In order to expand its reach across the country, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) will follow the footsteps of Delhi University by going online with the “possibility” of opening a school of open learning.
The newly-appointed Vice Chancellor, Professor M Jagadesh Kumar told The Pioneer that he will start with making classroom lectures available online.
“To make education accessible to those who lose the chance to avail education in a university like JNU, the university will start recording lectures and run them online. Our university has excellent schools dealing with varied subjects of research and higher education thus it is important to expand its reach in the country,” Kumar said.
He said his plans did revolve around the concept of DU’s School of Open learning. “Yes, there is a possibility to make it along the lines of DU’s SOl which would cater more students. We need to change the learning environment on the campus. We have not really changed the ways of imparting education... only students sitting in the classroom are able to learn while this knowledge should be shared with those who are not able to make it to a classroom,” Kumar stressed.
While the former VC SK Sopory said the university had been battling the ideas of expanding the university to other States of the country but faced dissent in its academic council, the new VC is hopeful to expand the reach of education imparted in JNU by attaining “technology based learning”.
“I told a parliamentarian recently that in order to attain education we have to create technology driven learning,” Kumar said. He also underlined the need of upgrading the research infrastructure of the varsity in such a way that the research could be produced as a beneficiary of the society.
“JNU is also known for its research so we must improve the research infrastructure. The public should be a considered as a stakeholder of the work produced by the varsity so that it is beneficial to the society,” he added.
At present, JNU has an intake of 2,000 students while as the DU’s SOl enrolls around 1,50,000 students on an average.