Pakistan is a developing with 148 universities and degree awarding institutions including
public and private sector. The enrolment as given in the National Educational Policy 2009
was up to 5% only. It reflects greater demands of higher/tertiary education and calls for
alternative strategic measures for addressing the issue. An innovative approach was
necessary to address the issue of access. Therefore, the Islamia University of Bahawalpur
–a formal mode university took an innovative initiative to become a dual mode university
by establishing an Institute of Distance Education (IDE) in 2011.
The institute offered along with others, an M.Phill programme in ten disciplines through
distance education mode in semester fall 2011. More than eight hundred applications were
received by potential learners against 275 seats.
However, after test and interview 189 students were enrolled in M.Phill programme in
Applied Psychology, Arabic, Education, English, Media Studies, Islamic Studies, Pakistan
Studies, History, Persian, and Urdu. In the beginning, the Institute organized an
orientation workshop for learners to guide them studying in distance education system.
The programme was offered under semester system and the semester was broke up into
two halves –mid-term and final term.
The respective departments provided learning materials to students whereas the IDE
provided instructional booklet. Submission of two assignments was compulsory for the
entire semester; one before mid-term and second before final-term workshop/
examination for each of the courses. Similarly, students’ presence in workshops for 24
hours (12 during mid-term and 12 during final-term workshop) for one 3-credit hour
course was mandatory. Students’ support services were provided through Skype
conference, social media and mobile phones. Students necessarily had to give
presentations and submit their assignments after checking their similarity index by using
turnitin software.
At the end of the course work the instructors rated performance of learners’ to be good.
Learner’s appeared to be enthusiastic for continuing their studies. The experience
appeared to be a milestone in promoting higher education and feasible for replication at
larger scale in Pakistan. The process and procedures; achievements; and problems, issues
and challenges were discussed paper to be presented during the conference. The detailed
experience will be shared during the conference.