BHUBANESWAR : Students will soon be able to pursue distance courses at the undergraduate (UG), postgraduate (PG), diploma and certificate levels in Odia language.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the Higher Education department and Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) on Monday to offer academic programmes in Odia, primarily to boost education access to tribal and rural learners, in alignment with the National Education Policy (NEP)-2020.
NEP was implemented at the UG level in the last academic session and in the ensuing session, PG will be covered. The policy promotes education in vernacular language. Under the MoU, IGNOU will be translating all its study materials of both online and offline courses.
Higher Education minister Suryabanshi Suraj said since teaching and learning in regional language has been given priority in NEP-2020, which is being implemented in the state, the MoU is an initiative towards providing diploma and higher education to students in their own language. “Learning in the local language will remove the hesitation of students in pursuing higher education,” the minister added.
Speaking on the occasion, vice-chancellor of IGNOU Uma Kanjilal said through the MoU, IGNOU will be able to reach students in every house of each district. “We will gradually translate over 330 programmes of IGNOU into Odia language. This is an effort to remove the English language barrier in education which is one of the mandates of NEP-2020. All these programmes will be available to the students after translation and they will be able to write their assignments and examinations in Odia language. This will help in improving the education coverage and reducing the dropout rate,” Kanjilal said.
Not just the study materials but audio and video lectures will also be created in Odia language. Further, IGNOU’s counselling for various courses will also be available in Odia language. IGNOU opened application for admission to MBA in Odia last week.