Qualitative improvement led to record student enrolment

Islamabad :Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) has geared up its academic role meeting the country’s educational needs, by developing a strong regional infrastructure network and launching new educational programmes.

There has been a record students’ enrolment in the recent years and great focus was laid on promoting quality education and developing the AIOU as a research-based educational institution.

This was stated by the Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Shahid Siddiqui while addressing the regional heads’ video conference held here on Thursday at the University’s main Campus.

The conference was participated by the Directors of 44 regional offices, Director Regional Services, Deans, senior academicians and administrative officers who put forth various suggestions to strengthen enrolment campaign with the start of new admissions (autumn, 2018) from August 1.

The vice chancellor noted that there has been record enrolment (over seven lakh in each semester) in the last four years, due to qualitative improvement that was brought about in the working of the university at various levels.

The university’s image was reconstructed by carrying out all-round development work, particularly in fields of research, professional development and revision of curriculum. Besides this, new development academic programmes were launched and students’ support system was strengthened.

Development of human resources, smart use of new technology, enrichment of university’s labs and Libraries, establishment of new departments were other priority areas, he added. Dr. Shahid Siddiqui said that the most of the academic targets he fixed about four years back on assumption of his responsibilities as Vice Chancellor have been achieved.

The university made a great headway towards publishing accredited research journals, holding national and international conferences that provided a platform to young researchers to showcase their research work.

It got record research-based projects from Higher Education Commission (HEC) and international agencies. They also won three indexing agencies from the HEC in an open competition for providing free online access to research articles, facilitating researchers and academicians,

The VC further said that the welfare and departmental promotion of the employees were also given high priority. For this purpose, Selection Board and Departmental Promotion Committee met seven and ten time respectively.

While acknowledging the excellent performance of the regional offices, the VC assured that they will be given further boost for providing best services to the students and promoting quality education in the country.

Earlier, Director Regional Services Inamullah Sheikh briefed the conference about the recent steps that contributed in making the regional offices more effective in efficient handling of students’ related affairs.