Allama Iqbal Open University PHOTO: APP
This proposal was adopted at a joint meeting of Research and Educational Technology, Academic Planning and Development and the Academic Council held in Islamabad, the varsity said on Sunday.
In this regard, the meeting agreed to convert the current marking system to GPA and CGPA using a formula devised by the Higher Education Commission (HEC).
The new grading system would apply to all MS, MSc Honours, MPhil and PhD programmes of the varsity where the pass percentage is set at 50 per cent.
The university’s executive council had already approved using the GPA system for all four-year bachelor programmes.
AIOU’s Vice Chancellor Dr Shahid Siddiqui said the university wanted to adopt a uniform system for marking results’ so that students could compete with those of other varsities at the national and international level.
The meeting further decided that AIOU would introduce a number of new academic courses of including MPhil and PhD over a period of time.
Some specific courses relating to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) were also approved by the committee. The courses relate to international trade, logistics, entrepreneurship, insurance and e-commerce.
Dr Siddiqui, who presided over the meeting, said the new courses were meant to bring about qualitative improvement in the educational programmes.
The committee also gave its approval for the revision of some existing courses.
The university’s plan of setting up three new departments including those of psychology, politics and international relations and translations were also approved.
The new academic programmes relate to teachers’ education, Arabic and Islamic studies, gender and women studies, library and information sciences, commerce and business and administration, chemistry and biology and mass communication.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 19th, 2016.
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