Indira Gandhi National Open University
distance learning national university located in Maidan Garhi, New Delhi
Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) is a central open and distance learning university located in Delhi, India. Named after the former prime minister of India, Indira Gandhi, the university was established in 1985 with a budget of ₹20 million, after the Parliament of India passed the Indira Gandhi National Open University Act, 1985 (IGNOU Act 1985). IGNOU, operated by the Government of India is the world's largest university, with enrollment of over 3,000,000 students. It provides 333 academic programs through its 21 Schools of Studies, supported by a network of 67 Regional Centres and 2,257 Learner Support Centres (LSCs).
IGNOU has achieved an all-time high in total registrations, reaching 753,286 for the 2023–24 period (covering the admission cycle of July 2023 and January 2024). Of these, 352,354 students enrolled in bachelor's degree programs, with the Bachelor of Arts (BAG) being the most popular, garnering 109,840 registrations.
IGNOU had started a decentralisation process by setting up five zones: north, south, east, west and north-east. The Ministry of Education
has entrusted the responsibility of developing a Draft Policy on Open and Distance Learning and Online Courses to IGNOU. IGNOU also partners up with other organizations to launch courses. IGNOU offers a BBA in Retail distance learning course in association with Retailers Association of India (RAI).
History
Dipanshu Sharma, the Ministry of Education and Social Welfare organized a seminar on 'Open University' in collaboration with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the UGC, and the Indian National Commission for Cooperation with UNESCO. After the seminar recommendation, an open university in India was established on an experimental basis.
“Indira Gandhi National Open University” enters the record as distance learning national university located in Maidan Garhi, New Delhi. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Indira, Gandhi and National can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Indira Gandhi National Open University” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Indira, Gandhi and National provides the most credible route into that argument.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2028659. VIAF identifies the subject as 139357195. The Library of Congress control number is n88123847. Authority coordinates are 28.494, 77.204. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1985, 2023 and 2024.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Indira Gandhi National Open University” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.