Allama Iqbal varsity donates for flood-hit people

Relief amount contributed by employees of the university for prime minister's relief fund for flood survivors.

ISLAMABAD: The vice-chancellor of Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) presented a cheque of Rs4.2 million to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani for flood-affected people here on Friday.

The relief amount was contributed by employees of the university for the prime minister’s relief fund for flood survivors. Dr Nazir Ahmed Sangi, the vice-chancellor, said during a meeting at the Prime Minister House that the university had also contributed Rs1.77million in the form of fee concession to students who had been affected by the floods.

Briefing the premier about achievements in various programmes of the university, including use of video-conference technology, he said AIOU was also working on a socio-economic education model specifically for deprived regions of the country.

The prime minister accepted the invitation of the vice-chancellor to inaugurate a regional office of the university in Dera Ghazi Khan. The regional office would also have a hostel for accommodating under-privileged students. The VC said the university has a comprehensive programme to provide vocational and technical education to students of less developed districts like Umerkot and Tharparkar.

Prime Minister Gilani expressed the desire that AIOU should also help in setting up a separate university in Dera Ghazi Khan by giving technical support.

The prime minister said that the role of educational institutions in nation-building was enormous and these institutes had assumed an important place in the wake of the government’s efforts for rehabilitation and reconstruction of flood-affected areas. He appreciated the university’s role in providing relief to students in flood-hit region in the shape of books and fee concessions and also lauded the gesture of the employees of the university for contributing to the government’s rehabilitation efforts

Dr Sangi also presented an album of pictures of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s visit to AIOU.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 11^th, 2010.