New Delhi, Nov 20 (IANS) Unesco has evinced interest in jointly certifying select programmes being offered by the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU).
Armoogum Parsuramen, director of Unesco’s South Asia office, said the UN arm would, for starters, look at certifying IGNOU’s master’s course in journalism and communications which is adapted from the model journalism curriculum circulated by Unesco last year.

Parsuramen was speaking at a symposium on ‘Media Education: Challenges and Opportunities’ on the IGNOU campus Friday.

The symposium was organised by the School of Journalism and New Media as part of IGNOU’s silver jubilee celebrations flagged off by President Pratibha Patil Thursday.

Parsuramen said Unesco was more than willing to help universities like IGNOU universalise the spread of education, train teachers and upgrade course material.

Lauding IGNOU’s various initiatives in distance learning, Parsuramen said he had seen the university’s educational programmes broadcast by satellite to several East African countries.

He also offered Unesco’s help in forging a wider partnership between IGNOU and other African countries to expand the reach of such satellite-enabled direct-to-home educational programmes.

He said he was keen to examine if IGNOU’s expertise in distance learning techniques could be adapted and incorporated into Unesco’s model curricula and introduced in other countries.

“Let us learn from each other,” Parsuramen said.

Vice chancellor V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai, who presided over the symposium, noted that IGNOU was one of the first universities in India to adopt Unesco curricula, adding that much space existed for further cooperation.

The opening session of the two-day symposium was addressed by eminent academicians from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, the Tamil Nadu Open University and leading journalists from English and language newspapers.