KARACHI, Dec 22: Despite initiating a PhD programme in Business Management in the year 1998 and opening admissions the following years, the management of the Institute of Business Administration has asked only seven students, out of 49, to appear in the comprehensive examinations to be held on Dec 23.

A number of students have even moved the court against the decision of the institute, which will be taken up on Jan 22.

Dr Abdul Wahab, the then director of the IBA, had launched the PhD programme in 1998 for 18 of its faculty members. The following year, 30 more students were included in the programme through advertisement in the press.

One seat was created for doctoral programme to be conducted abroad and the entrance test was passed by Shabi Hyder, a teacher in Hamdard University. He was, however, not sent abroad for studies on different pretexts.

However, after a dispute, Mr Hyder was offered a teaching post in finance and mathematics in the institute.

Nevertheless, out of the 49 students for the Phd programme only 18 were enrolled on Dec 14, while only seven students were allowed to appear in the comprehensive exams.

Though, no official results have been announced for any of the twelve courses since 1998, only the seven students have been given the schedule for the comprehensive exams. These include Mirza Sardar Ahmed, Ziaul Haq, Aijaz Mian and Yasmeen Zafar — all belonging to the first batch, who are the faculty members of the IBA.

While in the middle of 2000, the three students of the second batch were Masood Bhatti, Dr Amir Umair and Shabi Hyder.

In their suit, the students have maintained that the management had been changing the rules and regulations during the middle of their studies. The academic board, they said, in its 10th meeting on July 29, 1999, decided that those students who did not possess an MBA degree would have to complete eight additional courses.

Whereas, at its 14th meeting on Aug 25, 2000, the academic board approved that PhD students be taught six courses in relevant fields and at the end of these six courses a comprehensive examination plus PhD dissertation would be conducted.

Out of these, five courses were regular and one was internship prior to joining the comprehensive exams.

A student who has not been given the schedule of comprehensive exams said that in the beginning of the programme the minimum passing criteria was grade -C, that is about 60 per cent, but the new course work is based on knock-out system in which a student looses his candidature after getting a grade lower that a minimum of B.

Worst of all, the student added, is the fact that no mark-sheet or results have been announced and one of the students who cleared all the 11 courses has not been included in the list of seven students who have been declared eligible for the comprehensive examinations.

Nevertheless, it has also been highlighted that though the programme required to be taught by a PhD-qualified teacher, the course of Seminar in Marketing was conducted by a non-PhD teacher, that is in violation of the standards maintained by any university.—PPI