Academic Counselling for Distance Learners of NSOU
New Delhi, 19 September 2019: Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA) is supporting School of Vocational Studies, Netaji Subhas Open University (NSOU) through a collaborative 3-year project titled “Increase Access and Improve Institutional Capacity for sustainable Development through Vocational Education & Training”. A three-day Workshop on “Academic Counselling for Distance Learners of NSOU” was organized on 16-18 September 2019 as one of the third-year project activities with an objective to orient the academic counsellors of the university to cope up with the teaching-learning situations in 21st Century. In the first two years of the project, the School took various initiative for capacity building of the human resources specially in ICT environment. 58 Academic Counsellors (37 female and 21 Male) were participated and trained through this workshop.
Professor Anirban Ghosh, Project Director, NSOU in his welcome address, described the objectives and the outcome achieved so far during the first two years. Dr. Ghosh elaborated the objectives and activities to be carried out in the present year i.e. 2019-20. He mentioned that the important activities of the project are to orient the academic counsellors in the 21st Centrury learning environment, strengthening the OER repository and assessment of the outcome of the three-year project.
Dr. Manas R. Panigrahi, Senior Programme Officer-Education, CEMCA introduced the theme and highlighted the objectives of the present workshop. He also elaborated the learning style and learners’ attitude in the 21st Century. Professor Pratip Kr. Choudhuri, former Director, School of Science, NSOU and former Regional Director, IGNOU appreciated the initiatives taken by the NSOU & CEMCA. Professor Choudhuri in his lecture discussed in detail the preparation and importance of Self Learning Materials in the Open and Distance Learning Mode.
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Professor Subha Sankar Sarkar, Vice-Chancellor, Netaji Subhas Open University discussed about the University's activities for ICT enabled courses. He highlighted the importance of such workshop for the capacity building of University teachers. Professor Sarkar also conveyed his sincere thanks to CEMCA for their wholehearted support for various projects
The three-day workshop designed in different sessions including the topics viz. Understanding of ODL system in 21st Century, Development and Importance of SLM in ODL, Responsibilities of the Academic Counsellors in ODL, Understanding of ODL learners and learning styles in 21st Century, Understanding of OER & CC License, ICT based Student Support Services (NSOU OER Repository, Mobile App etc.) at NSOU, Understanding and implications of MOOCs/ SWAYAM, Assessment strategy for NSOU Learners. The participants were participating in various activities during the sessions. The workshop was facilitated by Dr. Manas R. Panigrhai, Prof. Pratip K. Choudhuri, Professor Anirban Ghosh, and Dr. Barnali Roy Choudhury. All the sessions involved activity/ hands-on training in which the participants did their work on their own with the help of the resource persons.
