Education at the click of a mouse

Updated on: Friday, July 01, 2011

A plethora of interesting courses are being offered by open universities today. The two top institutions in the city are the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University (YCMOU).

Over the years, more and more students are opting for the short term courses offered by these universities which in a way provide a boost to their career. IGNOU offers a number of value added courses which are also aimed at self employment.

Open universities cater to the needs of all sections of the society, with a fee structure that can be afforded by most. Universities like Sikkim Manipal and Annamalai enable and empower distance education.

The courses offered are aplenty. The technical courses offered by these universities open avenues for immediate employment. The IGNOU at present offers 338 programmes of study through over 3,500 courses, as stated in its website.

After SSC, there are two types of course available through IGNOU- vocational and subject oriented courses. Vocational courses are certificate courses with duration of six months and the subject oriented courses are of one year duration.

Students can choose from a wide variety of courses ranging from certificate course in Information Technology (IT) to courses in poultry farming and bee keeping. IGNOU has a certificate course in Urdu language and the provision for foreign language courses is underway. Also, they have planned to introduce a certificate course in sericulture.

YCMOU offers a total of 220 vocational (certificate) and diploma courses. For students who have appeared for SSC, YCMOU offers a preparatory programme. For engineering courses if the fee is high then it is borne by the industry. Non-technical certificate courses like agriculture, tailoring and fashion designing are also offered. Both universities also offer courses for jail inmates.

Times of India

Education at the click of a mouse

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