Indira Gandhi National Open University

The Indira Gandhi National Open University generally known as IGNOU was established by an Act of Parliament in the year of 1985. Since then it has continuously striven to build an inclusive knowledge society through inclusive as well as a dynamic model of education. It has always tried to increase the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) by offering very high-quality teaching standards through the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) mode.

The University has earlier started by offering only two academic programs by 1987and that was Diploma in Management as well as a Diploma in Distance Education, with an overall strength of 4,528 students.

Today, the university serves the educational aspirations of more than 3 million students in the country and other countries as well through 21 Schools of Studies and a big network of 67 regional centers that is around 2,667 learner support centers and around a total of 29 overseas partner institutions. The University offers about 228 certificate courses, diploma, degree and doctoral programs, with a total strength of nearly 810 faculty members and a total of 574 academic staff at the headquarters and their regional centers, plus 33,212 odd academic counsellors who are from various conventional institutions of higher learning, professional organizations, and industries amongst others.

The Academic Coordination Division is always engaged with the management affairs of the Teachers as well as Academics and facilitation of policy formulation of almost all academic matters of the University in connection with the provisions of the Act, Ordinances and Statutes of the IGNOU Act.  The division also coordinates all other related matters of the Academic Council as well as its Standing Committees.

The Research Unit was established at the Indira Gandhi National Open University around 6 October 2008. Before that, research-related activities were undertaken by the Academic Coordination Division. The Unit has been established in order to conduct Research Council as well as Research Council’s Standing Committee meetings for developing policies and to develop frameworks for the conduct of various research activities. The unit register as well as monitor all the full-time and part-time MPhil as well as Ph.D. candidates. They engage Research Teaching Assistants under IGNOU-DEC RTA Scheme for conducting various research as well as teaching. Apart from that, they conduct various workshops/seminars on research methodology for full-time as well as part-time research candidates. They are responsible for facilitating systemic as well as discipline-based research in the entire University.

Ashok Khemka, the economist, the IAS Officer, the computer scientist, has an M.A. in Economics from IGNOU. National Film Award winner Sudipta Chakraborty, the Bengali cinema actress, earned an honors degree in English from IGNOU. General Deepak Kapoor, the 23rd Chief Army Staff of the Indian Army has a Master’s degree in Business Administration from IGNOU. Miss India 2001, Celina Jaitley holds a graduation degree in Commerce from IGNOU. Pushpa Preeya, known for her service of voluntarily writing exams for the visually impaired studied Master’s from IGNOU. K. Vijay Kumar, the IPS officer who led the Special Task Force during Operation Cocoon of 2004 has an MBA from IGNOU. Deepika Padukone had enrolled herself for a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology but couldn’t continue with the commitments of her high demanding career. Arjun Munda, former Chief Minister of Jharkhand, obtained a Post Graduate Diploma in Social Sciences from Indira Gandhi National Open University.