Ignou study centre in Chennai

Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) was established in 1985 by an Act of Parliament, with a view to democratise education and reaching the unreached. IGNOU has now emerged as the largest University in the world. It has mandate to cover large segments of population across the length and breadth of the country particularly the disadvantaged groups of society engaged in various vocations and professions and unemployed youth. The primaryemphasis is on innovation, flexibility and cost-effectiveness of education. The University follows a learner-centric approach. It has successfully adopted a policy of openness and flexibility in terms of relaxed entry qualifications and provision for multiple entry and exit, pace, place of study, etc.

At present, IGNOU is offering over 300 Programmes and has about 2.2 million students on its roll. The University operates through a strong network of more than 60 Regional Centres. There are around 2500 IGNOU Study Centres across the country and 41 overseas Centres, which provide individualised support to the learners. Most of these Centres are equipped with the state-of-the-art tele-conferencing facility. The University produces high quality and rich content courseware for its learners for which the IGNOU was conferred an Award of Excellence by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), Canada. It is a University with a difference.

Objectives of the University

The University has the following major objectives:

Promoting the educational well-being of the community;

Democratising higher education by providing easy access to all those who desire to improve their qualifications, skills and competence by taking education to the door-steps of people living even in remote areas;

Offering need-based innovative academic Programmes by giving professional and vocational orientation to the course curriculum;

Disseminating learning and knowledge through an innovative multiple media teaching-learning system.

In addition, IGNOU also has the responsibility to promote and develop distance education system in India.