Urdu Univ to start Unani, Pharmacy, Nursing colleges

Bangalore, Jan 13 (UNI) The Maulana Azad National Urdu University has planned to start Unani, Pharmacy and Nursing colleges, its Vice Chancellor Prof A M Pathan informed today.

Addressing newspersons here, he said the varsity, set up in 1998 with a mandate to promote and develop Urdu, provide higher, technical and vocational education and focus on women studies in Urdu medium, proposed to introduce a campus-based master's course in social work, a distance education diploma in women's education and a campus-based PG in education course.

Prof Pathan said the varsity with over 60,000 students across the country, 53 per cent of them women, had partnered with the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) to empower the university to adopt, translate and offer any course of IGNOU into Urdu.

He said the university focusing specially on teacher training and education had set up colleges for teachers' education in Srinagar, Dharbanga, Bhopal and Hyderabad. ''An academy for the professional development of Urdu teachers has also been established in Hyderabad for the purpose,'' he added.

Prof Pathan said the University also planned to establish Industrial Training Institutes across the country, including one in Bangalore. The proposed ITI here would offer courses for Electrician and Air conditioning and Refrigeration Mechanics. ''These skills and trades are designed to provide livelihood opportunities to the students, a need that is much felt among the Urdu speaking population of the country.'' Keeping in mind the importance of applying modern information and communication technology, the university had obtained approval for the setting up of an Instructional Media Centre to not only provide training to the students of Mass Communication and Journalism, but also produce and broadcast academic programmes through television.

UNI