Sources said IBA will receive a sub-grant of $1.5 million from the ICFJ for operating the centre and organising 10 training modules annually for three years. PHOTO: FILE
KARACHI:
Pakistan’s premier business school – the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi – is going to establish the Centre for Excellence in Journalism (CEJ) in collaboration with Northwestern University School of Journalism and the International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ), Washington DC.
Replying to questions by The Express Tribune via email on Wednesday, IBA Dean and Director Ishrat Husain confirmed that the institute’s board of directors has approved the establishment of the multi-million-dollar CEJ on IBA’s city campus.
Sources said IBA will receive a sub-grant of $1.5 million from the ICFJ for operating the centre and organising 10 training modules annually for three years.
The ICFJ will import equipment for a studio and lab out of its portion of the grant ($3 million) while Northwestern University will design the curriculum and provide IBA with trainers.
Initially, the US embassy in Pakistan had invited proposals for setting up the CEJ to impart training to working journalists in the country. IBA had submitted a proposal in partnership with Hawaii-based East-West Centre and the University of South Carolina, but the embassy turned it down.
Instead, ICFJ, which had partnered with Northwestern university and the Karachi school for Business and Leadership (KSBL), received the award.
However, KSBL pulled out of its commitments to ICFJ. Subsequently, the ICFJ approached IBA and requested it to become its local partner in setting up the CEJ in Karachi.
With the completion of the project in three years, the imported equipment will become the property of IBA. Meanwhile, the equipment and facilities set up under this grant will also be used for practical training of IBA’s social sciences students.
Under the directorship of Husain, IBA has undergone rapid infrastructure expansion in recent years.
It has added 13 new buildings, including auditoriums, libraries, hostels for boys and girls, seminar and syndicate rooms and laboratories, and renovated as many as 10 existing buildings. IBA’s student enrolment has also increased from 1,800 to 3,000 in the last five years.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 8th, 2014.
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COMMENTS (4)
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Really happy but as an Alumni I feel that IBA needs to cut down its old, obsolete faculty which is not delivering anything. The strict absence rule gives these professors a way to ensure attendance, when nothing is being delivered.
Way to go.... IBA Forever....
good going
but still no jobs for IBA grads.
Dansishmand tenure had jobs for us at least I think old IBA was better new IBA is more of a me too, then the legend IBA once was
As an IBA alumni, I'm proud of the efforts Ishrat Husain has taken to restore IBA to its previous glory. The damage done by Danishmand, as Dean and Director, had set the institution back several years.