Krishna Kanta Handiqui State Open University

Jorhat, Nov. 1: The Krishna Kanta Handiqui State Open University (KKHSOU) has opened a regional centre here to streamline its administrative activities.

The university will soon set up two more such centres at Silchar and Biswanath Chariali.

In the sphere of academics, too, it is planning to start a BEd course from next year.

The dean of the university, Arupjyoti Choudhury, said the centres were being opened to facilitate easy and quick distribution of study material to the students.

“Earlier, the study material had to be sent to the colleges in which courses of the university were taught individually and things got delayed. If the study material is stocked in the regional centres they can be collected by the colleges faster,” he said.

The one at Jorhat will function from a rented house near the ISBT and land has been acquired and construction of a permanent structure has started.

The Jorhat centre, which will start from this month end, will be responsible for the study centres in Upper Assam districts of Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, Sivasagar, Jorhat and Golaghat.

“As soon as the Biswanath Chariali centre is established then Lakhimpur, Sonitpur, Darrang and a few more districts will be covered under it and the one at Silchar will take care of those in the Barak valley,” Choudhury said.

The university itself will shift from its temporary Housefed complex in Guwahati by December to a permanent campus at Rani Patigaon on the outskirts.

Buses will be made available to the staff for commuting to the campus. Later, staff quarters will also be constructed.

The university was established under the provisions of the Krishna Kanta Handiqui State Open University, Act, 2005, enacted by a state Legislature and is recognised by the Distance Education Council, Union ministry of human resource development, and the UGC.

The public relations in-charge, Trisha Baruah, said in order to commemorate the death anniversary of Bhupen Hazarika, the Dr Bhupen Hazarika memorial lecture this year will be delivered by the director of Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia, Sanjaya Mishra, on November 5.

In the first phase, 9,339 candidates were enrolled in the programme in 110 study centres of the university spread across the state.

In the second phase, which started from July 1, the university has enrolled nearly 15,000 candidates in more than 140 study centres.

Since 2011, the university started a scheme of providing free education to the physically handicapped and visually challenged students.

It has been providing the learning materials to the visually impaired students in Braille and in audio cassette forms.

Baruah said the university has also started a two-year diploma in elementary education in 2012.

This programme was first of its kind in the Northeast and the curriculum was designed with the help of local experts and those from Ignou after taking into account the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) guidelines and National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education.