“The increase will make our student base represent 40 per cent of students enrolled in higher education/tertiary education system of the country,” said D K Choudhry, IGNOU Pro Vice-Chancellor.

At present, there are 18 lakh students who have enrolled with the open university, representing 17.5 per cent of the students pursuing higher education in India.

To boost its student intake, IGNOU has notified two more regional centres at Aligarh and Varanasi.

Lucknow already has a regional centre and Varanasi has a sub-centre at Benaras Hindu University’s (BHU) campus.

The university has notified to convert the Varansi sub-centre into a regional centre.

“We met BHU V-C Panjab Singh who has assured to give land for the centre at BHU’s South Campus in Barkaccha. If things turn out as planned, the Varanasi regional centre will start functioning at the campus in two years time,” Choudhry added.

The Varanasi regional centre will coordinate all the study centres in the state’s 16 eastern districts.

Efforts are underway to set up study centres at Chandauli, Mau and Maharajganj, the only three districts of eastern UP, which have no study centres, Choudhry said.

He added there are plans to introduce some new courses, including a course in sports medicine and sports psychology that have been proposed by the Kolkata regional centre.

Besides, a proposal by the Varanasi centre to start a course in poultry science and technology is also under consideration.