ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) entered into collaborative partnership with Plan International and a private NGO Sanjh Preet to promote female literacy in the country’s backward and less-developed regions through non-formal distance-learning system.
In this connection, an agreement was signed here on Wednesday, in presence of Vice Chancellor Professor Dr. Shahid Siddiqui who assured that the University will actively participate in the government’s efforts providing special educational facilities to drop-out female students and to fight out illiteracy.
Under the agreement, First Track Learning Centers (FTLC’s) will be set up in the country for middle-level education.
In first-phase, a learning centre with1,200 girls will be set up in district Nankana Sahib by adopting AIOU’s indigenous model of education.
Similar model will be replicated in other parts of the country through a gradual process to target the marginalized rural families, said Shahid Siddiqui at the signing ceremony.
Such project aimed at establishing connectivity between the educational institutions and the society, he added.
The University has successfully implemented open-schooling model for middle class students in District Vehari, Chakwal and Thatta.
It has facilitated thousands of out-of-school girls who were deprived of the basic facility of education due to financial and social reasons. Dr. Siddiqui said it was their pride to cope up educational needs of deprived section of the society.
They have already taken projects like providing free education to prisoners.
Besides this an accessibility center has been set at the University’s main campus to facilitate visually impaired students in their educational pursuits.
The agreement was signed by Registrar AIOU Muhammad Naeeem Qureshi, Director Program, Sanjh Preet Organization Pervaiz Akhtar and the country’s representative Plan International Pakistan Imran Yousaf Shami.
Dr. Tanzila Nabeel Director Bureau for University Extension special program while highlighting the project said a good number of female students are being benefited through a comfortable leaning system.
A pilot project to this effect has successfully been implemented in Tehsil Sajawal (Thatta District) where 656 girls received middle-level education and later they enrolled themselves for matriculation.
The AIOU prepared the entire course for class sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth in the Sindhi language to facilitate the local students.
