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.
I think NED University has been capturing the best talent of Pakistan without any help of NED itself. Karachi- that unpopular city located in the south- where most NEDians come from- definitely has got some God gifted talent. That overly talented world class high-tech, I mean the small cream of NED, stands out and shines in all prestigious organizations of the world and that ranges from the tech giants like Cisco and IBM to the financial kings like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
Wake up call- Stop the brain drain or keep getting backward…
@kahf
Both the professions, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science are good but one needs to keep the future demand in mind before deciding which one to choose.
1) Since 2001, when the Computer Sciences faced a major crisis in the form of the dot-com crash, CS has faced major setbacks with the number of students declining in absolute and relative terms all over the world, with Pakistan being no exception. On the other hand there has been upsurge in the demand for CS/IT people over the last year or so and now there is expected shortage in it. The skills that would be in great demand would be database (Oracle, SAP) and networking skills. Indian IT companies, the notable ones being TCS, Wipro and Infosys, are hiring in hordes, specially overseas. They are posting around 30% growth rates and they need a lot of new people. In India it is becoming increasingly difficult to get good candidates because the skills taught at the universities are not really in line with the industry demand. The skills they are really looking for are: good command over English language, team working skills and presentation skills apart from technical skills, which they nevertheless teach at their own institutions. Due to lack of supply of good graduates they are going overseas. But overseas, people are moving away from CS fearing that there would be a lot of job losses due to outsourcing in India. The result: a great dearth in supply specially when the demand is increasing manifold. So CS is a good career option.
2) Electrical Engineering has two main branches: Telecom (Communication) and power. Over the last few years, since 2003, the world has witnessed great expansion in mobile telephony due to deregulation of the telecom sectors all over the world. But would that continue? And if so for how long? My answer is not for long. Since you should be looking at the market four years from now, when you would be graduating, market for telecommunication doesn’t seem that good. Due to exponential growth in this sector it is expected that it would be saturated in 2-3 years and then it might witness a slump, which might be a big crisis. Since so many people are already doing their bachelors in Telecommunication, there would be a glut of people entering the market with very few vacancies. The other field, the power, might witness a boom since the world is about to witness great power shortages. It was expected around 2003 or 2004 that in the succeeding 10 years around 10 trillion dollars would be invested in the power sector. Also a large number of people would be retiring in the power sector, specially in the USA and Europe, due to the retirement of the baby boomers, so there would be a lof of job opportunities in the power sector.
Conclusion: In my view both CS and Electrical Engineering (power) would be good, but I would prefer the first.
hello i need to know that r u teaching fine arts courses online i mean to say fine arts like candle making, glass painting, flower making types. i will b very thank full to u if u let me know about dis.
hi well i m a little confused i have to choose btween dawood engineering university of karachi i have got in electornics engineering there and i have got in BSCS in karachi university as well so it is very difficult for me to choose one so kindly give me a advice
i am the student of uet taxila and we were ranked 6th in the country.there are good faculty members but it is needed to increas the no. of PHD teachers.overall good university with location at countryside.bye