The Hindu

• Study centres can be opened anywhere in the country, now
• ‘KSOU is reaching 60,000 students across the State’

Mangalore, Aug 6: Thos who have completed various courses under distance education mode offered by open universities have something to cheer about. The Union Government has issued a circular that courses recognised by the distance education council (DEC) will have to be recognised for the purpose of recruitment to Central Government jobs.

Revealing this at a function here on Tuesday B.A. Vivek Rai, Vice-Chancellor of Karnataka State Open University (KSOU), said that the Ministry of Human Resource Development had issued the circular to this effect on April 8 this year. This would enable the graduates from KSOU to apply for Central Government jobs, provided they met the merit criteria.

He said that there were 14 open universities in the country. The distance education council recognised the courses offered by them, based on requests made by respective universities. Hitherto, there was some ambiguity regarding recognising the degrees of open universities for Central Government employment. With the April 8 circular, the decks had been cleared. This was a major boost to distance education, Mr. Rai said. Mr. Rai, who is a member of the DEC, said that the council had removed the territorial restrictions for open universities to open study and regional centres. “Now, open universities can open their centres anywhere in the country,” he said.

KSOU had increased its postgraduation examination centres to 31 and undergraduate examination centres to 48 from this year. It had 110 study centres in the State.

KSOU had organised a function here to release its prospectus for 2008-09.

K.T. Shivanna, dean, (Academic), KSOU, said that the 60,000 students had registered for various courses in last year. “It plans to reach one lakh students in the coming years,” he said.