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New-PCF6 Conference Newsletter - November 27:Layout 1 11/27/2010 8:50 PM Page 2 DAY 4 ‘Access and Success in Learning: Global Development Perspectives' Le Meridien, Kochi, Kerala. November 24-28, 2010 DAILY BULLETIN | 28 NOVEMBER, 2010 Former Union Minister and renowned writer Dr Shashi Tharoor delivering Asa Briggs Lecture on the fourth day of PCF6 in Kochi. ‘EDuCAtE GirLS’ ormer union minister and must be that we are a country where noted writer Dr Shashi nearly half the population is illiterate FTharoor today made a strong but which has produced the world’s plea for girl education to attain all- second largest pool of trained round development. scientists and engineers,” said Delivering the prestigious Asa Dr Tharoor. Briggs lecture at the Pan- Referring to the reasons for a Commonwealth Forum on Open rather high illiteracy rate despite ‘Enhance Learning – PCF 6 – here, Dr Tharoor remarkable progress in many fields said whenever he was asked to in India, Dr Tharoor said “what is On-Campus state the single most important missing is not just financial thing that can be done to improve resources, but a commitment on the component the world he would without part of our society as a whole to in ODL’ hesitation offer a two-word mantra: tackle the educational tasks that lie “Educate Girls.” ahead.” ndira Gandhi National Open Baron Asa Briggs is a historian It was in this context that he IUniversity (IGNOU) has and former Chancellor of Britain’s emphasized that scholarly studies aggressively been promoting Face-to- Open University. and research projects had Face component in all its distance In his 40-minute lecture, Dr established what common sense learning programmes. Tharoor dwelled upon various issues might already have told us: that if This was declared by IGNOU Vice relating to development in you educate a boy, you educate a Chancellor Prof V.N.Rajasekharan developing countries, particularly person, but if you educate a girl, you Pillai here at a press conference held India, and quoted various studies educate a family and benefit an on the sidelines of the ongoing 6th and his own experiences to stress entire community. Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open the importance of education. Listing the benefits of gild Learning — PCF 6. “Of all the many paradoxes with education, Dr Tharoor said: Continued on Page 2> which India abounds, the saddest Continued on Page 2 New-PCF6 Conference Newsletter - November 27:Layout 1 11/27/2010 8:50 PM Page 3 Enhance face-to-face education Continued from Page 1 Some academicians have been opposed to the idea of on-campus, face to face learning mode being practiced by some open universities. “Not only we ourselves have been increasing the Face-to-Face component in whichever programme it has been possible, but, as chairman of the Distance Education Council, we have been advising all other open universities in the country to go for convergence and use face- to-face mode as well, besides the distance IGNOU Pro-Vice Chancellor Dr Latha Pillai with Sunanda Pushkar learning, to provide teacher guidance Tharoor (second from right) and other delegates at PCF6. and hands-on practical knowledge to students,” Prof Pillai said. IGNOU is University, have taken to full-time education system in the country. the only Indian university, on the lines residential programmes, either on- Without compromising the original of world universities, that conducts campus or in collaboration with objectives and focus of the Student Satisfaction Survey. public/private institutions. participating institutions, and ensuring Pointing out that to make IGNOU has a faculty strength of quality, rigour and standards, new education relevant, in certain cases it over 1,000 with doctoral and post- programmes and innovative is imperative to have face to face doctoral qualifications and 50,000 strategies for providing relevant mode of teaching, Prof Pillai said in part-time academic counselors. A large education and training need to be IGNOU, all the Engineering and number of very eminent scientists and worked out. Technology and Computer Science academicians are also serving the All over the world, universities, programmes, have their practical, University as consultants, Emeritus including Open Universities, are project works and work-integrated Professors and Chair Professors. The engaged in such practices effectively. learning. All distance education campus houses the Edusat — the “A country aspiring to enhance its programmes have the required full- exclusive satellite for education for the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) from time practicals and project work country — provided by the Indian 12 to 40 percent in the next five years wherever relevant. Space Research Organisation. needs to contextualise such He stressed that several leading There is lot of educational and processes and offer the best quality open universities in various parts of training infrastructure as well as education to maximum students the world, such as UK Open intellectual capabilities available through its various Universities,” University and Hong Kong Open outside the confines of the formal said Prof Pillai. invest in Girl Education: Shashi tharoor Continued from Page 1 as so many have to do across the developing world, “Increased schooling of mothers has a measurable their schooling translates directly to increased impact on the health of their children, on the future agricultural productivity.” schooling of the child, and on the child’s adult Earlier, IGNOU Pro-Vice Chancellor Prof PR productivity.” Ramanujam welcomed Dr Tharoor and his wife “The children of educated mothers consistently out- Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor to the conference, and perform children with educated fathers and illiterate referred to the former minister as a “Public Intellectual.” mothers.” Referring to a World Bank study, Dr Tharoor IGNOU VC Prof VN Rajasekharan Pillai, Chairman, said that “for every four years of education , fertility is Commonwealth of Learning (COL) Board of Directors reduced by about one birth per mother. The more girls Burchell Whiteman, and COL president Sir John Daniel go to secondary school, the higher the country’s per also addressed the gathering comprising educationists capita income growth. And when girls work in the fields, from commonwealth countries. 2 IGNOU | PCF6 Conference 2010 New-PCF6 Conference Newsletter - November 27:Layout 1 11/27/2010 8:51 PM Page 4 ODL: What is Open? What is Distance? here is a lot of misunderstanding school -going children needs a lot of about 'Openness' and 'Distance' socialisation through Face-to-Face Twhen people talk about Open meetings with teachers and peer and Distance Learning (ODL). That groups, in order to complete school includes leaders of ODL with long and education and then prepare themselves varied experiences and otherwise good for college/university education. knowledge about the ODL systems at In countries like India because of different levels. 'Openness' is a poor and limited provision of quality philosophy, an approach that aims to school education, open schools have remove the constraints of the been established. In fact, the practices Conventional, Face-to-Face, Pro-VC Prof PR Ramanujam. of Open School need immediate review, Classroom Teaching at all levels. focusing on Academic Achievements or If the conventional educational lingual situations where programmes failures of thousands of school learners. institutions can remove the constraints, are offered mostly in English as a It's here that organisations like COL they too become 'Open'. 'Openness' medium of instruction. This itself is a should adopt realistic policies to encourages experiments and great challenge to learners whose strengthen student support services for innovations. Open Universities are competence in using English is not successful academic performance of mandated to expand the opportunities sufficient or poor. We have to address under-privileged children whose to as many learners as possible this issue first, before we talk about numbers are in millions. In fact, here through different modes like distance quality, completion rate, standards, etc. too, numbers have nothing to do with mode, online mode, and also Face-to- Any assumption that Face-to-Face dilution of quality, if the practitioners as Face arrangements. It is scaling up with offering of Programmes by Open well as advocates know what they quality that places Open Universities on University is perilous is disapproved by should be doing. a different pedestal as compared to about 29,000 students of UK Open The adult learners and the school conventional universities. University, 50 percent of classroom leavers, who are usually above the age This is true of all the Open teaching of Hong Kong Open University of 17, become students of Open Universities in the world, including and other Universities. In Australia -- Universities and have a better British Open University, which has a eight distance education centres judgment about their choices of large number of students as well as located in eight Universities, have been courses/programmes at the higher IGNOU. Numbers, relevance, time and practicing Duel Mode approach over education level. Any misinterpretation or resources available are the major four decades. misguidance in this context, will factors that determine the models and All this goes on to prove that there is unnecessarily divert the focus of our policies adopted by different Open nothing philosophically and work which has been yielding good Universities across the world. There are pedagogically wrong or perilous in this results, as shown by the first-ever 110 Open Universities now. There are approach. In fact, this should increase, student satisfaction survey in India, many hundreds of other ODL if ‘blended learning’ has any meaning, conducted by IGNOU. institutions that operate under different because the increasing applications of Such surveys should be followed up names. The large numbers don't, in ICTs make the classical models of by other universities and open schools, themselves, dilute quality. Student Open Universities inappropriate.

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