New Delhi: On Wednesday i.e. on April 7, 2010, India’s first online community college was being launched. It is considered as a step towards bringing about a revolution in providing skill-based education, which assures lucrative job opportunities to country's youth, especially the rural population. As per sources, the digital institution has been launched by Gurukul Online Learning Solutions Academy (GOLS) under the Community College scheme of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU).
Prof V N Rajasekharan Pillai, IGNOU Vice-Chancellor (VC), also the Chief Guest on the occasion, emphasized that in the country, although several million people are working; only five per cent of them have quality and eligible certification. This online Community College will enable teachers and trainers to reach the masses in a better way, enhancing the quality of learning process.
Expressing it as delusion, the Vice-Chancellor said that reaching out to rural India was not as difficult now as it was earlier. He said that a number of institutions, including the government, have taken up several measures to enable the reach of internet to our villages. One of the biggest examples is setting up of the Community Service Centres. Moreover, after pursuing a course of at least six months in this online college, students would be able to obtain either certificate level qualification or higher. The interested candidates can visit the academy's website: http://ignou.golsacademy.com.
Shailesh H Mehta, GOLS CEO, said that one of the best features of the college is that the students can take a break from the course at any time. Even one can resume it later by obtaining credits of what he or she has already achieved, with the maximum duration being six years. Mr Mehta also mentioned that over 30 certificate, diploma and associate degree programmes have been initially started under this scheme. Duration of these programmes varies between three months to two years. The fees of the programme offered are priced at between Rs 2500 and Rs 25000.
