“Learning has no end, and a university education is no longer just limited to being a stepping stone to finding a job. It is being increasingly accessed by more and more people wanting to improve their careers. Universities therefore, also need to cater to the new breed of career learners,” said President Pranab Mukherjee while delivering the 26 annual convocation of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) here on Friday.
“As learning has no terminal point, career learners would be a new demand entity. Our universities should design programmes that assist such life long learners,” he said and added that the establishment of IGNOU was a huge moment in the history of Indian education.
“It has provided opportunities to a large number of people who were unable to access formal education or who wanted to diversify their academic portfolio or those who wanted to study for self-enrichment and up-gradation. It has taken higher education to the masses and has learners from a wide range of age groups, including school-dropouts and working adults,” he said.
He congratulated the University on being a “consortium addressing the knowledge requirements of the remotely-placed, disadvantaged, marginalised and deprived learners of the country.”
Minister of State for Human Resource Development Jitin Prasada was the guest of honour. “The variety of educational programmes offered by the University and the new areas of knowledge and skill development, in which it has made advances recently, are quite in consonance with the requirements of and opportunities thrown open by the modern world,” he said. IGNOU Vice-Chancellor Prof. M. Aslam said: “Our strength lies in our use of technology to respond to socio-economic changes, our eagerness to innovate and to reach the unreached. We also have the flexibility to adopt and adapt emerging socially relevant curricula that suit a world in constant flux.”
A total 1, 58,387 students from all over India received their degrees, diplomas and certificates. As many as 11 students were awarded doctoral degrees. This was the first time that all gold medallists belonging to regional centres from outside the Capital received their laurels at their own centres.
