ISLAMABAD:14 June: The Allama Iqbal Open University on Wednesday signed four separate memorandums of understanding with as many Sudanese universities at a ceremony held at the AIOU’s main campus. The MoUs aim at promoting common objectives in the educational sector.

The Sudanese universities are: University of the Holy Qur’an and Islamic Sciences, Al-Neelain University, University of Nyala and University of Khartoum. The vice chancellors and/or heads of these universities signed the MoUs on behalf of their respective institutions.

Under the MoUs, the AIOU will have regular arrangements with the four Sudanese universities to exchange academic know-how and expertise to strengthen their educational programmes. The two sides will also have exchange of students and teachers for taking benefit of their experience and knowledge.

The two sides will also facilitate the students of each other countries for providing scholarships and fee concessions to carry on their higher education, especially job-oriented and skilled based programmes. The vice chancellors are currently in Pakistan attending OIC member countries’ vice chancellors’ conference. They visited the AIOU and evinced their keen interest in its educational network and expressed the hope this university will serve as a model for the rest of the Muslim world in the field of distance-learning education system.

Professor Dr Hasan Kaplan, the representative of Turkey’s Pamukkale University, also visited the Allama Iqbal Open University and expressed his desire to enter into an agreement with AIOU in the promotion of distance-learning system. Talking with the visiting academicians from the Muslim countries, AIOU Vice Chancellor Prof Sangi said that they will develop their linkage with the universities of the Islamic countries to promote mutual benefit in the educational fields and to meet new challenges, enabling their students to take part in the socio-economic development of their respective countries.

He said the AIOU would provide special fee concession to students from the Islamic world if they took admission for e-learning through online educational network. This offer will be available for about 3,000 students from these brotherly countries as a gesture of goodwill. He briefed the visiting guests about the working of the AIOU and its latest initiatives to fight illiteracy on all levels. He said the AIOU has now emerged country’s largest institutional educational with 1.3 million students, enrolled in its various programmes.Daily Times.