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.
If I were to rank Pakistani Engineering Universities, then this will be my ranking
1. GIK, Topi
2. NUST, distributed campuses
3. UET, Peshawar
4. UET, Lahore
5. NED, Karachi
6. UET, Taxila
7. MUET, Jamshoro
This letter to the editor appears in today’s dawn and it talks about corruption in our universities.
@Owais Mughal
An implication of HEC’s policy that I have observed in the Computer Science departments within the Pakistani universities is that a lot of faculty is now specialized in Software Engineering perhaps much more than we actually need at the expense of other specializations. The result is that it is becoming increasingly impossible to find people specialized in Artificial Intelligence, Theoretical Computer Science, Computer Graphics and a few other courses while almost anybody can teach Software Engineering, Computer Networks and Databases.
Ahmad Shahid saheb, thanks for sharing your view on PEC. I was curious that is why I asked.
@Owais Mughal
PEC is a big farce for many reasons. I am also a PEC recognized “professional engineer”, which doesn’t entail anything more than that. I don’t get any benefits out of it, nor does the society except the babus sitting within the PEC building and those heading and running the show.
Secondly HEC has started making PEC recognized faculty as the cornerstone of its policy on higher education in Engineering. That is making things worse. Like the Computer Science is a very important area in Engineering. In fact normally Computer Science departments are part of the Engineering departments and there is often talk of merging it with electrical/electronic engineering. So the gurus of the two fields don’t really see them apart. But what HEC’s policy is? It wants people to be PEC recognized and to get PEC recognized you need to have the name “engineering” in your degree. Apparently in Computer Science the closest qualification is “Software Engineering”. Now what is happening is that just to get PEC recognized students and universities have geared courses and their choice of degrees to Software Engineering, with a lot of courses related to the subject. But Software Engineering is just one part of Computer Science, with others being Networking, Artificial Intelligence, Algorithmics, Databases, Theorectical Computer Science, Computer Graphics and a few others. One can be a very good computer scientist without being good at Software Engineering, but the PEC won’t recognize them as “Professional Engineers” and the universities in Pakistan, given the guidelines given by the HEC, might not be interested in hiring them. Though for the economy many of them might be more useful such as the ones specializing in Computer Graphics who are the people behind the computer games and stuff, a high money making business.
Sometimes people are even refused scholarships for higher studies because they want to do it in Computer Science and since it is not recognized by the PEC so the universities don’t really want them. How stupid!
In the modern age new fields are emerging as a result of integration of different fields. In which category would you put the Bio-Informaticists? They are not medical people per se, and not computer scientists or engineers. So PEC won’t recognize them nor would they be counted among the medical personnel. Though they may know a lot about some of the core Computer Science subjects, such as Algorithmics and Aritificial Intelligence. But universities might be reluctant to let them teach Algorithmics to Software Engineering students. How stupid!
HEC must come out of the shadow of Atta-ur-Rehman who thinks very highly of himself and thinks he knows everything. A feature not different from retired military officers. Both these species are highly dangerous for the higher education in Pakistan.