UT’s Rector is Guest of Honor at “The Third General Assembly Meeting of CINVU”

The collaboration between Universitas Terbuka (UT) and Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) has been established since the year of 2019 and it is still thoroughly maintained until today. This was marked with the execution of the Memorandum of Understanding between both parties this year. AIOU, founded in 1974, is the first higher education institution in Asia and Africa that implemented distance learning and thus, is the university in Pakistan which has the largest number of the students with numerous extraordinary achievements. Similar to UT, the University provides higher education with open and distance education system. Becoming a higher institution of distance learning, both AIOU and UT join the Asian Association of Open Universities (AAOU) together with other 56 open education institutions from various countries.

AIOU’s Vice Chancellor, Prof. Dr. Zia Ul-Qayyum, presented an invitation for the guest of honor to UT’s Rector, Prof. Ojat Darojat, M.Bus., Ph.D., as the President of AAOU to attend the Third General Assembly meeting of COMSTECH Inter-Islamic Network on Virtual Universities (CINVU) held for two days on the date of 11-12 May 2022 at the AIOU’s main campus in Islamabad. The assembly was attended by more than fifty higher education institutions with a series of programs consisting of three sessions.

The first session, held on 11 May 2022, comprised open discussion on new plan and programs for 2022, preparation of joint training among the members, discussion on the reward of the training, and support for effective international activities as well as provision of information needed. Organized on the same day, Session 2 focused on the discussion on the budget and program by the General Secretary of CINVU, open discussion, presentation of new proposal from the members, and election of the members and chairman of the CINVU’s Executive Committee.

The series of CINVU activities then continued on 12 May 2022, marked with the opening of Session 3. The program in this session emphasized on the discussion regarding the shortcomings and reorganization of CINVU’s Charter, open discussion on new ideas, and conclusion. Upon the closing remarks, the Third General Assembly of CINVU was officially ended. Thereby, the participants of the program continued with another agenda by visiting the Standing Committee for Scientific and Technological Cooperation (COMSTECH) and was hosted by the General Coordinator of COMSTECH with a brief presentation which further went on to visit a number of the existing facilities in the vicinity.

It is expected that UT’s Rector’s visit to Pakistan to participate in the Third General Assembly meeting of COMSTECH Inter-Islamic Network on Virtual Universities (CINVU) would be able to create positive values which may subsequently be implemented in UT, considering that UT is a university in Indonesia, a country that 90 percent of its population are Muslims.