Regional Directors’ Conference: AIOU to help regional offices enhance enrolments

Financial assistance will also be provided to students affected by recent natural disasters

ISLAMABAD: The country’s largest open university has allocated Rs15 million as its annual budget to provide scholarships to students, available under nine different schemes.

The scholarships are aimed at accommodate students from less-developed regions of the country and neglected sections of society, according to Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) Vice-Chancellor Dr Shahid Siddiqui.



He was addressing a two-day ‘Regional Directors’ Conference’ held in Abbottabad.

Siddiqui hoped the university’s 44 regions will properly utilise the scholarship fund.

The financial assistance will also be provided to students affected by the recent earthquake and floods in the country.

The conference deliberated and adopted a comprehensive plan to strengthen regional campuses and improve quality of education and services to AIOU’s 1.3 million students.

The event was attended by regional directors from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan.

The VC announced that regional offices will be given extra support in terms of financial, technical and human-resource requirements, enabling them to enhance student enrolments and strengthen support systems.

During the conference, a training course on ‘Management, Accounts and Information Technology’ was conducted for capacity-building of the officials present. Various officials presented on the academic situation in their respective regions and departments. They also gave their recommendations for upgrading educational services at AIOU.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 25^th,  2015.