‘Add top-class faculty to best students, you get the best institution’

Karachi School for Business and Leadership started MBA classes this year

KARACHI: Karachi School of Business and Leadership (KSBL) has figured out how to become the best. If you have the best faculty members, the brightest of students will come after them.

According to its dean, Dr Shaukat Brah, “Criterion for a successful educational institution is very simple”. With its top-class faculty and collaboration with Cambridge University, KSBL will give tough competition to the already established business schools in Pakistan, he said.

During his meeting with journalists on Wednesday, Dr Brah urged all Pakistanis “to make ways not excuses”. “No doubt we have lots of problems in our country but we have to find solutions to these problems,” he added.  The school started classes for its first batch of MBA students this year. It has 10 permanent faculty members and nine visiting professors.

Dr Brah, who got his PhD from the University of Houston, taught at the National University Singapore Business School and has also served as the dean of the Suleman Dawood School of Business at the Lahore University of Management Sciences  (Lums).

A few journalists expressed their concerns over the high fee structure. Dr Brah admitted that the two-year MBA programme costs around Rs1.4 million, which is similar to Lums’ fee structure. He explained, however, that the admissions are carried out on the criteria of “need-blind admission”.



The admission committee only looks at the capabilities of the students during the admission and, later, they see if the student can afford the tuition or not, he said. If the student is capable but not financially sound, the school offers student loans. Dr Brah explained that the school’s donors grant scholarships as well.

Students, who have completed 16 years of education, appear in the school’s GAT General Special Test. Those who are shortlisted are called in for an interview where the admission committee gauges their managerial skills. “We don’t take academically strong students if they don’t have managerial skills,” said Dr Brah. The school aims at developing entrepreneurs, who then generate jobs and opportunities for others in the country. “We will give them inspiration through lectures by visiting entrepreneurs.”

Referring to the five-year agreement with Cambridge University, he said that the university is assessing the curriculum and faculty and their professors will be visiting the schools. The school has a strong corporate backing but all companies need the best employees, said the dean. If the students are competent, they will have no problem getting jobs, he added.



KSBL marketing and communications incharge Humayun Javed Khan took the journalists on a tour of the campus. The lecture rooms are equipped with the latest technology so students can attend lectures through video conferencing as well. They also have a sound-controlled video camera that focus automatically on the face of the student who will be asking questions, he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 30^th, 2012.