26 August,2011 08:26 AM IST | | Alifiya Khan
If university sources are to be believed, then soon a department in the University of Pune (UoP) will start a distance education course. The course will be on an experimental basis and is meant only for regular students of various departments of the university and affiliated colleges at present.
The University of Pune
The plan to start a distance education course at the university has been a contentious one, as for long, many affiliated colleges have been demanding that the varsity start a full-fledged distance education centre and stop the system of external students.
About 1.5 lakh take admissions as external students in the varsity every year, a process which affiliated colleges want to stop. They want the university to offer distance education courses instead.
Taking the first step forward, the statistics department has decided to offer a few optional courses of MSc through the online process of distance education. Senior professors said the department has received a sizeable amount in funds from the Department of Science and Technology, which it plans to invest in the distance education courses.
"The courses are expected to start by October end. The entire MSc degree wouldn't be offered online as this is merely on an experimental basis, but a few optional subjectsu00a0 within the degree course would be available through the distance mode. The lectures would be through video-conferencing and five professors from the department have agreed to conduct them and prepare the content," said a senior professor.
A proposal would be tabled at the next management council meeting on September 6 to start a similar exercise in all other departments soon and apply to distance education council for approval, he added.
Currently, professors are engaged in generating content and working on video equipment, editing software and identifying classrooms required for video-lecturing.u00a0Vasudev Gade, director of Board of College of University and Development (BCUD), said that he had not received any formal proposal for starting the distance education courses.
