Taking education to the doorsteps

Taking education to the doorsteps is the need of the time and of course the need of the state of Maharasthra state. A large mass is still deprived of basic and advanced education. The goal of development and progress can not be completed till the knowledge reaches to the last person of the state. YCMOU identified this need and has taken up the great noble task of providing education to all those how needs it, irrespectiveof geographical locations and economical class.

Development is directly related to education. We can see today the developed nation have, given prime importance to education! In fact the development they have
achieved is only because of their efforts in basic and advanced education is responsible for changing life style.

There are various reasons why the education has not reached to the masses. Many a times the importance of education is not well understood and convinced, many times. there are economical problems, many times the environment is the problem. But in all cases it is the responsibility of the nation to look after them all.

Establishment of University:

The university was established on 1st July 1989 by act 20 of govt of Maharashtra to educate the deprived class of Maharashtra. As the name suggest the university operates on distance education mode. It means Education is given where and when it is required. This system student focused and need based called as Open education method. Open education started in India in 1982.

YCMOU had 15 study centers in the year 1989 and ,students enrolment of 3757

Education while working
With the system of open education students can take education while they are working , doing their business or working as a house wife. The Open university has developed special course material which will help students to learn at home, without going to college or university. This material is available to students in the course fees.

The university has started the courses which are the need of the time. This basically includes business oriented and job oriented courses, degree diploma and postgraduate courses and even specialized courses.

Till now 2,19,494 students have enrolled for the above courses and YCM OU has 3045 study centers all over Maharashtra catering to the needs of these students ..

The Audio Video Centre (AVC)
The YCM Open University has established the AVC which produces syllabus based audio, Video programmes for university students. The centre is having latest AV equipmept and inter­active studios. Till now centre has produced more than 350 vidoes and 311 audios.

The programmes proeduced by the AVC are internationally recognized. The programmes produced on thr topic of Agriculture and Environment has received national and internation' awards.

Environmental video fiims,by AVC

The subject of enviromental awareness is no compulsory for school a college students and is included in their syllabus at various levels . In India we have around 350 Universities a more than .17000 colleges. Although the subject is made compulsory, every school college is not having.,the trained faculty for teaching this subject. At present the Geography teachers have been given this subject for teaching as additional charge.

Keeping this in view the Audio Video centre of YCM Open University, Nashik has undertaken 'the task of producing environmental films for college students initially.

In this project, till now we have produced around 30 films (13 in Marathi and17 in English language).Eminent personalities and environmentalist have delivered lectures in this serial.

Some films are documentary style. (The experts who have delivered lectures are Padm. Sundarlalji Bauguna,Dr. Madhav Chitle, Dr. Praveen Saptarshi Madhav Khandekar, Dr. Anand Karve, Prof. Dilip Kulkarni and others) The project is guided by our Hon. Vice Chancellor Dr. Rajan Welukar. The video films are illustrated with proper visuals, graphics, animations and special video effects.

Two of our programmes from this serial are nationally and internationally recognized. The programmes titled 'Discovery of God' (This video programme is about Types of Pollution) and A short story about Water(This video programmes is about water in. general and about water pollution), were screened at international film festival at Florida, USA and in National film festival 'Vatavaran' at New Delhi. (2005 and 2006).

Our video film 'A short story 'about Water' received second award at 'Wildlife Vaasa' Film Festival at Vaasa, Finland (Nov 2006)

We feel that these videos win be very useful as an instructional material for Second year college students to understand the syllabus better and most importantly to improve their knowledge about our Environment and Sustainable development.

The set of these VCDs was inaugurated at the hands of Hon. Governor S M Krishna on 19th of Sept 2007.

ISRO Project (Teaching through EDU SAT) Satellite

YCMOU has adapted' Global technological advancements in the distance education. On line education and interactive education arte the key words in the modern era. With support of ISRO this university has started the project of Virtual Learning, Through the network of more than 41 VLCs, all over Maharashtra YCMOU has developed two teaching studios, one in Pune and the main studio in Nashik. The teacher / instructor gives lectures from Pune of Nashik studios, This lecture is well illustrated with graphics - visuals, ppt and other AV aids. This lectures is telecast through EDUSAT telecast network all over Maharashtra. The stuydents at VLC can see this lecture on big LCD screen and at the end of lecture the students can interact with the teacher again through this network. With the new Digital Video Broadcasting System (DVBS) now the teacher can see the students asking the questions from remote locations like Ratnagiri, Aurangabad, Nanded, Rajur and so on. With this method the classes for MPSC and UPSC exams, classes of MA sociology, classes of Soft skill development have already stared. This is the revolutionary sucessfulexperiment in India.