India Education & Career

The Tribune, Chandigarh
by Harihar Swarup

Open universities and imparting of distance education is turning into a revolution, almost on the pattern of IT revolution, in the sphere of higher education. The concept has not only challenged the traditional form of higher learning but also served as a movement to overcome generic problems of scarcity and exclusivity of traditional universities.

One of the pioneers of distance education is Prof V.N. Rajsekharan Pillai, currently Vice-Chancellor of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), and Chairman of its Distance Education Council. Aptly, he was honoured with the Presidential Gold Medal Award by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at 95th Indian Science Congress in Visakhapatanam early this month.

Indeed, the initiative of distance education has acquired a new dimension under Prof Pillai’s guidance as the head of IGNOU. Having 36-year-long experience as a teacher, researcher, institution builder and educational administrator, he joined IGNOU in October 2006.

The institution in this brief span made rapid strides. For the first time since its establishment in 1985, the open university made its presence felt at the Science Congress. The Chair for Sustainable Development at IGNOU sponsored the plenary session on “Sustainability Science”. According to Prof Pillai, “sustainability science has gained worldwide attention because of growing problems of climate change and the widespread environmental pollution caused by human activities. There is, therefore, an urged need for changing the present pattern of unsustainable development to a more sustainable development pathway.

Prof Pillai is a visionary and strategist. With the ascent of digital technology, he sees more changes on the way. A time may come soon when all universities may have to transform themselves as universities of convergence by adopting information communication technologies in their learning processes. Students may prefer to select institutions based on relevance and quality of offerings, convenience and price rather than geography.

In his view, the challenge before the open and distance learning system is not on how to be an alternative system but to make a definite contribution to the development of knowledge-based human resources rather than simply being a mechanism to expand the existing education system.

One of Prof Pillai’s dream projects has been to offer higher technical education on line. Under his scheme, the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) will offer courses online in the distance education mode. The Distance Education Council, the national-level apex body regulating and monitoring distance education, has given green signal to the IITs and IIMs to offer its courses online. This scheme will be in addition to the regular students who make it to the IITs and IIMs through entrance tests. In this way, the dreams of thousands of students who are unable to make it to the IITs and IIMs could be fulfilled. At the same time, the distance education mode cal also be popularised.

The IGNOU, under the leadership of Prof Pillai, launched its first foreign language programme in distance learning in July last year in Chennai. The open university has now international presence covering as many as 38 countries; it is considering a proposal to introduce basic Arabic language courses. Once this is done, students from expatriate communities other than Indians will also get interested in IGNOU’s distance education programmes.