The UGC rolls out new process for enrollment to ODL, Online programmes offered by HEIs in the country

The UGC rolled out the new initiative as it noticed that a few HEIs admitted students in unrecognised ODL and online programmes, putting the future of students at stake

Hyderabad: In a move to enhance transparency in Open and Distance Learning (ODL) and Online programmes enrollment, the University Grants Commission (UGC) on Wednesday rolled out a new procedure for admission.

Starting this academic year, students seeking admission to ODL and Online programmes must register on UGC-Distance Education Bureau (DEB) web portal https://deb.ugc.ac.in/ and https://deb.ugc.ac.in/StudentDebId) using their academic bank of credit (ABC).

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Registration is for generating a unique DEB-ID, which will be mandatory for seeking admissions to ODL and online programmes offered by the recognised higher educational institutions (HEIs) with academic session commencing September 2024.

The UGC rolled out the new initiative as it noticed that a few HEIs admitted students in unrecognised ODL and online programmes, putting the future of students at stake.

To address such incidents, the Commission in its 581st meeting held on June 25 decided to standardize the admission procedure for students enrolling in ODL and Online mode to safeguard their academic future and career prospects.

“Recent issues with unrecognized institutions admitting students highlighted the need for this standardized procedure. To safeguard student interests, the UGC developed a mechanism requiring students to register on the UGC-DEB web portal and create a unique DEB-ID using their ABC-ID. This DEB-ID will be mandatory for all students enrolling in recognized ODL/online programmes, except for foreign learners, and will remain valid for their lifetime,” said Prof. Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar, Chairman UGC.

All the HEIs have been asked to expedite the smooth implementation of the new mechanism for ODL and online mode admission process by doing the requisite API integration process besides promoting the initiative among new learners to ensure its successful implementation.

For any further inquiries or concerns, learners can contact the Helpdesk established on the website at https://deb.ugc.ac.in/.