Business Education

It has been over five years now that the influx of foreign private investment into the country created the demand of trained professionals in business administration, which has led to setting up of universities in the private sector. Now that since, there have been changes in the foreign investment, most of the business graduates are in surplus and reportedly without job.

While it is said that more than 90 per cent of the country's business schools are located in Karachi, the remaining have their regional centres or campuses in city. The reason for this is the fact that the city is the country's centre of business and financial activities.

With an estimated population of over 12 million, the city has more than 50,000 big, medium and small industries, besides numerous cottage industries, with four major industrial trading estates which provide employment to more than half-a-million people.

Not only does the city have the headquarter of the State Bank of Pakistan, it also serve as a base for over a 100 financial institutions including 25 foreign banks and other financial institutions as well as a large number of trade organisations which all make use of the professionals in the business management.

Realising this need, some local investors saw this as an opportunity, and a large number of business-oriented educators appeared on the scene to launch business schools. Some of them claiming to have been affiliated with foreign universities and their curricula were designed as those of the universities they claimed to be affiliated with.

Claiming an affiliation with a foreign university, on the other hand, is a guarantee of getting students because of the preference for foreign things which persists in the country.

PUBLIC VS PRIVATE SECTOR INSTITUTES

Taking the advantage of strong awareness of business education in the general public, a large number of private universities have cropped up over the years offering degrees in business administration as well as in computer science and other related fields.

Traditionally, when talking about business schools, finance and marketing are the areas that always come to mind, but with the mushrooming of different schools in recent years, the emphasis is shifting from traditional business education to economics, technology, engineering, commerce, law and medicine.

The implicit specialisation, that has already emerged, is that academic business schools are offering long-term programmes which lead to degrees, but with the increase in the competition, and at the broadest level, some of these universities now offer degrees in executive programmes requiring attendance during the weekends and for periods of between three and four months only.

There are certain institutions, in the private sector which offer executive training. Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) is one of such institutions that have established their credibility over the years in providing executive training of high standard for serving executives.

Following the same pattern, almost all the private universities now claim that they offer executive training, and charge high fee whether the actual training is being provided or not, is another story.

According to Dr. Wahab, the Director of the Institute of Business Administration, the motivating force behind the private business schools is the high profit, therefore, these institutes lack the interest in providing facilities required for a quality business education.

There are large number of such fake universities operating from one small room in places countries Philippines or Cyprus and many others and their course titles are very impressive on the paper while in reality they are nothing.

And not only has the number of such universities increased many-fold during the past five years, the management of some of them has changed hands three to four times during the same period, and some have change their affiliation with a foreign universities and claimed to have affiliated with another while some keep changing names as well as addresses for reasons best known to them, while, yet more have declared themselves 'centres of excellence'.

Some of these universities were described as 'fly-by-night' because nobody really knows much about their origin except that they claim to have affiliation with universities that, in principle, do not participate in the activities locally, and the students are usually given the option to pay in foreign currency so as to give the impression that the amount is being transferred to the foreign principal.

One such institution was the Barrington American University which, when it was started functioning in the city two years ago, claimed to have planned a "nation-wide rural programme whereby it will make sure that talented youth from rural areas who cannot afford foreign education, are accommodated and sponsored by various serviced clubs in the city, and the idea of starting our own system from primary level is to create our own ISO 9000," said the spokesman of the university while speaking to PAGE.

Over a period of three years, not only did Barrington American University changed its name four times, it changed campus almost the same number of times and the management has taken themselves to court on various issues on which these premises were sealed a number of times leaving the students out on the street without education, which the government had earlier warned them about.

Another example is Clayton University which claimed that the university was established "as a result of the meeting held at Harvard University Campus." Such statement could be misleading because "Harvard University or any other university campus is open to everyone whoever comes and holds meeting at the campus cafeteria" Dr. Abdul Wahab warned.

While one group claimed that the mushrooming of business schools has led to stiff competition within the schools in the private sector and has improved the standard of the ones in the public sector.

Others claimed that it is rather a sign of deterioration of the system as some of these business schools are now competing by cutting costs and fees, continual lowering of entrance requirements and in the process bringing down the quality as well. Some of these institutions now offer degree by paying their fees on installments.

The competition among the private institutes is described as 'fierce' and their tactics may be termed 'frontal attack' only in a hidden manner.

"This competition," according to Dr. Shahida Wizarat, "will improve the standard of the education as long as it is a healthy competition."

According to Professor Dr. Abdul Wahab, the competition among the private universities will result in the closure of some of these universities while the remaining will be able to provide quality education in view of the competition and the absorption rate in the job market .