Confucius Centre to be set up at AIOU

Language facility at varsity will help in distance-learning of Chinese language

The Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) and the Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication (BIGC) Tuesday signed an agreement to set up Confucius Language Centres at the varsity.

The centre would help with distance-learning of Chinese in the country.

Minister of State for Education and Professional Training Engineer Balighur Rehman congratulated varsity over the agreement.

“This Confucius center should focus on distance-learning which AIOU is famous for. It should focus on E-learning to make it more viable,” Rehman suggested.

“Many of our workers, while working with Chinese people, run into the language barrier, so, in my opinion, a focus must be shifted towards courses on speaking Chinese for technical and vocational education in Pakistan.”

AIOU Vice Chancellor Professor Shahid Siddiqui said that Chinese language would play a pivotal role in near future due to the importance of CPEC in this region.

He gave a brief presentation on AIOU in which he mentioned that this year admission in the university had increased to 700,000 students. Moreover he mentioned that they would soon be opening a Chinese language center in Gawadar.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 16^th, 2016.