PESHAWAR: Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) enjoys special distinction,having Asia’s biggest Book Warehouse, with capacity of over 5 million books.
According to the University’s Press and Publication department, such a bignumber of books are available in the warehouse each time to meet the needsof its 1.3 million students.
The Printing network is largest one in the country, where an average 3.5million books get published in each semester. The department maintainsquality and high standard of the entire books’ publication process, keepingin view the instructions of the Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Shahid Siddiqui.
Automatic latest printing, cutting and folding machines have been madeavailable to handle this huge task. Most of the machinery is imported one.Thirty percent work is done through in-house printing process, while theseventy percent is out-reach arrangements. There are about fortyregistered well-qualified printing houses in the country that deal with thebig job.
Anyhow the sensitive work is done within the University, that includesacademic degrees and exam answer’s books.
The AIOU is the country’s top educational institution in term of students’enrollment, academic structure and books’ handling. Strength of its tutorsis around 75 thousands. these are the outstanding number, involved instudent assignments’ assessment process.
The University dispatch books along with allied material to around sevenlakh students in one semester, spreading over a period of six months.
For the current semester, it has mailed the books to six lakh students sofar. The rest are expected to get the same within a week time. They aremostly of post-graduate-level.
As per the directives of the Vice Chancellor, the employees of the MailingDepartment work in two shifts to ensure timely receipt of the books by thestudents.
This aimed at giving enough study time to the students enabling them tosubmit their course assignments within a stipulated time.