The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), the largest in the world, will open study centres in six European nations, including Germany and France, to offer personalized courses, its Vice Chancellor V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai has said.
"We will open our centre in Paris next month. Negotiation is going on with Germany. I hope we will start in Germany by the end of this year. Our target is to open five-six centres in Europe by July 2011," Pillai told the sources.
The Netherlands and Austria are other European countries where IGNOU, the world's largest by student enrollment, is considering to open study centres. It already has a centre in London, the vice chancellor added.
IGNOU has presence in 35 countries through 56 study centres. Over 42,000 students are enrolled at its overseas centres. More than 90 percent of them are the people of India origin.
IGNOU courses were also becoming increasingly popular in Africa and the Gulf region that has a large strength of India expatriates.
The university also plans to introduce video-conferencing facilities for all its 56 overseas study centers within a few months.