New Delhi: The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) will decrease its fee for various diploma programmes by 50 percent for underprivileged students from the January 2009 session, the varsity announced recently.

According to university officials, "The cut in the fee in the job-oriented diploma programmes such as diploma in value-added products from fruits, vegetables, cereals, pulses and oilseeds, diploma in dairy technology, diploma in meat technology would enable students to seek employment opportunities in the diverse processing industry."

Prof. V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai, Vice-Chancellor of IGNOU said, "A large number of students cannot pay the fee despite our fee being low. Most of our diploma courses are in vocational education and since a majority of our learners (60 percent) are from the weaker sections of society, it would enable them to get technical inputs and meet skilled manpower demand as per targets set under the technology mission in horticulture and food processing industries."

"The focus shall also be on areas of horticultural research, development, post-harvest management, processing and marketing," Prof. Pillai added.

According to university officials, the initiative has been taken to encourage more and more students from weaker sections to join the course to meet the growing demand for skilled manpower in the coming years.