ISLAMABAD: According to the Higher Education Commission’s (HEC) annual rankings that were announced Tuesday, Iqra University Karachi is the best business university.

The Lahore School of Economics and the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) Karachi secured the next two positions in the business universities category.

Last year, Iqra University had not even featured in the top 15 business universities and IBA and the Lahore School of Economics were at the top of the list.

Iqra University ranked sixth last year in the general category and was categorised as a business university this year.

The annual ranking of all degree awarding institutions that were established before June 2010, both public and private, was announced by HEC chairperson Dr Mukhtar Ahmed at a press conference.

Dr Mukhtar said HEC had been ranking universities every year with an aim to promote the culture of research in Pakistani universities and to encourage them to compete internationally.

When asked how Iqra University had climbed up to the first position in the business universities’ category, when it had not even ranked 15th last year, he said: “Aside from other improvements, the enrolment rate at the university in their business programmes has increased and it now has over 50pc of its students pursuing a degree in the business field.”

The Arid Agriculture University in Rawalpindi, which had ranked third in the agriculture universities’ category in 2014, does not feature in the top five agricultural universities this year though the varsity secured fifth position in the general category.

The HEC chairman said that the main criteria for ranking universities were quality assurance, teaching quality, research, finance and facilities, social integration and community development.

The chairman said that 129 universities were reviewed for the rankings and that they were judged according to 66 categories.

To a question about illegal university campuses, Dr Mukhtar said that HEC is against commercialisation of higher education and has been warning against illegal campuses time and again through the media.

To another question about the hardships faced by PhD students, he said HEC has allowed scholars to request that their supervisors be changed.

Also attending were Acting Executive Director HEC Dr Raza Bhatti, Dr Qasim Jan, former Vice Chancellor QAU, Dr Mazhar Saeed, DG (P&D) and Ahmad Yahya Khan, DG (Statistics).

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2016