Annual Report 2015-2016 Indira Gandhi National Open University Maidan Garhi, New Delhi-110068 www.ignou.ac.in ANNUAL REPORT 2015-16 Preparation Team : Prof. A.R. Khan, Prof. A.K. Singh, Prof. Anju Sehgal Gupta, Prof. Anurag Saxena, Prof. T.U. Fulzele, Dr. V.P. Rupam, Dr. Pankaj Khare, Dr. Jitendra K. Srivastave, Dr. Neelam Chaudhary, Dr. Harish K. Sethi, Dr. Bir Abhimanyu Kumar, Dr. Vandana Varma, Dr. Sunil Kumar (Convener) Cover Design : Sh. K. Vishwanath Photographs Provided By : Sh. Rajesh Sharma Manuscript Preparation : Sh. Bhupender Kumar Print Production : Sh. Rajiv Girdhar, Sh. Tilak Raj Laser Typeset by : M/s. Rajshree Computers, V-166A, Bhagwati Vihar, Near Sec. 2 Dwarka, New Delhi-110059 Printed by : M/s. Gita Offset Printers Pvt. Ltd., C-90, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-I, New Delhi-110020 _____________________________________ © Indira Gandhi National Open University, 2016 This report was finalized by the Preparation Team with the help of Planning and Development Division, IGNOU and approved by the Board of Management, IGNOU in its 126th meeting held on 18.10.2016. 2 | Indira Gandhi National Open University ANNUAL REPORT 2015-16 CONTENTS Page No. From the Vice Chancellor’s Desk 4 Executive Summary 7 Chapter – I Indira Gandhi National Open University: A Profile 13 Chapter – II Academic Activities 20 Chapter – III Enrolment and Learners’ Profile 37 Chapter – IV Learner Support Activities 49 Chapter – V Technology for Education 64 Chapter – VI Governance, Resources and Infrastructure 69 Appendix – 1 Members of the University Authorities and Officers of the University 81 Appendix – 2 List of the MoUs/MoCs/Agreements/by IGNOU in the Financial Year 2015-16 97 Appendix – 3 Academic Programmes offered by the University 99 Appendix – 4 Details of Externally Funded Projects 114 Appendix – 5 Conferences/Workshops/Panel Discussions/ Lectures/Seminars organized by IGNOU 116 Appendix – 6 Research Publications and Contributions in Conferences/Seminars/ Workshops 122 List of Abbreviations 157 3 | Indira Gandhi National Open University ANNUAL REPORT 2015-16 From the Vice-Chancellor’s Desk It is a great honour for me to present the Annual Report of Indira Gandhi National Open University for the fiscal year 2015-16. This report provides a glimpse of academic achievements and implementation of administrative reforms in the period. The University, over the years, has made remarkable contributions in meeting demands of higher education of the society, and stands committed to continue its efforts to meet the educational needs including training and delivering quality education to large number of people, especially those living on the margins of society. The University has registered a growth of 7.2 % in its enrolment in the reported period with 45.5 % of women students among fresh students. In order to address issue of gender equity the University is offering academic programmes empowering women. As a result, the University has enrolled a larger number of women students in academic programmes of Gender and Development Studies, Humanities, Health Sciences, Continuing Education, Vocational Education, Social Work and Translation Studies. It is reflected in the fact that the strength of female students is more than 50% of fresh enrollments in these Schools. Along with it, the University has been addressing social issues in selected areas and accrediting skills by offering training in formal and non-formal sectors through awareness, appreciation and bridge courses. Moreover, the University made special provision of plan grants to boost educational development of North-East States, and has witnessed higher enrolment from these states. There is remarkable strength of SC/ST students in academic programmes in the areas of Education, Humanities, Management Studies, Agriculture, Social Sciences, Continuing Education, Sciences, Computer and Information Sciences, Tourism and Social Work. With its intent to bridge educational gap among SC and ST community, the University has introduced the scheme of reimbursement/exemption of fee in select Undergraduate academic programmes including BA, B.Sc, B.Com, B.T.S. and BCA in the fiscal year 2015-16. IGNOU’s unique strength lies in its self-learning instructional materials in a wide range of disciplines. It has produced the largest collection of qualitative self-learning instructional materials for higher education in India. With the largest collection of printed self-learning instructional material at Undergraduate and Postgraduate levels in Hindi medium, the University is aware of its responsibility to play the role of national resource centre for educational resources and provide access to its learning resources on ‘E-Gyankosh’ platform which is a digital repository open to the public. With its countrywide network of 67 Regional Centres and over 3000 Study Centres, IGNOU has exhibited its capability for achieving inclusive and sustainable growth in higher education and skill development. It has augmented its capacity to meet educational and training needs by entering into collaboration with industries and other institutions. The University has provided impetus to academic-industry linkages and collaboration for design and delivery of academic programmes in new and emerging areas of studies. A range of skill and capacity building programmes will be delivered through these initiatives by acquiring unconventional modes of delivery of academic programmes, also blend of ICT, hands-on-training, field experiences and Open and Distance Learning mode is being adopted to meet the learning requirements. 4 | Indira Gandhi National Open University ANNUAL REPORT 2015-16 The Students Support Network of the University is unique in terms of its wide range of support activities offered through its Regional Centres and Study Centres spread across the country with focus on marginalized areas with Special Study Centres. The University has established Regular Study Centres especially for women in existing academic institutions to encourage admission of women. Also it further strengthened its linkage with the society by adopting 47 villages, dispersed across its Regional Centres under the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan. A number of Student Support Services including admission, applying for Term-End- Examination and assignments have been made available at the doorstep of learners through Internet in recent years. Admission and re-registration of students is now also offered through online mode. IGNOU has succeeded in bringing marginalized society to the main stream by using its traditional approach in cost effective ways, while on the other hand, it also leads in the use of technology. Also it has contributed to equity and access to higher education and in using education technology and ICT in delivery of quality higher education through ODL. The remarkable ICT enabled initiatives of the University include designing, developing and launching of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), accessing learning resources through Shodhganga (UGC-INFLIBNET project), and National Digital Library (MHRD project), contributing to Skill Assessment Matrix for Vocational Advancement of Youth (SAMVAY), re-starting of Gyan Vani FM radio stations, reactivating e-Gyankosh, Wi-fi campus connectivity, Cloud based IT infrastructure and Digital Locker. Moreover, the University has taken initiatives to augment the use of ICT in academic and administrative transactions and introduced e-tendering for purchase of items for the University through the Central Public Procurement Portal of India under the reported period. For capacity building of its teaching, academic and non-teaching staff in the period of the report, the University organized refresher and orientation programmes with emphasis on design and delivery of online education and designing of online education. The University conducted 31 workshops/training/refresher programmes. The University also played an important role in training of in-service teachers from Schools. It has been engaged in training of teachers employed by the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) and Governments of North-East states. The University extensively used its wide spread Student Support Network and technology for training in-service teachers on a large scale without displacing them from their place of work. The MHRD entrusted IGNOU with the task of coordination of drafting of inputs for the National Policy on Education on the theme “Promoting Open and Distance Learning and Online Courses”. For this purpose, the University conducted a survey of stakeholders; held a seminar and series of consultative meetings at regional levels with various stakeholders in collecting inputs for the proposed national policy. In all 98 consultations at its Headquarters and Regional Centres were held and around 21 ODL Institutions also submitted their inputs and opinions. The National Survey was also done through a questionnaire administered online through IGNOU website and responses were collected. The Campus Placement Cell of the University made special efforts and conducted record number of placement drives in the fiscal year. The University organised 23 placement drives at the Headquarters and various Regional Centres. The placement drive exclusively for women was a remarkable contribution to the Prime Minister’s initiative of ‘Beti Padhao Beti Bachao’. 4,780 students participated in various placement drives out of which 1,197 were short-listed/selected. 5 | Indira Gandhi National Open University ANNUAL REPORT 2015-16 The University had initiated the