ISLAMABAD: Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) provided fee concession to record number of pupils in the recent year to promote its policy of ensuring education to all.
The number of beneficiaries having fee concession under the University’s scholarship schemes was 20,466 in the financial year of 2018-19, that is a record in the history of AIOU. In the corresponding period, the number of beneficiaries were 19, 226.
In order to accommodate maximum number of deserving students in each academic semester, the amount of fee-concession or fee-waiver was the more than allocated budget in the financial year 2018-19.
According to Director Students’ Affairs Rana Tariq Javed, there are standing instructions from the Vice Chancellor Professor Dr. Zia-Ul-Qayyum that no citizen of the country should be left without education owing to financial reason.
The Vice Chancellor has announced while addressing an academic meeting that financial constraint will be no longer a hurdle in receiving education from the AIOU that caters the educational needs of around 1.4 million students annually through distance learning system.
There are ten scholarships schemes of the University, under which the deserving students take benefit to continue their future study.
As per the policy, if annual income of a student or his parents is less than Rs. 3, 60,000, he can apply for fee concession in a particular program under the scholarship schemes, through his respective regional office.
Each desiring student is required to meet prescribed certain. The case of fee-concession is finally considered and approved by an Assessment Committee, set up for this purpose at the regional level.-NNI