Study centres of Uttar Pradesh Rajarshi Tandon Open University (UPRTOU) Prayagraj would soon be opened in all state universities and select colleges affiliated to them in the state, officials said.

The UP governor, who is also the chancellor of all state universities, approved the move and wrote to all vice-chancellors concerned to take appropriate steps in this regard, the officials added.

The initiative is aimed at giving distance education a further fillip in Uttar Pradesh, where UPRTOU is the lone state open varsity.UPRTOU vice-chancellor Prof Kameshwar Nath Singh said that a proposal in this regard was placed before Chancellor Anandiben Patel in a meeting held at Raj Bhavan in the state capital on November 18.

After this, the university registrar Prof GS Shukla also sent a letter to Raj Bhavan, highlighting the fact that Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) was running centres in almost all the universities of the state. But the state universities were not showing interest in opening a study centre of UPRTOU, the only open state university in Uttar Pradesh, he explained.

Prof Singh said that the letter had pointed out that this was contrary to the intention of the state government.

It was also said that UPRTOU had an important role in increasing the enrolment ratio in higher education to 50% by the year 2030 in line with the union ministry of education’s objective.

For this, just like Deendayal Upadhyaya Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur and Lucknow University, Lucknow, all state universities needed to operate study centres of UPRTOU on their premises, he said.

This finally led to the chancellor formally asking the vice-chancellors of all state universities to do the needful, he explained.

For setting up of a study centre, an application would need to be submitted by the university/college concerned through UPRTOU’s official website www.uprtou.ac.in.

Taking cognizance of this letter, the chancellor’s officer on special duty Keyur C Sampath has sent a missive to the vice-chancellors of all universities of the state.

It asks all universities to run UPRTOU study centres on their own campuses. All the universities have started the process of opening study centres in the current session.

At the same time, now colleges affiliated to these universities were also showing interest in it, officials said.

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