Pakistan evinces keen interest in having distance learning courses from IITs

Updated on: Monday, September 10, 2012

Pakistan has evinced keen interest in having distance learning courses from IITs to be beamed across its universities through video conferencing facilities, enabling access to quality lectures to students.

"Absolutely, we will be interested in having IIT courses in Pakistan through distance learning. We could link them up with our engineering universities," Atta-ur Rahman, president of Pakistan Academy of Sciences, said here. Rahman, a federal minister of Science and Technology in President Pervez Musharraf's regime, made a strong pitch for launching distance learning courses across South Asia at the first meeting of South Asian Academies of Science.

He said he hoped the liberalised visa regime announced by India and Pakistan yesterday would ease exchange of scientists between the two countries. "I hope the difficulties would be removed. Like business ties, cooperation in science is also very important," he said.

At the three-day meeting that concluded today, Rahman also announced 40 scholarships for students of eight South Asian nations for pursuing studies in Pakistani universities and institutes for a three-month period.

He said Pakistan, which has made effective use of the distance learning platform, was willing to take a lead role in delivering under-graduate and post-graduate courses to South Asian countries through video conferencing.

"Over 1,300 interactive lectures have been delivered in the past two years to university students through the distance learning programme across 67 state-run universities in Pakistan each one of which have excellent video conferencing facilities," Rahman said.

Leading scientists from the US, Europe and Australia have addressed students using the Pakistan Education and Research Network that connects universities and research institutes through a high-speed bandwidth. In his presentation at the meeting, Rahman said the South Asian academies should initiate exchange programs of research students and scientists, launch joint research initiatives, development of national innovation policies and undertaking national foresight exercises.

He also favoured preparation of a database of willing experts in different disciplines who would take part in the distance learning initiatives. Pakistan has already signed bilateral agreements with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh who have launched distance learning courses through video-conferencing, M Iqbal Chaudhary, distinguished National Professor, University of Karachi, said.

Pakistan evinces keen interest in having distance learning courses from IITs

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