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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