Students at the convocation. Picture by Ashok Karan

Ranchi, Feb. 18: The Ranchi centre of Indira Gandhi National Open University (Ignou) has bagged gold for best services among all the regional centres in the country.

The medal was awarded for the centre?s excellent performance in terms of opening new centres, enrolling students and starting new courses in the last academic year.

Regional director, Ranchi, V.P. Rupan, received the award in New Delhi during the 17th convocation ceremony of the university today.

A part of the programme was beamed in the capital through tele-conferencing.

Ignou officials said this was the first time that the centre had bagged this award. At the same time, altogether 582 students under the Ranchi centre were awarded different degrees and diplomas in the field of computer science, arts, commerce and science apart from other subjects.

?The Ranchi regional centre has been able to establish 22 centres. The goal was to open one in each district. A large number of new academic programmes in arts, rural development, economics, community cardiology and many other subjects were also launched in 2005. Last year, a total of 57,275 students enrolled in the different programmes, which is the largest enrolment in any regional centre across the country. These are a few things which got us the best services award,? said Singh.

Apart from that, he added, there has been an enrolment of 16,544 teachers in the primary education programme.