AIOU admissions reach 1.5m

MIANWALI: Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) Faculty of Education Dean Professor Dr Muhammad Rasheed said AIOU started as People’s University started in a rented building with 145 students in 1975, but now it has over 1.5 million students. He was addressing teachers in a workshop organised for Government College for Elementary Teachers in Mianwali on Thursday.

Dr Rasheed said during the current semester at least 500,000 fresh students have sought admission to different university classes and was giving them a quality academic and professional education.

Dr Rasheed said 70,000 students had applied for admission to Bachelor of Education (BEd) but no university in Pakistan could admit them. Dr Rasheed said 1,200 students were enrolled in BEd course from Mianwali and Bhakkar districts, 4,800 in Matriculation and Bachelors programmes and 400 in Masters in Education and Philosophy. He said the office had collected Rs 493,150 by selling admission forms and collected Rs 30 million from admission fees. “No university in Pakistan has provided books and helping material to their students as AIOU has done and it was natural to have such a large number of students every year,” he said.

He said that the university has a staff of 1,450 employees, 52 regional offices and 130 highly qualified teachers. A big chunk of the university’s budget was being spent on improving the quality of education and welfare of the students and the AIOU has allowed its students to either write their answers in English or Urdu. —Staff Report

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