UGC: “Create Knowledge System,Not Learning System”

The UGC- University Grants Commission's Chairman Ved Prakash said here on Tuesday that Higher education institutes in the country should strive harder to be knowledge systems, rather than just Learning systems.

On the concluding ceremony of the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) staff training programme he said that “Most of the institutions fall in the category of learning systems and not knowledge systems. Research and teaching are two distinct activities today and are rarely used together”.

The Staff Training and Research Institute of distance education (STRIDE) was a 21-day refresher programme in Distance education at the university headquarters in the capital. Nearly 4.6 million students in the country pursue education through distance mode; he said.

According to him, IGNOU accounts for 90% of the figure. He added saying “We would like to increase the enrollment from 4.6 million to 6.6 million in Distance education”. The UGC, headquartered in the National Capital works on maintance of standards of university education and providing recognition to varsities.

The vice chancellor of IGNOU, M.Aslam said “There is a need to overcome the barriers that have been created between the conventional and distance education systems, which are in fact complementary to each other”. However, the university will soon be establishing its study centre in Zambian Open University for three Masters in Business Administration ie.. MBA Programmes.