Education Expo 2012 | AIOU admissions

Students discuss options with foreign university representatives
Islamabad, May 14: Hundreds of students visited the Education Expo 2012 organised by the HR Consultants to meet university representatives of nine countries and discuss future options. Many of them applied for admission in top universities on the spot.

Students, sometimes accompanied by their parents, visited different stalls where they met the university representatives welcoming them with bright smile and complete attention. Besides UK, USA, Australia and Canada, universities from United Arab Emirates, Germany and Turkey also participated in the expo.

A big rush was observed on Turkish stall where Lale Day from Ozyegin University, Istanbul, provided all relevant information to the students. “Turkey has many advantages. The universities are of same standard as Europe, but the tuition fee and living expenses are almost half as compared to other European countries,” she said.

Another big attraction was 50 per cent scholarship especially for Pakistani students that qualify the merit. Adding to that, she said there is no cultural shock for students as Turkey is an Islamic country. “And we can have ‘halal’ food in Turkey,” pointed out a visitor.

Students from places such as Swat and Malakand came this far especially to utilise the opportunity and sought guidance from the qualified foreign consultants. “Visiting such expo is a new experience for me,” said a law student Muaz Khan from Swat. “I want to get a good degree in law from a Canadian University and I am glad that I have been able to find all required information from the expo,” he said.

“Things are absolutely normal in our area. The situation we had in recent past has actually encouraged us to get better educational qualification,” said Muhammad Tayyab from Swat. The students brought their papers along. “There are some important papers missing, which we will provide later,” said Tayyab.

The representatives of HR Consultants told ‘The News’ that 50 per cent of students visiting the expo apply on the spot. “In many cases, their papers are not complete. That is where we guide them and stay in contact with them so that they can provide us the complete set of documents within the required time,” said Education Consultant Faisal Chaudhry.

There are many students who come really prepared. “They collect information from the websites and social media. Sometimes they even have information about the faculty of department they are applying with and they investigate whether the same faculty is present in the university or not,” said Zafar Naqvi, representing the BPP university, UK.

Sharing his observations, Naqvi said that few years later, the students were less interested in studies and more in settling abroad. “It is good to see that now the youth has realised that good and relevant degree counts no matter where you are living,” he said. “Now they actually look for better qualification and that I think is a good trend in Pakistani youth.” He said that some students have shared with him that they want to apply in UK because of the London Olympics. Young representative from BPP University said that while providing services, they look for the strong financial resources of the students, their grades and gaps, if any, in their studies. He advised students to be confident and clear about their financial resources and courses they want to study before making any plan to go abroad for education. He termed it a good sign that students from underdeveloped areas are visiting these expos in a big number.

Commenting on the representation of Turkey and UAE in Education Expo, Director HR Consultant Shahid Rauf said that it will open the door of new opportunities for Pakistan students. “We had Pakistani students in these countries, but this is the first time that these universities are marketing in Pakistan.” He said that around one thousand students visit the expo each time. “We help around 20,000 to 25,000 students in getting admission in the best colleges and universities around the world. Among them, 10 per cent are girls and 90 per cent are boys, but the number of girls is rapidly increasing,” he said adding that parents prefer to send their daughters to countries where they already have their relatives.

He shared that parents are mostly concerned about the security of their daughters. “According to our information, the girl students feel completely safe and confident while studying abroad,” he said.

The visitors included a large number of girls as well. “I think things are changing for good in our country,” said Rizwana Humayun, mother of Ayesha who was busy visiting different stalls. Rizwana who was a simple graduate has many dreams for her daughter. “Ayesha plans to specialise in Chemistry from any Canadian university,” she added.

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AIOU places admissions status on website
Islamabad: Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) has successfully gained its admissions target from Matric to Ph.D level programmes for the Semester Spring, 2012, said Mrs Arifa Salman, Acting Director Admissions (AIOU) on Saturday. She said that the credit of finalizing all the admission process prior to schedule and starting mailing of books before time goes to the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Dr. Nazir Ahmed Sangi for taking keen interest in facilitating the students.

Director Admissions, Mrs Arifa Salman said that books of different programmes have already been sent to more than 4.5 lac students by post.

Director Admissions further said that during scrutinizing the admission forms, some admission forms were found incomplete /incorrect entries, complete information about these admission forms have been placed on websites www.aiou.edu.pk. She said that the concerned students have been advised to contact the admission department of the University at Sector H/8, or on email address adms@aiou.edu.pk immediately to remove the objections on their admission

forms so that their admission forms could be further processed.

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450,000 get enrolled for AIOU courses
Islamabad: The Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) has achieved its admission target for the Spring Semester 2012, said acting director (admissions) Arifa Salman.

She said that books of all courses have already been sent to more than 450,000 students by mail. During scrutiny, some admission forms were found incomplete and these have been placed on the university website (www.aiou.edu.pk).

Students are advised to contact the admission department of the university on the email address (adms@aiou.edu.pk) immediately to remove objections on their admission forms so that their documents could be processed further.

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Representation of FAPUASA urged in task force
Islamabad: The executive body meeting of the Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association (FAPUASA) has congratulated Federal Minister Khurshid Shah on his appointment as chairman of the Higher Education Task Force. 

The task force comprising members from Higher Education Commission, provinces and other stakeholders will look after matters of higher education in Pakistan.

In a statement, FAPUASA President Professor Kaleemullah Bareach and Vice President Professor Zahid Majeed demanded the representation of FAPUASA in the task force as an important stakeholder of more than 30,000 university teachers of Pakistan.

The executive body members agreed that the representation of FAPUASA would help the task force in policies related to academia and students, otherwise the decisions without FAPUASA representation would create problems which need discussions, meetings and negotiations with universities teachers.

The federation in the meeting decided to send letters of FAPUASA to Khurshid Shah and Higher Education Commission calling for representation in the task force.

The executive body also held a meeting with high officials of HEC to discus budgetary problems. The news

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