New Delhi, Nov 7 (IANS) President Pratibha Patil will inaugurate the silver jubilee celebrations of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) Nov 19.
“President of India Pratibha Devisingh Patil will be the chief guest. Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal will preside over the function,” said an official statement here.

“Minister of state for Human Resource Development D. Purandeswari and planning commission member Narendra Jadhav will be the guests of honour,” the statement added.

The silver jubilee celebration will take place at the IGNOU’s convention centre at Maidan Garhi here.

IGNOU is one of the largest open universities in the world, providing education to 2.5 million students in India and abroad.

It has 61 regional centres and 2,243 learner support centres spread across 34 countries.

The varsity offers 3,500 courses in 323 academic spheres. IGNOU has been recogniaed as a Centre of Excellence in Distance Education by the Commonwealth of Learning, Canada.

Started with a vision of social inclusion and democratisation of education, IGNOU has a large number of socially and academically relevant programmes and a nationwide student support system. It offers state-of-the-art education through face-to-face teaching, webcasts, telecasts and video conferencing.