Courses in apparel design

Updated on: Monday, November 23, 2009

Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) has joined hands with the Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) for offering various educational programmes in the domain of apparels, garments and fashion designing.

The council runs apparel management and training and design centres, which are non-profit, industry-managed organisations promoting manufacture and exports of garments, education and training in the domain.

U.S. Tolia, Registrar (Administration), IGNOU, and Darlie Koshy, Director-General for Education and Training of the council, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in the presence of V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai, Vice-Chancellor of the university, and Rakesh Vaid, Chairman of the council, recently. The MoU aims to institute educational programmes that will ensure employment to students. The two arms of the council, the Institute of Apparel Management and the training and design centres, have developed a few programmes for niche areas of functioning in the apparel industry.

The MoU will ensure IGNOU certification and scaling up for further domain knowledge, besides helping professionals in the ‘fibre-to-fashion' chain of textile, apparel and retail industries.

Commending the council for the move to educate and empower youth who want to join the apparel industry, Prof. Pillai said the initiative would underline IGNOU's commitment to the goals of the National Skills Mission, which targeted creation of livelihood opportunities for needy individuals.

A total of 52 training and design centres in the country will be used to provide vocational education certifiable by IGNOU, Dr. Koshy said.

All programmes will be in the modular manner between IGNOU and the council's twin arms. Various models to make use of the network of training and design centres will be explored, such as the distance education model, community colleges and open education norms.

Activity centre

The MoU ensures exploration of possibilities to set up an activity centre to create avenues for gainful employment in the textile, apparel, lifestyle and retail sectors. The tie-up will ensure the exclusive use of networks of IGNOU and the two arms of the council to provide skill-development of the candidates. Innovative technological and vocational academic programmes by sharing expertise and joint market surveys will be implemented.

The MoU will help in the creation of a delivery culture driven by information and communication technology and development of concepts and white papers for bridging education and industry requirements.

Courses in apparel design

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