As part of its social responsibility, the Uttarakhand Open University (UOU), Haldwani, has adopted five villages located in its surroundings to provide the village youths with opportunities of higher education and also help the villagers in critical areas like health and agriculture by way of dissemination of information.
With this initiative, UOU has become the first university in the hill State to contribute to the development of villages. The five villages the UOU has adopted include Talli Haldwani, Manpur (west) Dhaula Khera, Gaujajali Vichali, and Gaujajali (north) located adjacent to UOU campus, Haldwni. The primary objective of UOU is to provide higher education opportunities to the youths from these villages, said Prof Shubhash Dhulia, Vice-Chancellor, UOU, Haldwani.
He said all the students from these villages who have registered with them would be given study materials like books, free of cost, for pursuing different degrees, diploma and certificate courses. More so, the students, belonging to the BPl category, doing courses from the university would be given 50 per cent concession on admission fee, added Dhuliya. At the same time, students may also join the study centre at the university campus to learn their courses better from the faculty members. Study classes would also be organised at these villages to teach the students occasionally, the official said.
Apart from imparting higher education among the village youths, the UOU would also focus on how to enable the educated youths get job opportunities. The university would not just host career counselling for the youths but also do certain skill development courses like computer education and basic language courses like English speaking for the educated but unemployed youths belonging to these five villages, further said the VC.
Since health is one of the basic areas of concerns, the university would organise health awareness camps in these villages from time to time to make the citizens aware of different health issues. Besides, yoga camps will also be organised in these villages. As agriculture is the mainstay of the villagers’ economy here agriculture experts would visit these villages to make the villagers aware of the agriculture-related issues.