It is beyond my understanding how IBA Sukkur and Iqra University could do better than the IoBM.
KARACHI: The latest Higher Education Commission (HEC) ranking of business schools puts the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) Sukkur, and Iqra University, Karachi among the top five business schools of the country. The rankings have assigned 40 marks out of a total of 100 to the research conducted by business schools. In this regard, it is beyond my understanding how IBA Sukkur and Iqra University could do better than the Institute of Business Management (IoBM). The business research magazine of IoBM, called Pakistan Business Review, is not only approved by the HEC, but also has been indexed and abstracted by EconLit and Journal of Economic Literature. How can the HEC ignore this research-related feature of IoBM while assigning marks on the research criterion?
Furthermore, 42 marks have been assigned to the quality of teaching. In Pakistan the quality of teaching in a business school should be gauged by the quality of the students it produces. Since 2010, IoBM’s students have been wining major global business competitions — the CIMA Global Business Case Competition 2010 and 2011, Telenor Case Study Competition, Lipton Talent Hunt Competition, and CFA Institute Local Investment Research Challenge 2011-2012 — by defeating students of other reputable business schools. Doesn’t this reflect the high quality of the IoBM faculty?
The HEC rankings exercise should be revisited. Failure to do so would play havoc with the HEC’s reputation as an independent and reputable regulatory institution.
Abdullah Patoli
Institute of Business Management
Published in The Express Tribune, March 20th, 2012.
