Pakistan is populous country of nearly 160 million people, with almost half of this number below the age of 30. A study conducted in the late 1990s indicated that out of the college age cohort (18-25 years) only about 3.5% were actually enrolled in tertiary education institutions; the absolute majority, ie over 96% of this age group were not enrolled and therefore not receiving higher education. On the other hand, the established universities were full to the brim. Compounding the problem, the existing universities had an acute shortage of properly qualified faculty leading to severe quality issues in the tiny segment of the population that actually obtained access to higher education. Whereas the problem of capacity shortage could have been overcome by providing adequate financial resources, the issue of faculty shortage was not amenable to organic solutions: radical measures were called for.
A feasibility study organised and funded by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) was conducted in late 2000 to assess the possibility of utilising technology to tackle the problem with particular reference to developing human resources in information technology, world-wide demand for which was at its peak at that time.
Simultaneously, a public discussion and debate over the internet was organised by the Minister for Science and Technology to develop a coherent policy for information technology in Pakistan. Both the feasibility study as well as the public discussion, among other issues, indicated that a new university should be established that would use information and communication technologies as force multipliers to overcome the capacity and faculty shortage problems outlined above. The establishment of a "virtual" university thereby became part of the action plan drawn up by the government as part of its policy on information technology.
A project plan was drawn up and approved by the Government of Pakistan in 2001 and initial funding for the university was released in November of the same year. The new Virtual University of Pakistan opened its "virtual" doors to the public in a very short time and the first batch of students was inducted in March 2002 into a 4-year BS program in Computer Science / Information Technology. A formal Charter was granted to the new university in September 2002 and it empowered the university to establish several different faculties or schools.
The university was granted a "federal" charter that allowed it to offer its programs throughout the country instead of being limited to any single province. The Virtual University of Pakistan (VU) has been designed to provide world-class education at extremely affordable rates to aspiring students across the length and breadth of Pakistan. Its main focus is to provide easy access to high quality tertiary education, thereby supplementing the capacity of existing universities.
HOW VU WORKS:
The Virtual University of Pakistan delivers education through a judicious combination of broadcast television and the Internet. By identifying and utilizing the best Professors and domain experts of the country, regardless of their institutional affiliations, the Virtual University develops and delivers meticulously designed courses to its students. The same high quality courses are also available to students of all other universities in the country through free to air broadcasts.
VU courses are hand-crafted in painstaking detail by acknowledged experts in the field. Lectures are then recorded by these experts in a professional studio environment and after editing, insertion of slides, movie clips and other material, the lectures become ready for broadcast. The same experts also prepare detailed lecture notes and handouts for the students and these handouts become an extremely valuable resource for students.
Since the University operates in a formal semester system mode, the time-table for lectures is published at the start of each semester on the VU web-site (http://www.vu.edu.pk). The lectures are broadcast according to this time-table over VU's own free-to-air television channels. They are also made available in the form of multimedia CDs. The multiple formats allow a high degree of flexibility for students who may view the lectures at a time of their choosing within a 24-hour period. Additionally, students can use the lecture CDs to review an entire course before their examinations - a facility simply not available in a conventional face-to-face environment.
The Virtual University provides student-teacher interaction through a comprehensive Learning Management System (LMS) (http://vulms.vu.edu.pk) hosted on VU Web Servers and accessible around the clock over the Internet. All students are provided a password protected account on the LMS and this account is maintained throughout their stay at the University. The LMS provides reading material and lecture notes in the form of web-enabled content for all courses. In addition, open and moderated discussion boards are available on the LMS for detailed discussions. The Virtual University also provides an e-mail facility to each and every student through its own mail server for direct access to teachers and University departments.
An important feature of the LMS is a Moderated Discussion Board (MDB) whereby VU students can interact with faculty members. The MDB provides a very efficient mechanism for students to pose their questions on subject matter covered in the lectures and is available 24 hours. The MDB is extremely fine grained, providing separate sessions for each lecture of each course. VU faculty monitors this board on a continuous basis and answers to student questions are provided within a short space of time.
The major advantage of the MDB is that all questions asked by students are visible to their course community, as are the answers provided by the faculty members and this closely mimics the face-to-face question/answer experience. In addition, read-only access is made available to previous question/answer sessions and this constitutes an extremely useful study resource for students. Of course, this review facility does not exist in a conventional environment.
Assignments for all courses are distributed through the LMS and also submitted by the students through the same mechanism with a detailed proof-of-delivery mechanism built in by design. Since the University publishes solutions for all its assignments, it is able to enforce a strict due-date regime. Late assignments are not accepted. Obviously, assignments are never re-used and past assignments and solutions form another important study resource for students. Pop-quizzes and practice tests are also conducted through the LMS.
Midterm and Final Examinations for every semester are conducted in a formal proctored environment at exam centers designated for the purpose throughout the country. Invigilators appointed by the University conduct the exams. The formal examination atmosphere assists in critical quality assurance of the student assessment system.
The university is based entirely on the imaginative and effective use of ICTs and therefore, its technical divisions are designed and equipped with a fault tolerant and redundant infrastructure. The servers deployed by the University for its web-site, its email system, (http://mail.vu.edu.pk) and its learning management system are all high-end state of the art machines with redundant power supplies and RAID hard disks. The servers are located on a 155Mbps fiber trunk that traverses only a few yards to get to one of Pakistan's main routers located on the national backbone. As such, the servers offer a high-availability environment.
The Virtual University's television production and broadcast facilities are also state of the art being completely digital end-to-end. The University operates is own 4 free-to-air satellite channels and more are being added as per the requirements of the various educational programs. The channels utilise Pakistan's first communications satellite PAKSAT-I. Although technical problems do arise, the strategic placement of the servers on the national backbone and the use of the national satellite ensure that any breakdown in international links does not affect the working of the Virtual University.
This combination of technologies and efficient utilisation of national infrastructure allows the Virtual University to offer an identical educational environment to students all over the country including far-flung areas. For the first time, students from small towns and remote areas have access to the same highly qualified professors that were previously accessible to their large city brethren only. The initial results indicate that talent hidden in these regions is now becoming visible and empowered. This has far reaching positive implications for the socio-economic well being of the country.
Students may study from home or at "virtual campuses" that have been established all over the country. These virtual campuses provide an enabling electronic environment for students to receive lectures and interact with their teachers including television equipped classrooms and Internet connected computer laboratories. A subliminal benefit of these campuses is that they also provide the students with an opportunity to interact with their peers in a conventional environment and form study groups. A very healthy inter-campus competition has already developed in the young Virtual University community and this becomes a strong motivating factor for students in their junior years while also providing an opportunity for seniors to become mentors to their junior counterpart.
CONCLUSIONS:
The Virtual University of Pakistan is one of the youngest universities in the country, the proverbial "baby" of the higher education family. In a very short span of time, it has been able to establish its credentials as an institution providing quality higher education. It has established over 125 "virtual campuses" in more than 65 cities of the country and more are being established on a continuous basis. Enrolment is increasing every semester and the current student strength stands at over 30,000 - more than many much older institutions.
The public presentation of the Virtual University's programs and the caliber of the people associated with them have gone a long way in establishing a quality image for the university in a very short time. In fact, the first batch of Virtual University graduates has been accepted by top tier institutions within the country as well as abroad in their respective graduate schools. Virtual University graduates have also been hired at top market salaries by extremely competitive and demanding technology companies and this acceptance by the industry has further validated the quality of the university's programs and its teaching methods.
The university has so far kept itself away from offering any programs that require the use of a physical laboratory (other than Computer Science), but the time is fast approaching when such programs will be required by the market. Collaborative programs are being designed in collaboration with other institutions that will provide the necessary physical plant and facilities for these programs. The Virtual University is thus poised to play an increasingly important role in the national higher education scenario.