A soldier with decades of service in the armed forces would retire today to find a civilian world that has changed beyond recognition – and is a lot costlier to live in. 60,000 personnel retire from the armed forces every year, fighting for pensions, jobs and stability in the cut throat civilian job market. Being without a degree in a year being called ‘the graveyard of jobs’ can be daunting.
It’s the kind of situation that the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) was set up for. In 2009, the Open University stepped in with a Distance-Learning programme, that soldiers could work towards during their service to attain a certificate, diploma and Bachelor’s degrees in arts, commerce, science and business administration.
As with many of IGNOU’s projects, the outcome was a mixture of immense potential and insufficient execution. By 2015, roughly 30% of the Indian Army had signed up for courses – with 300,000 of them unsure if they would get a certificate at all, thanks to a sudden change of plans by the university. It took an intervention by the then Human Resources and Development minister Smriti Irani to get the degrees and mark sheets issued.
Hiccups aside, the army men should be on their way to a slightly more stable future now. With 3.5 million students, IGNOU is the world’s largest university by enrollment. Are they ready to take on the future – with fewer hiccups?
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