HEC rankings

Letter March 03, 2016
Merit has not been taken into consideration while compiling HEC rankings report

KARACHI: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan recently unveiled its Higher Education Institutions’ Ranking List for 2015. The list is dubious because universities that don’t even properly perform basic functions of educating students have been ranked at high positions. On the other hand, universities that perform comparatively better in terms of providing proper education, better teaching facilities, publishing quality research papers and, above all, producing intelligentsia for the nation, have either been ranked inferior or excluded from the list.

Merit has not been taken into consideration while compiling this report. The HEC needs to drastically improve its evaluation systems and avoid issuing rankings that are in contradiction with reality. The current report has not only discouraged top performing universities but has raised doubts about the ranking methodology used for evaluating education in Pakistan.

Mohammad Hassam Siddiqi

Published in The Express Tribune, March 3rd, 2016.

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