Press Release

New international partnership offers a pathway to an OU degree to  students in Asia and Africa

21 November 2005

A global academic alliance between The Open University and Asia’s largest IT education trainer, NIIT, will offer a pathway to an OU undergraduate computing degree to thousands of NIIT students, initially in six countries across Asia and Africa.

The agreement between the OU and NIIT was concluded today (Monday, 21 November 2005) in New Delhi by The Open University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Brenda Gourley, and NIIT Chairman Mr Rajendra S. Pawar.

The alliance will make available the OU’s widely acclaimed degree programme – BSc (Honours) Computing and its Practice – to students enrolled at NIIT education centres in Bangladesh, Botswana, Ghana, Indonesia, Nigeria and Vietnam. The OU degree programme will build upon the study that students will have completed with NIIT.

Professor Gourley said: “The alliance gives us an opportunity to address the growing need for trained IT professionals from many more countries. The unique combination of NIIT’s global experience and delivery model with the OU’s distinctive competencies in supported open learning worldwide gives the alliance great potential to make a difference in the world of higher education.”

Mr. Rajendra S. Pawar, Chairman and Co-founder, NIIT said: “This alliance further builds on the academic validation of NIIT Programmes with nearly 20 universities worldwide and brings The Open University’s globally accepted qualifications to NIIT students in their own country.”
This partnership brings together the Open University’s strengths in offering comprehensive programmes over the last 35 years, and NIIT’s core competence in instructional design, development and delivery.

The Open University is ranked in the top five universities in the UK for teaching quality along with Cambridge, Loughborough, York and the London School of Economics. In addition, students at The Open University are more satisfied with the quality of their courses than those at any other university, based on the findings of the 2005 National Student Survey.

The OU/NIIT agreement opens up opportunities for students to provisionally enrol in the Open University’s degree programme, BSc (Honours) Computing and its Practice, while seeking admission for programmes of two years or longer at NIIT. The NIIT programme will be evaluated by The Open University to ensure its equivalence to 240 points of UK study. Upon successful completion of the programme, students will be allowed entry to the OU’s ‘top-up’ degree programme. As a result, a student will be required to complete only 120 credits over a 12-month period in their own country, to be awarded a BSc (Hons) degree in computing by The Open University.

The programme will be conducted by NIIT faculty staff especially trained in the Open University’s curriculum. Students will be examined and certified directly by the Open University’s Examination and Assessment Board.