IGNOU is set to educate and train Below Poverty Line (BPL) youth in six states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, West Bengal, Orissa and Tamil Nadu,.
IGNOU Vice-Chancellor Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai today said five vocational training and educational programmes have been identified for online delivery in this regard.
These are Certificate Programmes in Computer Basics, Advanced Computing, Job Training and Interview Etiquette, along with a diploma in Advanced Computing.
''The proposed programmes will be offered online from application to certification stages,'' Prof Pillai said.
The programmes will be conducted through a Common Service Centre (CSC) in each village at panchayat office in the six selected states-- Assam, Orissa, West Bengal, Bihar, UP and Tamil Nadu.
IGNOU has signed a Memorandum of Agreement with SREI Sahaj e-village Ltd, a Kolkata-based company which is implementing the CSC project in six short-listed states.
Sahaj is setting up one ICT enabled centre per 10,000 of rural population.
They have already obtained a mandate from the Department of Information Technology (DIT) to set up over 27,000 CSCs at these states at the village panchayat level, within the current fiscal year, the IGNOU spokesperson informed.
''Teachers from nearby areas are being hired to teach and guide the IGNOU students in every village panchayat,'' he said.
The concept of CSCs was especially helpful to women and children of the villages and the BPL families who, for various socio-economic reasons, couldn?t travel far for attending schools or training institutes, he said.