Islamabad-Allama Iqbal Open University will hold National Conference on Media on Friday to strengthen press-academia partnership to promote quality education in the country.

The theme of the conference is ‘Post-Modern Times: Challenges and Prospects’, a statement said on Sunday. Eminent media practitioners have been invited to attend the event, the statement added.

According to chairman of the AIOU’s Department of Mass Communication Dr Saqib Riaz, the conference is being arranged on the initiative of the Vice Chancellor Dr Shahid Siddiqui to seek the media’s support in serving the society through educational pursuits.

There will be two-day interactive sessions between the media to see how the stipulated educational targets could be achieved.

The AIOU’s is a media-based institution that provides affordable education to all segments of society at their door-step through the distance learning system. The forthcoming media’s conference is also part of series of academic, social and literary activities, being arranged by the university on regular basis to address the socio-economic issues, being faced by the society.

The vice chancellor laid special emphasis on developing interaction and collaborative partnership among the national and international institutions for meeting the educational needs of the people.

The main goal of the conference is to provide platform to researchers, academicians, makers, civil society representatives and other experts of Media Sciences to highlight future needs and challenges in the field of education.

The conference will make insight into the latest trends of communication and media. It will also discuss theoretical as well as empirical methodologies to help devise appropriate strategies for policy makers so as to find workable solution of the problems being faced in the educational field.