Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University

1.0 About University

Maharashtra has a long and rich tradition of educational reforms. Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, Bhaurao Patil, Swami Ramanand Teerth and other great thinkers and reformers have contributed to educational philosophy and movement in the state.

It was therefore appropriate that the state realized the need of an open university, The university was established on 1st July, 1989 through Act XX of 1989 of the Maharashtra State Legislature, justly named after Yashwantrao Chavan, Maharashtra’s great political leader and builder of modern Maharashtra.

Due to statutory powers conferred by an act XX (1989) of Maharashtra state legislature and the recognition by the ‘University Grants Commission of India’, this university is fully empowered to award various academic certifications like certificates, diplomas, and graduate, post-graduate, doctoral degrees. This university also takes all precautions, at all programme stages from ‘Curriculum Design’ to ‘Examination’, to ensure that the standards and quality of, education and examinations are preserved.

The curriculum of these programmes is designed for Equivalence, with respective similar academic programmes, offered by other statutory universities of various states.University also provides many different diploma or certificates, which may or may not be equivalent to any other such certificates. These certificates will motivate students for self-study, as their learning efforts will be recognized by the university after short duration. These certificates will be provided only when, student requests for it along with attested photocopies of Mark-Sheets confirming successful completion of the required courses in end examination. No convocation shall be necessary for issue of these certificates.

All architecture graduate and post-graduate programmes are duly recognized and approved by the “Council of Architecture (CoA)”. Hence, after successful completion of the graduate degree programme (that is, B.Arch.), student can register with the “Council of Architecture (CoA)”. Student shall be entitled to practice as an architect after such registration. For all engineering diploma and degree programmes, where equivalence status is not explicitly mentioned, university has already initiated recognition and equivalence procedures, with appropriate authorities like “Board of Technical Education” or “All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE)”. University will publish the results of these recognition and equivalence procedures on the official web site, as and when they are available. All these degree and post-graduate degree programmes are duly recognized and approved by the ‘University Grant Commission (UGC)’. Hence, these programmes are equivalent to the respective programmes offered by any other statutory university in India, for the purpose of employment, promotion and further education. In this respect, the status of this university is at par with all other statutory universities of India.

History

The Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University (YCMOU) was established in July 1989 by Act XX- (1989) of the Maharashtra State Legislature. It is the Fifth Open University in the country. The jurisdiction of this university, originally for the State of Maharashtra, has now been extended beyond this State and the university can now operate anywhere across the globe. The YCMOU has been recognized under section 12 (B) of the University Grants Commission Act, 1956. It is a member of various prestigious associations and bodies like the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU), Asian Association of Open Universities (AAOU), Commonwealth of Learning (COL), Canada to name a few. The main aim of the YCMOU is to become a Mass Varsity and to make available to the common man, educational programmes that are of practical use in his day-to-day life and those that provide better prospects for the future. The University offers several offline programmes and has also embarked on a number of innovative online initiatives. The YCMOU has its headquarters at Nashik and provides support to its learners through study centres, which are spread all over the State of Maharashtra.

Mission

Through our technical, vocational, professional and liberal education programmes, application of modern communication technologies and adoption of the distance education methodology, we strive towards developing an Innovative, Flexible and Open system of education.

Divisions & Schools

School

A school is an academic unit of the University, primarily entrusted with the development of academic programmes. This involves curriculum design as well as the development/selection of instructional material that covers the syllabus for a given programme. The instructional material that is developed by the School consists of both print as well as non-print material in the form of audios, videos, and radio/ TV instruction, satellite-based transmissions, CDs, Virtual Classroom Modules, etc.

There are eight academic schools presently in operation in the university, each being headed by a Director and consisting of academic faculty as well as administrative personnel.

Division

A ‘Division’ in the University is typically an operational unit consisting of sub-units called Centres and Sections. Each Division is headed by a Director. While the Centres under a Division are generally manned by academic/professional personnel, the Sections are typically manned by administrative personnel. Each Division of the University works in close co-ordination with the different academic schools for providing high quality academic services to the students.

About Hon'ble VC of the University

Dr. Rajan Welukar

Vice Chancellor, Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University

Dr. Rajan Welukar with his extensive experience in teaching, research and educational administration, assumed charge as the Vice-Chancellor of the Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University on 21st September, 2004. Prior to joining this university he held a number of very challenging positions - member of the teaching faculty in some Government Colleges, Deputy Secretary (Education) to the Governor of Maharashtra, Officer on Special Duty in the Higher and Technical Education Department of the Govt. of Maharashtra, HRD Lead Officer at the Commonwealth Youth Programme - Asia Region, State Liaison Officer in the Higher and Technical Education Department, Govt. of Maharashtra and the like. His previous experience contributed to the development of a resource-oriented network with the Gender Education, Youth Affairs and Human Rights Divisions of the Commonwealth Secretariat, London, the Commonwealth of Learning, the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the CYP Regions in the South Pacific, Africa and the Caribbean, Apex Bodies of Higher Education, Nodal Ministries in the Commonwealth Member Countries in Asia as well as some reputed International NGOs.

During his professional career spanning nearly twenty-five years, Dr. Welukar has been largely involved in training and capacity building, community service, youth development, programme planning and implementation, evaluation and monitoring of various programmes at the university, state, national and international levels. Having travelled extensively across the country, visiting over 600 institutions of Higher Education in India and with international exposure through visits to USA, UK, Canada, China, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, Dr. Welukar is in a position to contribute to the higher education sector in our country keeping in mind the global perspective. With a doctorate in Mathematical Statistics, Dr. Welukar has many research papers to his credit and his articles on important issues in Higher Education have been published in International Research Journals of repute.

He has also guided some Research Projects including a Study on Attrition in Distance Learning in Partner Institutions spread across 4 countries. As the Vice-Chancellor of this mega Open University, Dr. Welukar has not only spearheaded the university’s overall expansion, particularly in terms of student numbers, academic offerings and delivery network, but he has also introduced several innovative initiatives including some technology-driven ones for carrying education to the households of the marginalized sections of our population. Highly sensitive to the needs of the student population and with a deep social commitment, Dr. Welukar has introduced a number of schemes and initiatives for ‘Reaching the Unreached’ – steps that have been widely appreciated.