IGNOU offers education for free
Tuesday January 05, 2010 , 2 min Read
The Indira Gandhi National Open University(IGNOU) has launched a portal called Flexi-Learn in an effort to offer education over internet free of cost.
The launched portal is not yet complete, with only a handful of courses in Library and Information Science, agriculture and Law available for access. The other courses soon to be available for access include hot topics like Journalism, Management, and Biochemistry. There are a few socially relevant subjects such as Rural Development, Education, Public Administration, Child Development and Nutritional Sciences in the list too.
I have created a login to explore the portal and found that it is very user-friendly and intuitive. The courses are available as PDF documents and the contents load quite fast on a normal broadband connection. There are a few courses that seem to be very useful and relevant for the social sector. For example, there is a course on Cooperatives and Farmer’s organizations that is likely to help volunteers and administrators of NGOs focusing on rural and agricultural development.
This is not the first time IGNOU has offered courses online, but this is rather an addition to the list of its earlier initiatives like eGyanKosh – a portal repositary of learning resources, access to which is available on paid registration, and Virtual Class a portal multi-media based education. But unlike these two initiatives in Flexi Learn Program offers access learning materials free of charge while obtaining a degree is for a fee. To further enhance the interactivity with the fellow learners, tools such as wiki, discussion boards, blogs and RSS feeds are available.
At least with the Flexi Learn programme, I am impressed by the ease of access provided for the computer literate common man. But the success of the programme really rests on the number of people it can reach out to. Hopefully ThinkChange-India has helped that cause in its own small way!