Stock education being made part of BBA, MBA curricula

This will produce skilled human resources and remove hurdles to market growth

KARACHI: After rising to international standards and often remaining in headlines, the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) and other financial markets are now being made part of the BBA and MBA curriculums at reputed universities for the first time in the country.

Institute of Financial Markets of Pakistan (IFMP) CEO and MD Muhammad Ali Khan said leading business universities in Pakistan had been educating students about stock markets, but only about international ones.



Now, the universities including the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), University of Karachi, Bahria University and Virtual University are making PSX part of their BBA and MBA curriculums, in addition to offering short-term courses as well.

The universities are doing so in collaboration with IFMP, which has the mandate to certify and train different segments of capital markets and the insurance industry. It provides a platform for research and development and offers advisory services on matters pertaining to capital markets.



“IBA is going to start a four-month diploma in capital markets in August 2017,” Khan told The Express Tribune.

The diploma will cover technical and ethical education. Permanent and visiting faculty members including capital market experts will teach how the PSX, Pakistan Mercantile Exchange (commodities market), insurance and currency markets function in the country. They will also give practical and trade training in mock sessions.

Knowledge key to progress

“The degree and diploma courses will prepare skilled human resources, which is needed to remove hurdles in the way of progress of Pakistan’s capital markets,” Khan said.

He said lack of knowledge and little training of brokerage houses’ sales staff about stocks, metals (gold and silver) and other commodities (such as wheat) were the biggest hurdles to making the headway.

Majority of the sales staff at many brokerage houses were hardly matriculate while brokers avoided giving them the best available training to prevent them from leaving for comparatively better brokerage houses, he said.

The sales staff suggests only one thing to their clients - buy this stock and sell this one. When asked why to buy and sell particular stocks, they only say big brokers and foreigners are doing that.

“These are unsatisfactory answers. Instead, they should say you should buy this because its dividend yield, revenue and/or profit has risen or sell because it has lost fundamentals,” he said. “Education is the key to growth of markets... had there been educated staff, the market would not have stuck in unnecessary confused situations many a time.”



IFMP signed a memorandum of understanding with the IBA for making capital markets part of the curriculums in August 2016, with Virtual University in February 2017 and Bahria University this month.

Khan said such understanding was also being developed with other leading universities including the Lahore University of Management Sciences and National University of Science and Technology.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 29^th, 2017.

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