AIOU takes steps for women empowerment

Islamabad

Women empowerment will remain the special focus in all the academic programmes, being carried out by the Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU), said Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Shahid Siddiqui while speaking at a function held here on the occasion of International Women Day.

The females’ ratio in the total enrolment of the AIOU’s students has reached to 57 percent. This, he said reflected the university’s continuous efforts to bring them into the educational net, and enabling them to take part in the country’s socio-economic activities as equal partner.

The function was arranged by the University’s Department of Physics that was participated by the academic staff and M.Sc students of fourth semester.

The University’s Gender Studies department has recently launched a number of activities relating to women, including a regular series of workshops on the rights of women, as available to them under the existing laws. The university staff was sensitised on gender and pro-women legislation.

The university will soon be introducing M.Phil degrees on gender and women’s studies in order to sensitise the community about the gender role in the country’s socio-economic development.

The vice chancellor announced on the occasion that they will expand their on-going programmes providing education to drop-out girl students to the province of Baluchistan. The students of backward areas deserved special attention, accordingly he added, now they will focus on their education, at middle and secondary level.

The AIOU has introduced a new model of open-schooling mainly for dropout girl students, who could not continue their studies due to social or financial constraints.

It is community-based model, with students and teachers with same locality. Course-contents were developed in regional language. The pilot project to this effect has successfully been implemented in cooperation with Plan International at Chakwal, Vehari and Tehsil Sajawal (Thatta District).

Dr. Shahid Siddiqui said it was matter of great pride that the largest number of female population is beneficiary of the AIOU’s education. The females mainly benefited themselves from the university’s teachers’ training programmes including CT and BEd. Currently there are thousands of teachers in the country, who are the graduates of AIOU, he added.

The university also provides merit scholarships to women to overcome their financial problems. The function was also addressed by the Chairman of the Physics Department Dr. Zafar Ilyas who highlighted the academic activities and the future plans of promoting females' education.