CHENNAI: The University of Madras’s Institute of Distance Education (IDE) decided to suspend 15 diploma and certificate courses owing to poor enrolment in the academic year 2024-25.
The admissions to these courses were made in June last year. Since these courses had single-digit admissions, the IDE proposed in the recent senate meeting of the varsity to suspend the “economically unviable” courses. Certificate courses such as online teaching, spoken Tamil, and voice training, and diploma courses in functional Arabic, marketing management and systems management managed to get only one student each.
“Conducting theory and practical classes, carrying out examination and printing study materials for a handful of students will be an unproductive commitment for the IDE. It was proposed to suspend the courses this year, and the senate approved it,” said an official.
IDE is the cash cow of the financially tight Madras University. IDE, on average, generates over Rs 120 crore annually through admissions and examination fees. To boost its revenue, IDE continuously introduces new courses as per market needs to attract students. According to officials, some of the new courses fail to attract enrolment immediately; however, over a period of time popularity of these courses will rise.
“Courses like spoken Tamil and online teaching are promising, but many students have not opted for these due to lack of awareness. Next academic year, we will definitely get better admission figures,” said an official of the university.
IDE director S Aravindhan said the students enrolled in these courses need not worry as they will be given the opportunity to complete their courses in the next academic session.” The admission session for academic year 2025-26 will begin from June and during that period we will get more students for these courses. Current students will be included in those batches,” said Aravindhan.