Owais Mughal
Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan has recently released the university rankings of Pakistan. The rankings are generating so much interest that I am receiving four to five emails daily with people forwarding me the same link to HEC’s ranking web page. (Scroll down to see rankings and details).
I am kind of disappointed with my alma-mater, NED University of Engineering and Technology Karachi, ranked at number 10 out of the 13 Engineering Universities of Pakistan. The photo to the right-below shows few views of NED University.
I genuinely and of course with a little bias think that NED university should have been ranked among the top 3. When I make such claim; I do it on the basis of sheer engineering talent I’ve personally seen at NED. But rankings do not take into account the student talent. They look at finances, faculty, number of students etc. My university mates as well as the university officials have already started the discussion on how to improve the rankings next year. This discussion is going on at many NED online alumni groups. I am sure similar discussions are going on within other university alumni too. This I think, is a positive sign of publishing a list like this as it does create competition.
Here are the key leaders in the ranking:
Agriculture / Veterinary
1. University of Agriculture (UAF), Faisalabad
2. NWFP University of Agriculture , Peshawar
3. University of Arid Agriculture, Rawalpindi
4. Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam
Art / Design
1. National College of Arts, Lahore
2. Textile Institute of Pakistan, Karachi
3. Indus Valley School of Art & Architecture, Karachi
Business / I.T.
1. Lahore Uni. of Management Sciences (LUMS), Lahore
2. Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi
3. Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Sci. & Tech. Karachi
4. Iqra University, Defence View, Karachi
5. Lahore School of Economics (LSE) , Lahore
6. Institute of Business Management (IBM), Karachi
Engineering
1. Pakistan Institute of Engg. and Applied Sciences, Islamabad
2. National University of Sciences & Technology Rawalpindi
3. Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering, Swabi
4. University of Engg. & Technology (UET), Lahore
5. Mehran University of Engg. & Technology (MUET), Jamshoro
6. University of Engg. & Technology (UET), Taxila
General
1. Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU), Islamabad
2. University of the Punjab, Lahore
3. University of Karachi, Karachi
4. University of Peshawar, Peshawar
5. Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan
6. Government College Lahore University, Lahore
Health Sciences
1. Aga Khan University, Karachi
2. Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences, Jamshoro
3. Baqai Medical University, Karachi
4. Zia-ud-din Medical University, Karachi
You can have a look at the complete rankings, including the scores, the criteria and the methodology of scoring here. I would like to hear your opinion.
ATP’s another post related to University Education and rankings system can be seen here.
The Times Higher Education survey also uses criteria that make it hard for South Asian universities to compete. For instance, two of the important parameters are foreign faculty and foreign students, where these institutions naturally rank very low.
Also, the IITs are lumped together – there are currently six of them and they are independent of each other, though they use a common brand name. The same with the IIMs – of which there are again six currently. IIT-Kanpur or IIT-Chennai are a world apart from IIT-Guwahati. And IIM-Ahmedabad and IIM-Kozhikode are simply not comparable (primarily because IIT-Guwahati and IIM-Kozhikode are new institutions, still in their growth phase).
And then, any survey that leaves out the very best higher educational institution in India – the Indian Institute of Science (with a stronger heritage and a better record than either the IITs or IIMs) is flawed to begin with. It is the only institution, apart from the Delhi School of Economics that has had a Nobel Prize winner on its faculty. (IISc had the Physics Nobel winner C.V.Raman on its faculty and Delhi School of Economics’ most famous emeritus is the economics Nobel winner – Amartya Sen)
I suspect there are similar issues with the way the Pakistani universities have been ranked. I would have expected to see LUMS in the list of top institutions, though I doubt, based on whatever I know, that any other institution deserves to be in the top 200 of the world. It is an omission that is hard to understand.
But the wider point is very much valid. Apart from a handful of elite institutions (IISc, IITs, IIMs and Delhi School of Economics in India and LUMS in Pakistan), none of the institutions of higher education in the subcontinent really compare with the best institutions elsewhere in the world. Their research output is minimal. Politics have ruined the formerly great Universities like the ones in Allahabad and Lahore. The students from institutions other than these elite institutions might do well, but largely because of their own talents and efforts. A good teacher here and a decent class there does not make a great institution.
Let me say this. I am an NEDian. I am one of those people who have for over a decade tried to start serious NED Alumni activities. [See http://pakistan.wikia.com/wiki/NED_Alumni –and please, people from other institutions, please help build http://pakistan.wikia.com/wiki/Alumni_Groups , but I digress.)
But if anyone thinks NED *deserves* a better place, I am sorry, but an Ostrich comes to mind.
And the funny thing is, NED’s standards have *IMPROVED*, at least since I was there (Batch ’87-88, the first of the annual system). But the fact is that the spanner Bhutto Saahab threw into our works with nationalization is finally being overcome and lots of private institutions have come up and ALL are better in hard, objective quality than NED.
I am not saying I hate NED. I love the community of NEDians, at the very least. I am very, very proud of my friends and colleagues. My own CTO is an NEDian. You can say that an NED graduate is as good as they come and anyone would do well to hire or admit an NEDian any day of the week. And the reason for NED’s being what it is could be debated ad nauseum. Is it the sauthayla sulook that it is faced with; is it to be found in the argument that Karachi gets the dregs in terms of the national pie. I don’t know. But let’s keep it real, call a spade a spade and try to fix the problems. Let’s not try to gloss over it. Tough love and all that, what?
Their lumping Business with IT was mighty strange. And if by IT they mean Computer Science then that is not really valid.
I endorse Bilal Zuberi’s point about quality. Having studied and qualified as a civil engineer at Imperial College in the UK I don’t have any bias. The best students from NED or indeed anywhere else are going to be good regardless, but the test of a university is how well it benefits the average student. I have interviewed first class graduates who couldn’t draw a bending moment diagram for a point load on a simply supported beam (this is like 2 2=4 for an engineer) and this left me with a very poor impression. That said, graduates of NED generally come across as better than those from Mehran at Jamshoro though the rankings suggest the opposite.
dear Yahya,visit following 2 links
NED Clarfication
Lower Expectations
p.s: Adil bhai why doesn’t preview of the post doesn’t work anymore? please enable it.
[quote comment=”3795″]Indeed, it is a surprise to see that NED and Dow are not ranked better. Either the standard has really collapsed or there is something weird about the survey.
[/quote]
Again the question is not if NED and Dow good but where they stand compared to other institutions.
Indeed, it is a surprise to see that NED and Dow are not ranked better. Either the standard has really collapsed or there is something weird about the survey.
Nevertheless, I think it’s important to see things in a wider perspective. Ranking universities in Pakistan helps no one – not the students for sure given how the admission system for state-owned universities work.
The Times Higher Education Survey published this week shows no Pakistani universities in the world’s top 200 – and only a handful from South Asia.
The only from South Asia are the Indian Institute Of Technology – ranked 50th in the world and 14th in universities ex-US and Europe. The Indian Institute of Management ranks 24th in the world and 84th overall.
The IIT is also ranked 36th among the world’s top science universities and THIRD among top global technology universities (IIM is 69th in this catagory).
Among the world’s top non-university science and technology institutions – none from South Asia, or Asia overall for that matter.
World’s top arts and humanities universities: None from Pakistan; Calcutta University (39th), Delhi University (87). For perspective, the elite Beijing University is the top Asian school, ranked 6th behind Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, Berkeley and Yale.
Social sciences: Surprise! Surprise! Something called the Lahore University (I presume LUMS???) flies the flag – at No. 61. India has four. Top Asian – National University of Singapore at 13.
Perspective.
HJ
[quote post=”341″]of their fellow Pakistani students in UK are from Karachi.[/quote]
Not the case in the US.
[quote post=”341″]How do you come to the conclusion on the literacy rate? I suppose Islamabad should be the highest.[/quote]
From the number of Universities and Colleges in the city. But boy I was wrong. Yes, indeed it is Islamabad and then Rwalpindi and Karachi is in third place.