Taking it a notch up: Relatively new university IBA Sukkur ranks third best

Director says despite its rural location the school has managed to achieve a milestone.

SUKKUR:

After holding onto the prestige of being the fourth best business school in Pakistan last year, Sukkur Institute of Business Administration, this year, has been ranked the third best business school by the Higher Education Commission (HEC).

The honour was bestowed during a press conference held at the HEC office on July 5, said Sukkur IBA director Nisar Ahmed Siddiqui, while talking to The Express Tribune. Indeed it is a great success for us, he said, adding that Sukkur IBA, despite its far-flung location and against all odds, has been able to make it to the top three.

For a relatively young university, such as Sukkur IBA, attaining this ranking was a very difficult task but with its innovative programmes, exceptional facilities, and excellent management and faculty, the institute had been able to outrank much older, bigger and better-funded universities in the business field, he boasted. The institute had to work extra hard to attract good quality faculty and create links within the industry, he added. “Sukkur IBA now boasts a campus that has become the envy of everyone and attracts students from all over Pakistan.”



The institute’s director said that, in the past year, its students had won many national-level business plan competitions, and also represented the university at many international forums. Sukkur IBA students and faculty have also won international scholarships, including the Fulbright scholarship, he said proudly.

Siddiqui plans to expand the network of IBA Community Colleges, which currently stand at four, to increase the access of quality education to people from under-privileged areas of Sindh. He said the varsity had the Centre for Entrepreneurial Leadership and Incubation. “We are also in the process of expanding it into a big incubation centre to convert various plans into actual businesses.”

Such incubation centres, according to him, will nurture new business ideas, which will generate employment in the region. “We will also increase the range of academic specialisations in electrical engineering.”

The full HEC ranking can be found here.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 7^th, 2013.