Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan was the chief guest and launched the online diplomas and awarded gold medals to the students.

NEW DELHI: The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) held its 35th Convocation Ceremony today, April 26, with Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan as the chief guest. University Vice Chancellor Nageshwar Rao awarded blockchain-based digital degrees to 60,570 students during the convocation. Pradhan launched the digital degrees developed with the help of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

While thanking the Minister of Education for his presence, Rao said that IGNOU has 67 regional centers – 56 own and 11 recognized centers established with army, navy and Assam rifles as well as 240 learner support centres.

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In the first round of accreditation, IGNOU became the first open university to be awarded A++ by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), Rao said. IGNOU currently offers 281 academic programs and over the past year, it has received more than 13 lakh student enrollments and re-enrollments, which is the highest since its inception, Rao said.

The cumulative registration of IGNOU is 34 lakh. There are 21 schools of study and 52,000 educational advisers, he said. The number of students receiving degrees in this convocation is 2,91,588, the highest since the 34th convocation. 23 new online and distance learning (ODL) programs and 83 online courses were launched in the last year.

IGNOU Learners

On April 21, an Ambedkar Center of Excellence, the first of its kind, was established at IGNOU, in which the University will provide mentorship to Scheduled Caste (ST) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) students.

IGNOU also ranked first in the ATAL ranking of institutions on innovations in 2021 by the Ministry of Education among all central universities, institutions of national importance. The University has 750 teachers and a strong alumni network. Over the past 37 years, a total of 39 lakh students have graduated from IGNOU. Talking about the learners, Rao informed that IGNOU has 48% women, 49% rural learners and 2% tribal learners.

IGNOU has been conducting offline reviews for the past two years despite the COVID-19 pandemic and reporting results on time, Rao said.

With regard to the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP), IGNOU has developed an institutional development plan duly approved by almost all statutory bodies and a draft document for the implementation of education programs. four-year undergraduate and one-year postgraduate programs, as well as adding Indian languages. On 23 programs of the PG, the IGNOU put an exit option after one year for 22 programs.

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On multidisciplinary programs, Rao said that if a BCom Honors student wants to study Hindi or the language of political science, they can register for the course in a course-based registration system and have their credits transferred. .

Talking about international students, Rao informed that 80,000 learners have enrolled in the university. Through 23 study centres, approximately 1,500 students study at IGNOU.

IGNOU has 9 regional centers in the northeast region, 340 centers for disadvantaged groups and 163 centers for prisoners. Among the learners, students from other backward classes (OBC) are 23%, SC 16% and ST 8%. In the fee waiver program offered to BA, BSc, BCom students, more than 1.5 lakh learners have enrolled in IGNOU.

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