AIOU sets up model study centre at Umarkot Campus

The Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) has extended its teaching facility to the country’s remote and neglected region by setting up a model study centre at Umarkot Campus, some 400 kilometers from Hyderabad. The centre is equipped with the state-of-the-art technology, including chemistry and computer labs, two video conferencing systems, multimedia project and Internet l. It will facilitate thousands of students of the AIOU who live around Umarkot, a desert region. The students participating in various programmes will get easy educational facilities through video conferencing at their doorsteps.
The centre was formally inaugurated on Friday by Sindh Education and Literacy Minister of Pir Mazharul Haq. The AIOU, the country’s unique institution of distance education, will also provide similar teaching facilities in other far-flung regions, said AIOU Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Nazir Ahmed Sangi. Students from Tharparker, Mirpurkhas and other districts would particularly benefit from video conferencing and other e-learning technology, he said and added the model study centre would help combat illiteracy, poverty, unemployment and backwardness from the region. In addition to FA/FSc, it would also provide equal access to obtain education from grassroots to higher level in different disciplines like mass communication, business management and computer sciences.
Dr Sangi said that launching the new campuses in various parts of Sindh was a big achievement of the AIOU administration to promote education. The AIOU’s campus would also provide other facilities, including library and hostels, he added. He said the university would soon launch PhD programme in the field of computer sciences. He announced students from Umarkot would be given 50 percent special fee concession on each programme for the current semester. The university would open around 3,000 schools all over the country as part of rural Internet school education programme.
Pir Mazaharul Haq, who is also senior minister of the Sindh government, announced the Sindh government would provide necessary funds to the AIOU for setting similar model study centres in other parts of the province. His government, he added, would also provide additional funds to the AIOU to conduct computer and business administration programmes free of cost for poor students from the next financial year.
He said the task of developing Sindhi-Urdu software would be given to the AIOU as it had such capacity. He lauded the contribution of the AIOU for spreading quality and inexpensive educational facility to the people, especially, of the neglected regions. He thanked President Asif Ali Zardari for appointing a very qualified person as the AIOU vc chancellor. Prof Dr Syed Abdus Siraj and Hyderabad Regional Director Inam Ullah Sheikh also addressed the inaugural ceremony and highlighted the latest educational facilities being provided by the AIOU across the country.
The university, they said, would impart online education and provide a direct link between teachers and students through audio visual conferences.