Click to play videoNew Delhi: With over 14 lakh students on its rolls, the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) is the world's largest in terms of enrollment. But a CNN-IBN Special Investigation report reveals that IGNOU's best kept secret is that over 95 per cent of the students enrolled in its much sought after BA course fail to graduate.
One such student is Subhadra Kharperde who took six years to get a BA Pass degree. For this student, who is from Chattisgarh, a regular college was never an option and so she chose IGNOU.
“The language used in the course was literary. Also they don't have any provision for attending to individual students. So it was very difficult to for me,” Subhadra says.
IGNOU has an annual budget of Rs 400 crore with 1,500 study centers across the country and over 30,000 teachers. Yet students like Subhadra struggle with course material.
IGNOU's shameful strike rate: 95 pc students fail
Searching for answers regarding the mismanagement in the educational institution, Subhadra’s husband, Rahul Banerjee, filed an application under the Right to Information Act.
“After the utter chaos I finally had to approach the Public Information Officer but even then I did not get the complete information,” an exasperated Rahul says.
Nearly 50,000 students enroll every year for the BA Pass course and buried in the statistics given to Rahul is a startling revelation – over 95 per cent of these students failed.
When CNN-IBN Special Investigation team approached Registrar of Student Evaluation in IGNOU, Dr Srikant Mohapatra, with these statistics he retracted the figures.
Srikant Mohapatra: 148 graduated only?
CNN-IBN: Yes, it becomes a 99 per cent dropout case.
Srikant Mohapatra: No, no. This is not the correct figure.
CNN-IBN was given two more sets of statistics by IGNOU on the pass percentage in the university. But strangely, these figures didn’t match each other and nor did they match the figures in the RTI document.
Reacting to the findings, Mohapatra retorts, “You have collected these figures at two different points from me. Maybe one I gave from the pre-examination file the other might have been given to you from the admission file.”
Despite the mismatch, the figures still confirm that the failure rate at IGNOU's BA Pass course is well over 90 per cent and the University accepts that it is a problem.
“The students who would like to take the course and get a degree should be taught until they pass,” explains Vice-chancellor, IGNOU, VN Rajasekharan Pillai.
Clearly, IGNOU's role in providing accessible and affordable university education needs to be re-examined before more students lose their academic years.
(With inputs from Hemender Sharma)
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