KARACHI, March 4: City Nazim Naimatullah Khan has underlined the need for imparting Quranic teachings, besides medical science, information technology and other subjects.

He was speaking to the participants of a two-day workshop on 'Tutors' Orientation' held at the Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) campus on Thursday. AIOU Vice-Chancellor Prof Altaf Hussain, Regional Director, Prof S Salahuddin Ahmed, Director, Ali Asghar, UC Nazim, Mujahid Mahmood Barkati and coordinator to nazim for Education, Nasim Siddiqi, were also present on the occasion.

City nazim observed that the services, which AIOU was rendering for the promotion of education, were laudable and the city government would extend full cooperation to the efforts to be made in this direction.

He said the country had come into being purely on ideological basis, however, even after the passage of 56 years it could not be made a welfare state.

Mr Khan said the need of the hour was that younger generation be apprised of the objective of establishment of Pakistan, so that the country could be steered to the path of progress.

He said the teachers at AIOU should apprise their students of the message of Allama Iqbal for their character-building, which would be the greatest service to the nation.

Dr Hussain informed that 0.426 million students were registered with the varsity, which had been declared a mega university at the Open University Conference held in Shanghai. Throughout the country, he said, 31,000 teachers of AIOU were engaged in teaching.

He informed that AIOU's last year's budget stood at Rs860 million which was expected to rise to Rs1.5 billion this year. Earlier, Prof S Salahuddin presented the welcome address. -APP