Aga Khan University: skills learning centre to introduce modern methods of learning

Aga Khan University will be setting up Skills Learning Centre that will pioneer the use of virtual reality tools, simulation, teleconferencing and telelearning to enhance learning capacity in the healthcare sector.
This will improve the education not only of the university's undergraduate and postgraduate medical students, but also practising physicians interested in continuing education programmes. It will also help to improve the quality of medical education in the country.
"This will be the very first type of its centre in Pakistan and certainly one of the very few in the region. It is an example of how we will use technology to change how we look at the future of medical education at the university," said Firoz Rasul, the University President, at the launch of the Medical College's 25th anniversary celebrations in a ceremony on Wednesday. The occasion coincides with the 25th anniversary of the granting of AKU's charter by the Government of Pakistan in 1983.
The Dean of the Medical College, Dr Mohammad Khurshid, stressed on the need for advancing the research work being carried out by the university. "We have in place education and community service models. Now we need to work on the research model as a component that will help the university acquire further international recognition."
AKU will be hosting an international conference, along with the World Health Organisation, on research on chronic diseases in the developing world. It will be an event that will bring international scholar to Pakistan, help in developing cost-effective treatments and in improving health.
Taking the opportunity to reflect on the university's development over the past 25 years, Shamsh Kassim-Lakha, the Founding President of AKU said, "The major challenges were to practice meritocracy and espouse the highest moral and ethical values." He said that the leadership of the university was new to the concept of starting a private institution in a developing country, and faced challenges such as providing high quality health sciences training, recruiting and retaining world-class faculty and ensuring good governance. The Medical College 25th anniversary will be celebrated over a year.-PR