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.
Owais,
All my siblings studied at NED, and only the youngest has recently moved to KU for his Ph.D. work. So I can tend to have a natural bias as well.
But I think this discussion could also focus a bit on the general state of higher education in Pakistan, and how deplorable it is despite the sheer talent in students that pass through them. I have had the privilege of visiting a few departments in Pakistani universities, and I have been utterly disappointed at the lack of motivation (or even ability) in the faculty’s ability to teach and/or conduct research. Infact, a group of us have already proposed to HEC to establish a faculty training academy which essentially re-teaches undergraduate level stuff to all the existing faculty. It is unfortunate that most faculty in Pakistan (and I stress, not all) don’t even know their basic subject matter as well as a good undergraduate student in their fields from good universities in the US or Europe or Japan would. I know people who studied at NED and are doing terrifically well, but its probbaly because they were geniuses themselves, not because their institutions developed them.
[quote comment=”3713″]Owais few days back I emailed to Adil bhai with some links about same issue. NED did react back strongly. Dr. Shamsul Haq and Dr.NOman wrote a lengthy article on last Sunday’s dawn.[/quote]
Link????
On the student ranking, if you look at teh details on the page it is quite clear that, no, places liek PU will not have an advantage because of what you say. The 17 points reserved for student are further distributed as follows:
Student produced having 16 years of education (2)
Student produced having M.Phil/16 + years of education (3)
Number of Ph.D. Produced (4)
Student Selectivity (5)
% of students getting admission having 60% and above marks (3)
The last two are clearly about student quality. The first focusses only on ‘university’ eductaion, so even a BA degree will not count. And number 2 and 3 focus on research aspects, which is what universities are for.
The methodology section is very good because of the openness and transparency. Well done HEC.
[quote comment=”3719″]Look at the ranking criteria they underlined under the heading of “student”. Do they mean the number of students who graduate from the lot that is inducted by the institute? Or is it the number of students produced by the institute vis-a-vis the complete pool of students nationally?! But what about the the quality of students produced? Is that not taken into account at all?
Secondly, what about premier places like KEMC? A top medical school, yet it does not even fare in the rankings – simply because it has not been accorded the status of a university? [/quote]
My concerns too. If we consider total student pool then unis like PU have a big advantage for issuing degrees in masses for zillions of years.
Re KEMC, HEC says (and I confirmed) it is not in the list as it only got chartered after 2001. Once such institutions come “online” there would be another upheaval. Perhaps a few more surprises like NED. Is KE better or Agha khan? ;)
Rankings are a very good idea. Even if they are slightlly wrong – they nearly always are – they allow institutions to know what to shoot for when the methodology is open.
To argue that NED should be higher you nneed to make a case not only that it is good but that those above it are worse. And how would one make that case. Rankings are supposed to be in points of time. Not over time. At THIS POINT this is the ranking. It should NOT take into account students it produced in the past. I am sure other institutions also produced good students.
I was somewhat surprised by these rankings as well. NED was the big surprise and then I was also surprised to learn that FAST Islamabad campus was included in the rankings above the Lahore one. As far as my understanding goes, the Lahore campus is the best one for the university.
Moreover, I found the ranking system somewhat weird. Look at the ranking criteria they underlined under the heading of “student”. Do they mean the number of students who graduate from the lot that is inducted by the institute? Or is it the number of students produced by the institute vis-a-vis the complete pool of students nationally?! But what about the the quality of students produced? Is that not taken into account at all?
Secondly, what about premier places like KEMC? A top medical school, yet it does not even fare in the rankings – simply because it has not been accorded the status of a university? The eligibility criteria needs to be rethought.
But having said all that, it is a commendable effort. It just needs to be fine tuned.
But why are all private sector universities doing far better than all public sector universities; no exception whatsoever?
Owais few days back I emailed to Adil bhai with some links about same issue. NED did react back strongly. Dr. Shamsul Haq and Dr.NOman wrote a lengthy article on last Sunday’s dawn.
You can get all links from Adil bhai via Email.