ISLAMABAD, June 18: The Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) has demanded of the federal as well as provincial governments to allot it plots for building regional campuses all over the country.
Vice-chancellor of the university Dr Syed Altaf Hussain told Dawn that at present the university was paying around Rs5 million as annual rent of its regional branches.
The AIOU has ten fully-fledge regional campuses and 22 regional offices in the country.
Except in Lahore, Karachi, Mirpur and Quetta, where the university has its own buildings, the rest of the branches are housed in rented buildings.
In reply to a question, Dr Altaf said the university wanted to have its own buildings for regional campuses/offices and had forwarded a proposal to the executive council of the university — the highest decision-making body — to buy plots for the purpose.
After discussing the proposal, especially the prices of plots at suitable places, the executive council rejected the proposal on the ground that since the AIOU was a public sector institution, the federal and provincial governments should be approached for allotment of the required land instead of buying it.
For instance, the AIOU selected a plot of eight canals in Gujranwala to build a regional campus but couldn’t acquire the land because Rs6.4 million were demanded by the owner of that plot.
Same was the case in other cities of the country, hence it has been decided that the government should be asked to facilitate the AIOU in this regard, so that Rs5 million, which the university is paying annually as rent, should be saved and spent on educational purposes.
He said large tracts of government land were lying vacant everywhere and the provinces had been asked to help the AIOU.
To another question, he said the AIOU was meeting 85 per cent of its expenses through fees and only 15 per cent came from government funding.
When asked about the model university ordinance, he said, “I personally support the idea of the Higher Education Commission that the public sector universities should be given administrative autonomy as it will help improve quality of education.”
Under the existing service structure, quality teachers are not interested in teaching in the public sector universities as the privately-run institutions are offering lucrative salary packages.
As a result, the universities in the public sector are fast being deprived of good teachers.