How do I check my IGNOU study material?

Last reviewed: September 27, 2026 · Markdown version

There are two different checks, on two different IGNOU sites. Whether your printed material has been sent is on the Study Material Status page of ignou.ac.in; reading the same material now, as PDFs, is on eGyanKosh. Here is each route as we followed it today.

Has my printed material been dispatched?

On IGNOU's website, the Student Services menu has a link called Study Material Status. It opens a list of sessions, from July 2026 back to July 2022 (IGNOU — Study Material Status, read 27 September 2026). Pick your session. The form that opens is headed "MPDD: Material Dispatch Status (July-2026 Session)" for the current one, and asks for two things: your "Enrollment No." and your "Program" (IGNOU: Student Material Status, read 27 September 2026).

Pick the session you are registered for, not the current one by default — each session has its own form.

Reading the material now: eGyanKosh

You do not have to wait for the parcel to start. eGyanKosh is linked from IGNOU's home page and describes itself as "a National Digital Repository to store, index, preserve, distribute and share the digital learning resources developed by the Open and Distance Learning Institutions in the country" (eGyanKosh: Home, read 27 September 2026). The collection you want is IGNOU Self Learning Material (SLM).

From there it is a series of folders. The path we followed today, for a history course:

IGNOU Self Learning Material (SLM) → the School that runs your programme (history sits under the School of Social Sciences).
Levels → Bachelor's Degree Programmes → Current (the same level also has an Archived folder).
Your programme — for example Bachelor of Arts (Honours) History (BAHIH) — then the course type (Core Courses) and the semester.
The course, such as BHIC-101 History of India-I, which lists its Blocks; each Block lists its Units.
Each Unit is a PDF with a View/Open link. The one we opened, Unit-1 of Block-1, was a 1.13 MB file named Unit1.pdf (eGyanKosh: Unit-1 Geographical regions and sources, read 27 September 2026).

If you know the course title, the Browse by Title option on eGyanKosh's home page can be quicker than walking the folders. One note from the site itself: "Items in eGyanKosh are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved by IGNOU, unless otherwise indicated."

What IGNOU's pages leave out

The dispatch-status form asks for your enrolment number and programme and nothing else; it does not say when a session's material is posted or what to do if yours does not show as dispatched (the IGNOU: Student Material Status page). For that, ask IGNOU directly rather than relying on a forum answer.

Name the files as they arrive

Because the unit we opened downloads as Unit1.pdf, and if other courses' units follow the same pattern, a semester's downloads can leave you with several files of the same name. Our suggestion: rename each one as it lands, course code first — BHIC-101 Block 1 Unit 1.pdf — so the folder sorts itself by course. For how to study from them once they are organised, see how to study history notes.