AIOU to hold moot on regional languages

Islamabad: Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) will hold soon an international conference on Pakistani languages to promote national integrity and cohesion.

It will be the second such event in the recent years that aimed to maintain national unity through language and literature, Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Shahid Siddiqui Wednesday said. It will provide platform to researchers and academicians to give their academic and intellectual input, as how to develop the language and literature as an instrument of national unity, he remarked.

Dr Shahid Siddiqui said the university through educational pursuits fulfils it national responsibility to influence the peoples'' mind to adopt positive and constructive approach in the nation-building task.

It is worth mentioning here that the AIOU is only university in the country that simultaneously provides learning facilities in regional languages, Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto, Balochi, Brahui and Saraiki that has turned it a symbol of national unity.

It extends teaching facility in regional languages at the level of Matric, FA and BA. Besides this, it also offers short courses in Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto and Balochi. The event is being organised by the University’s department of Pakistani languages. Participates will deliberate upon the topic of Pakistani languages and colonial literature. It is scheduled to take place in the third week of March.