India is the second largest provider of open education in the world and lags behind only China, announced AP State Council of Higher Education chairman L Venugopal Reddy.
The exponentially rising demand for higher education across the country has led to a horde of new challenges for institutions. In order to counter this mammoth-sized challenge, Open Education Resources (OER) has proved to be a handy tool for universities nationwide.
Powered by information communication technology, OER is often used by universities to share and collaborate amongst institutions from all over the world; and according to new statistics, India alongwith China is a world leader in this domain.
AP State Council of Higher Education chairman L Venugopal Reddy announced on Saturday that India is the second largest provider of open education in the world, and lags behind only China.
The APSCHE chairman made this remark while addressing the third Graduation Ceremony of GITAM Center for Distance Learning at the GITAM University campus. Reddy also assured that the newly founded Distance Education Bureau of University Grants Commission was taking all adequate measures to boost the existing distance education system in India.
“India is the largest distance education provider in the world after China, and the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) has played a key role in democratising the higher education to reach a large segment of the society,” Reddy said during his keynote.
The event also saw GITAM vice-chancellor G Subrahmanyam briefing about the impressing growth registered by the university. Meanwhile, Pro vice-chancellor D Harinarayana also explained that the university CDL was offering a total of 13 programs at UG, PG and diploma levels with a cumulative enrolment of over 20,000.
He also noted that more and more women were finding access to distance education with every passing year.
Approximately 300 distance learners who successfully completed their diploma, UG and PG programs were awarded their graduation certificate in the event.