Islamabad: Bringing together more than 100 academic administrators of the nationwide business schools for strategic level discussions on how to increase the quality of business education in the country, the National Business Education Accreditation Council’s two-day annual event, Deans and Directors Conference, opened at a local hotel on Tuesday.
Among participants were deans, directors, heads of departments, senior faculty members and others associated with higher education business units for strategic decision making and synchronisation of internal operations.
According to NBEAC Chairman Dr Hasan Sohaib Murad, the conference focuses on the balance required between global paradigms and the need to customise business education in the country to meet local needs.
“Both businesses and business schools in Pakistan – small or large, urban or rural – face competition for products and services created by the spread of information technology and globalisation. However, our context, culture and heritage, demands a certain degree of indigenisation in management practices and in business education.
“This year’s conference is designed to increase the effectiveness of business education in Pakistan through debate on the issues and through related refinements in the accreditation process,” he said.
Dr Hasan said the conference’s objectives were to evaluate the extent to which business education in Pakistan was preparing graduates to contribute to the local and global economic activities; identify unique themes and specialisations for business education in Pakistan keeping local needs and global trends in perspective; discuss the balance between indigenous and international curriculum content for effective business education in the country; share the experiences of education leaders from Pakistan and other countries of creating a balance between indigenisation and globalisation of business education in their countries, and identify ways in which accreditation could be used as a framework for addressing the challenges associated with convergence and divergence.
He said the conference would help identify the critical steps to align education with business needs, and identify and recommend actions to the emerging challenges in business education. Established by the Higher Education Commission in 2007 to ensure good quality in business education degree programmes, the NBEAC is a national level authority to organise and carry out comprehensive programme of accreditation.
Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms Ahsan Iqbal, who was also in attendance at the conference, declared education imperative for development.
He said he had a very special relationship with business education as he took ‘refuge’ in academia for a living after being ‘unemployed’ in the wake of the Musharraf military coup and taught business administration at a major educational institution for seven years.
“Education is the process, which gives people social, mental, intellectual and physical and skills and makes them productive for their society. Likewise, development is a process, which caters to the social and economic well-being of the people. In this light, if education and development are not aligned, societies can’t see the desired results of their efforts for progress,” he said.
The minister said if the investment in education sector didn’t contribute to the people’s welfare, it was also deemed to be going to waste. He said Pakistan had two major challenges i.e. poor investment in education in the past and the education offered wasn’t aligned with the process of production and development.
The minister said today was the age of super change and therefore, we all have to align ourselves to the new forces of changes. “This is not the age when the world is run by boundaries or walls. Today is the age of globalisation, regionalism and branding for progress. I hope business schools of the country will understand all that and formulate their courses and reform curriculm and teaching practices accordingly to produce youths, who can help the country become a leading Asian economy,” he said.
Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Mushahid Hussain Sayed, who was also present on the occasion, said the multibillion dollars CPEC project was the biggest opportunity in history for Pakistan to develop itself.
He said currently, the global balance of economic and political powers were shifting from the West to the East promising a better future for Asian countries, especially Pakistan. “According to my calculation, the fall of the US began in 2003 when they conducted an unlawful invasion on Iraq. The 21st century is the century of Asia,” he said.
Mushahid Hussain Sayed said Pakistan’s future was very bright and the CPEC project was a golden opportunity for Pakistanis to build better tomorrow for themselves, Sino-Pak relations and the region.
Declaring education the key to success, he also stressed the need for giving the people across the country access to education. Noted among other speakers were Higher Education Commission Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmad, chief economist Dr Nadeem Javaid and associate professor at the FAST School of Management, Islamabad, Dr. Sadia Nadeem.
