Reddy, V2022-12-272022-12-272002-07http://hdl.handle.net/11599/5071PCF2 // IGNOU came into existence in 1985 and started offering academic programmes in 1987. Since then, it has achieved unprecedented growth in the development and delivery of programmes. The unprecedented growth of academic programmes and vast support service network across the country has resulted in huge student enrollment from different backgrounds. For example, since inception of the university. the annual intake and cumulative student enrollment have gone up from a few thousands to a few 100 thousands. More than 1.6 million students have been registered with the University till 2001. Around 296 thousand students have successfully completed their programmes (till December 2002). Many more thousands students would be completing their programmes in the coming years. It is in this background a study has been proposed to examine: // • How has university attracted huge student enrollment? // • Who are these students and why do they enroll? // • What is the average time taken in successful completion of academic programmes? // • Are students better placed after successful completion of academic programmes? // It is proposed to conduct this study based on students enrolled in various programmes of the university including professional, technical, non-professional and non-technical programmes in order to analyze the success rates and relevance of academic programmes. The proposed study will be organized using the unpublished and published documents / records from the university. Additional information will also be collected through interviews/discussion with the policy makers, administrators, faculty, researchers in general and students in particular. In addition a questionnaire will also be administered (through post/email) to the selected sample students. // Out come of this paper will be useful to the university as to why large number of students are getting enrolled in selected programmes and how far academic programmes offered by the university are really benefiting students across the country taking into account these backgrounds. Since there are no major studies conducted with regard to “success and relevance” of IGNOU programmes, the researcher strongly feels that this may be of great use to IGNOU in particular and other open universities and distance education institution in general. //enhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/Working Paper