor, School of Social Sciences, IGNOU; Kamal Yadav, School of Management Sciences, IGNOU, and Bharat Bhushan, Deputy Director, Distance Education Council.

The team’s priority would be to ensure quality of courses, said Dr. Latha Pillai.

As going for DEC recognition for distance education courses would only make institutions accountable and improve their image, many educational institutions had approached it for acknowledgement, she said and added that so far 115 institutions, including 10 private ones, had obtained recognition for this academic year.

Since MKU was one of the earliest universities to run degree, diploma, certificate and research programmes through distance education mode, the DEC team had come here to inspect the facilities and grant post facto recognition, she said.

Getting the status of University with Potential for Excellence (UPE) was enough proof for the efficient functioning of this institution, she said and hoped that the same quality would be ensured for courses of distance education stream also.

Centre inaugurated

Later, she inaugurated a fully air-conditioned students’ amenities centre created under UPE funds at the main building of the university.

The centre has 25 computers with Internet facility with access to the UGC inflibnet journal from which the students can download research articles and get printouts at a nominal cost.

Besides, photocopiers, lamination and spiral/comb binding facilities are also available for students, researchers and faculty of regular courses and DDE students.

The university plans to procure for the centre CDs on spoken English, communication, personality development and materials for competitive examinations.

There is also a proposal to build an exclusive building for UPE scheme comprising Modern Instrumentation Centre, Modern Communication Centre with language laboratory and other facilities such as book store, bank and conference hall.

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