Outreach Programme for Increase Enrolment in Higher Education

New Delhi, March 14, 2018:The School of Vocational Studies, Netaji Subhas Open University (NSOU), Kolkata has undertaken a joint project with Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA), New Delhititled “Increase Access and Improve Institutional Capacity for Sustainable Development through Vocational Education and Training”. The objective of this three year project is to increase enrolment in different vocational courses of the university so that the disadvantaged rural people can get access to skill development programmes of this university. The students may take the advantages of skill enhancement programme by which they can enhance their skills and competencies in a particular trade. As a part the project the School organized two Outreach Programmesat two districts viz. Birbhum and 24Pargaas (South).

The first Outreach program was held on 16 th January, 2018 at Sriniketan Santiniketan Development Authority (SSDA) centre, Prantik, Birbhum. 53 students attended this program out of which 35 were women. Two faculty members from NSOU along with three resource person interacted with the participants. Dr Anirban Ghosh, Project Director elucidated the vision of vocational courses as a whole and acquainted learner about different types of courses being offered by NSOU. He also elaborated various scope and coverages of different courses. So that present learners may spread the awareness regarding said courses. Mrs. Barnali Roy Choudhury, Co-Project Manager in her deliberations pointed out three pillars of ODL system viz., Study materials, PCPs, and evaluation procedure. She also elucidated educational resources available in on-line mode and offline mode. She also highlighted NSOU OER repository. In this program NSOU team met all the participants individually to make them understand the accessibility of ICT and NSOU-OER repository.

The second Outreach Programme was held at Joygopalpur Gram Vikas Kendra (JGVK), Basanti on 27 February 2018. 67 participants out of which 39 girls students attended the programme.The Project Director along with other Co-Project Managers met the students and discussed the importance and prospects of vocational training in 21^st century. They also helped the students to find out different training and academic modules available on line and NSOU OER Repository.

A structure questionnaire was circulated among the participants to get their response on different aspects of ODL, online learning, A/V lectures etc.