New Delhi:With a view to empowering the grassroots disadvantaged youths of India, IGNOU today started a three-day National Workshop on Development of Text-Books and Training manuals for Community Colleges.
Three programmes are being considered through these colleges Certificate, Diploma and Associate Degree Programme (ADP). It is a story of development of grassroots India more than just education delivery.
Twentyfive eminent experts from across the country have arrived to discuss, deliberate upon and standardise text-books and training manuals on a broad range vocational areas where untrained humanity is engaged in the country to earn livelihood.
These experts are from various Community Colleges who are running 237 programmes, many of which are general subjects taught in all universities. The workshop aims to standardise the niche vocational subjects only. There are suggestions for multiple modes of teaching and training for many areas, which also need to be standardised
On completion of the ADP, a student will get direct admission to the third year of degree course for his/her degree, if s/he so desires. Otherwise, in each course they will be empowered with certification.
IGNOU, by way of being the premier Open and Distance Learning institution in the country, has phenomenal expertise in the area of development of self-learning materials (SLMs).
The programmes are targeted to be the need-based of the community and State-needs education. The Community colleges will be given total autonomy as regards to the conduction of the programmes. Every community college will be required to create three regulatory bodies, which are : a Community College Board, an Academic Committee, and an Examination Committee.
So far 62 Community Colleges have been registered with IGNOU. There are a few Community Colleges already being run by NGOs and central universities like, Pondicherry University, Puducherry and MS University, Thirunelvelli. These apart, the Indian Army has about 47 regimental centres, which will be turned into community colleges
Welcoming the experts, Vice Chancellor Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai, said that IGNOU will not present any text-book to the community Colleges, but will offer the framework of curricula so that the colleges are able to create their required text-books and training manuals. There will be total freedom and autonomy for the colleges, IGNOU will only offer guidelines. “Institutionalising of Community Colleges is what we are doing,” he said.
IGNOU Pro-Vice Chancellor Dr Latha Pillai, the person behind the IGNOU Community College Scheme, said, “It is the first cycle of the scheme at present. We have received offers to register with IGNOU from various institutions interested to set up Community Colleges at their institutions. Some focus on teaching, some on training. But we would like to see blending of the both for proper Community Colleges. We have selected 72 institutions from the Indian Centre for Research and Development of Community Education (ICRDCE). We will take ideas from experiences from institutions like Pondicherry University and M S University to develop a standard framework of models. We would love to see it in Reverse Transfer model. That means, enabling students, who have enrolled in conventional universities, to join the Community Colleges too for honing their innate skills and enhancing employability.”
Dr C K Ghosh, Director of IGNOU’s Student Services Unit, who convened the workshop, suggested that the workshop should be able to complete the process of developing the Text-Books and Training Manuals on face-to-face model, and not exactly on the IGNOU ODL style of SLMs, because students in these colleges will pursue studies in face-to-face and part-time classrooms. However, the texture of the course materials must be in SLMs pattern so that they feel interested and drawn towards the programmes, he advised.
Prof. Vijay Kapur, retired IAS who joined as adviser (project) of IGNOU and who taught for four years in a Seattle (USA)-based Community College, said that studying in Community Colleges in the USA for one’s degree is not considered inferior to the conventional system. Rather they are considered superior in many ways to the graduates from the conventional education system because they also have hands-down real-life experience. Professionals, school drop-outs and those interested to update professional skills for getting jobs, are people who study in the USA systems, he added.
Dr Xavier Alphonse, Director of ICRDCE, who is working for development of the Community Colleges movement in the country for over two decades, suggested three methods to approach the framework for text-books and training manuals:
· Foundation Course and a certificate to the learners
· Designing the courseware to ensure vertical mobility of learners, and
· Ensuring Placement with Internship at an industrial setup.
More Details: www.ignou.ac.in