IGNOU, IBM Sign MoU to Reinvent & Reform ICT Education in India
IT News Online Staff
2009-07-11
Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), The Advanced Center for Informatics and Innovative Learning (ACIIL) and IBM India have signed an MoU that will reinvent and reform IT education in the country. The collaboration, co-operation and joint working of IBM, with IGNOU, will bridge the gap that exists between education, skills and national development.
As a part of the MoU, IGNOU and IBM India will partner to skill students on the IT standards in the emerging verticals like healthcare, financial services and retail that have a significant growth potential, in addition to the skills demand of Open Source software and Open Standards, with live projects.
The three programs that will be offered in the first phase under this MoU include:
- A Certificate in Open Source Software
- Diploma in Open Source Software and Industry Vertical Domain Open Standards
- Advanced Diploma in Industry Vertical Domain Open Standards (Healthcare/ Retail/ Insurance)
The Innovation Center for Open Standards (iCos), an online platform, will be the underlying framework for the engagement between IBM and IGNOU for the execution of the courses. The IBM iCos platform links students' project-based learning with IT industry and mentors. This will be seamlessly integrated into IGNOU's in house developed Unified Learning Platform in due course. This effort will fill up the Finishing School efforts of the IT Industry today, enabling DAY One deployment. The students will immensely benefit from the flexibility of learning at their own pace, anytime, anywhere, anyhow and make the students future-ready.
Prof. Srivathsan, Pro Vice Chancellor of IGNOU, said, "The MoU aptly fits into IGNOU's vision of democratizing the education and offering quality education to all. It opens up the modernization of IT and Computer Science education as well as their applications in different verticals. Students stand to benefit immensely from this initiative as it provides them a platform to help them transition from academia to industry while they are still on campus. As a globally leading technology corporation, IBM will help bring in the right industry expertise to develop a curriculum that meets the evolving needs of the industry, and also provide an innovative e-learning platform to deliver this much needed program."
IBM said it has a long-standing commitment to furthering education, including its IBM Academic Initiative, which offering a wide range of technology education benefits from free to fee that can scale to meet the goals of most colleges and universities. IBM will work with universities and colleges that support Open Standards and seek to use Open Source and IBM technologies for teaching purposes, both directly and virtually via the Web.
Launched in 2006, the IBM Training for Systems offers a comprehensive portfolio of technical training and education services designed for individuals, companies and public organizations to acquire, maintain and optimize their IT skills. IBM Training for Systems offer more than 1,000 courses every year, including both instructor-led classroom training and e-learning options.
Shailesh Agarwal, Vice President - Sales Programs, Systems and Technology Group, India/SA, said, "This MoU with IGNOU goes on to show our commitment towards building a strong industry-academia relationship. There has never been a better opportunity to ensure that we are arming our students with industry relevant smart skills for jobs of the future. Until now, some of the most important domain skills could only be taught using standard case studies and insights from industry experts. Initiatives like this is one way that universities can help students to learn by marrying traditional curriculum with domain specific course material that will help build new skills and make the students future-ready."
IGNOU's Unified Learning model, which is being launched shortly, will support all learning models such as face-to-face, online, in-line, print based, self learning, Web-based and thus match with the flexibility of learning at one's own pace, anywhere, anytime, anyhow. The continuous assessment will enable skills development, to match with the emerging global demands of industrial workforce.
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