The Italian Consulate and The Institute of Business Management have signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Karachi to continue and expand Italian language teaching programs. The IOBM, founded in 1994, is a prestigious local private university that started working with the Italian Consulate in 2016 when an Italian teacher, paid partly by the university and partly with ad-hoc funds from the Italian Foreign Ministry, launched a beginner course. With time, Italian courses were also offered in the Schools of Business Economics, Social Economics and Computer Science as an optional foreign language in addition to French, Arabic, Chinese and German.
Since the signing of the first MoU, demand for Italian has continued to grow: in 2018, an intermediate course was added and a second teacher was hired. During the last two academic years, until 2018-19, the number of students has increased from 14 to 79, confirming a trend that shows students’ growing interest for Italian language and culture.
In addition to language courses, an exchange agreement has been in place between the IOBM and the School of Economics of the University of Florence since 2011, whereby 15 Pakistani students have traveled to Italy for their studies. Students choose to study Italian because they want to go to Italy to study and visit the country, due to their great love for Italian art and architecture.
