Apropos HEC ranking of universities announced last week; the aim of the rankings was to promote a healthy competition among Pakistani universities so that they could participate in world QS ranking of universities. But it seems that the aim has failed to deliver.
The list was released in haste as only top universities names were given without their scored points to exploit the situation in their favour. It would have been much appropriate if before the ranking the universities were informed of the category. Last year, business and IT were in the same category. This time it was bifurcated.
Science and Technology was included in the general university and engineering universities were included in the IT category. It is well-known that the Pakistan Engineering Council doesnt recognise those engineering universities where VCs are not engineers.
New categories were introduced for general universities. This was not disclosed during the press conference while announcing the ranking.
It does not make judgment to please a few VCs at the expense of its reputation and sincerity.
The future of HEC depends on how it makes impartial judgments about all the stakeholders. But recently the list of higher education institutions ranking has been published where the higher education institutes ranked at national level.
The list is highly objectionable specifically for the category of general universities. What is alarming in these categories is the placement of general universities based only on the number of students.
The University of Balochistan requests that this case may be forwarded to the Vice Chancellors Committee for discussions and appropriate remedial steps.
Prof. (Dr) Abdul Nabi
Vice-Chancellor
University of Balochistan Quetta
Mazhar Butt
Karachi