ISLAMABAD, April 15: The elevation of Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) to 69th among the top 100 world universities proved short-lived as the title by QS World University Ranking body was a ‘typographical error’. The QAU was ranked 69th and the highest score of 92.8 was given to the university's ‘citations’ in the field of ‘mechanical, aeronautical and manufacturing engineering'. But surprisingly not a single above-mentioned discipline/faculty even exists at QAU.

The report on QS World University Rankings 2011 was issued by topuniversities.com on April 12. The university ranking was mostly used by the students in making choices for applying to study subjects of their interest in top universities of the world.

And the ‘innocent officials’ of the university celebrated this ranking in Pakistani media as a bigger achievement despite the fact that ‘mechanical, aeronautical and manufacturing engineering' did not exist on the campus which dragged the highest ever scores for the university.

Head of Public Relations of QS University Simona Bizzozero in an email reply also confirmed that the university has been removed from the ranking. “QAU will be no longer ranked in this specific subject,” Simona Bizzozero said. Even the ranking of the QAU was no more available on the website of QS University.

According to the QS University, the university included in the list of ranking largely due to the fact that several journals cover and are tagged for dual or more disciplines, like for example physics and mechanical engineering. As QAU published in such journals for the qualifying period (2006-2010), therefore the university appeared in the original list.

QS has mapped over 10 million bibliometric data to produce this brand of new rankings. “We can assure you that this isolated incident will not reoccur. The auditing and mapping system has been enhanced,” the spokesperson further clarified in the email and said, “We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused.”

But contrary to this, experts said it was moral and ethical obligation of the QAU officials that they have contacted the QS University and got the ranking corrected.

Talking to Dawn Vice-Chancellor of the QAU Prof. Dr Masoom Yasinzai defended the title for the university saying all basic subjects like physics, mathematics, information technology, etc., were being taught at the university. It was true that there was no board of faculty on the campus but the vice-chancellor said QAU offered all basic subjects which could be easily related to mechanical engineering, etc.

Arguing the position for his university, Dr Masoom said the QS University had earlier ranked QAU at 270. Asked how this big jump in ranking occurred, the vice-chancellor said the university now offered excellent academic environment and more prudent research in various disciplines.

On further quizzed, the vice-chancellor changed his mind and said the ranking did not matter to him. He said that his focus was to give more exposure to the university at international level and open new disciplines in the university.

Replying to a question, he said that the QS University had not informed the QAU about withdrawal of ranking. But he asserted that his university met the criteria.

Baseer A. Qazi, a Ph.D fellow, who actually raised the issue with the QS University for clarification, told Dawn on telephone that he wondered that how QAU could score 92.8 points in citation when the university had not published a single research paper.

It was not possible that the QAU faculty publishes so much in this area that it got a ‘citation’ score which even surpasses MIT, Oxford and Stanford by a big margin of 30 points.

The university officials are talking about the ranking news ignoring the fact that they did not even have a single department for which it got the score.

This news is being celebrated as an achievement of unmatched scale, he said adding no doubt had it been true, it would have been a matter of pride for the nation. Universities are the highest seats of learning and knowledge teaches humility rather than seeking recognition for someone else’s mistake, Mr Qasi lamented.