ACADEMIC COUNSELLING SERVICES IN INDIRA GANDHI NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY (IGNOU).

Academic counselling is an important activity of learner support services offered by Open and Distance Learning (ODL) system. It is the key to the learners' success in ODL system. The geographical separation of the teachers and learners along with socio-psychological constraints i.e. language, culture, motivation, inadequate skill, anxiety etc., affects the distance learners in completing the courses successfully. The counselling sessions also offer the students an opportunity to interact with their peers. The counsellors perform various roles, such as facilitating learners about the subject matter content, assessing assignments, providing motivation and encouragement and supervising research papers/project works. Since counselling is an important component of distance education, it is necessary to understand the concept. The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) provides highly integrated learner support services through the network of study centers, regional centers and the headquarters. One of the major objectives of IGNOU has been to provide opportunities of higher education to a large segment of population and to develop new programme for adult learners for whom formal education system was quite difficult or impossible.