LAHORE, July 3: The Allama Iqbal Open University Lahore region administration has terminated services of some 300 tutors for not fulfilling the criteria and inducted new ones with relevant qualification and experience.

Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday, AIOU Lahore Director Rasul Bakhsh Behram said the university was celebrating 2013 as ‘Quality Education Year’. He said the university was offering a second chance to people who had to discontinue their regular education for certain reasons to get education from matriculation to PhD in around 150 programmes.

In these programmes, he said, they were offering some 1,500 courses. He said students were being admitted to various programmes twice a year. During spring admissions, he said, the university had completed its target and provided free books to students at their doorstep.

Behram said he had ensured this year that 3,500 tutors were appointed well in time to benefit students. He said the university had also developed a mechanism to monitor tutorials.

He said the university was increasing enrolment and in Lahore region alone some 200 sales points had been established to sell their prospectus and admission forms to attract more and more students for fall admissions. He said the university would also be launching a two-year associate degree programme offering specialisation in various disciplines, including tourism management, hotel management, hospital management, accounts and finance.

The director said the university had also imparted information technology training to its tutors and asked them to submit students’ results online. Behram said a new building costing Rs70 million at the varsity’s regional campus was almost complete.