AIOU allocates Rs170m for students’ scholarships

Islamabad :Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) has allocated Rs170 million in its annual budget for  scholarships and fee-waiving to accommodate the needy and deserving students, particularly those living in less-developed regions.

This was stated by the Vice-Chancellor Prof. Dr. Shahid Siddiqui while addressing students of local schools and colleges at the ‘Open Day’ function held here at the University’s main campus, in order to sanitize the students about the University's new admissions.

The Day was arranged by the University’s Directorate of students’ affairs. It was also aimed at apprising the aspiring students of its more than 100 academic programs, many of them relating to the country’s socio-economic needs. The last date for the admissions is September 28.

The budgetary allocation has recently been increased from Rs100 to Rs170 to ensure that financial constrains should not be a hurdle in the educational purists. The AIOU, as a mega University in the public sector wishes to fulfil its responsibility of meeting the educational needs of the people across the board, and to reach the people at their door-step through distance learning system.

It was their pride that 56 percent are females among the total 1.3 million enrolled students. Moreover, it takes special care for marginalized and less-privileged sections of the society, the VC added.

The AIOU is providing free education to disabled persons, prisoners as well as dropout girl students. The main target before the University is to enable it students to earn their livelihood through respectful means. To this end, it has launched a number of vocational, technical courses and agro-based courses.

Hundreds of local students visited the ‘Open Day’ and showed keen interest in the University’s ongoing programs. They were facilitated to visit the University’s facilities including Labs, Library and Institute of Education technology.

Dr. Shahid Siddiqui hoped they would take benefit of new academic programs and the educational services, recently undertaken by the University. Director Admissions, Syed Zia-ul Hasnain and Director Students Affairs Rana Tariq Javed apprised the students of the ongoing admissions.

The scholarship package includes: Earn to learn scheme, Merit Scholarship Scheme, Outreach Scholarship Scheme, Final Year Project Gant Scheme, Scholarship for Communities, and Scholarship for Women, Fee Instalment Scheme and Alumni/Sponsored Scholarship. Besides this, Fee instalment facility is also available, the officials said. Three lucky-draws was also arranged on the occasion that covered the three winners’ total fee of first semester in their respective programmes.