ISLAMABAD:
The Higher Education Commission (HEC) released the “Quality & Research-based Ranking 2013″ for Pakistani universities on Friday.
HEC chairman Javaid Laghari said the rankings were based on a criteria that relied on feedback from universities and international rankings models.
“These rankings are supposed to be a mirror – they let the universities know their strengths and weaknesses,” he said.
In a press conference, the HEC detailed that the rankings are divided into four discipline-based and three-enrollment-based categories.
LUMS on top
Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) emerged as the highest-ranked university in the category of “Business Education”.
Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Science (PIEAS), on the other hand, was declared to be the best university in the “Engineering & Technology” category.
University of Agriculture and Aga Khan University were accorded the highest rank in the respective disciplines of “Agriculture/Veterinary” and “Medicine”.
For the “General Universities” category, three sub-categories were made according to the enrollment size of universities.
Universities with a student body strength of over 7,000 were put in the large sub-category, universities which had 3,000 to 7,000 students were put in the medium sub-category, while universities which had less than 3000 students were categorized as small.
NUST ranks high
National University of Sciences & Technology (NUST), Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad and University of Faislabad were ranked highest in the large, medium and small “General Universities” category respectively.
“For the 2013 HEC rankings, each university has been named only once in the rankings,” Laghari explained.
He said the universities themselves chose which category they wanted to be considered for.
For instance, NUST opted to be categorized in the general category instead of the “Engineering & Technology” category.
The HEC rankings were based on the implementation status of quality assurance, teaching quality and research produced at the universities in the year 2011-12.
Even though HEC research grants, HEC travel grants and HEC approved PhD supervisors were included in the ranking criteria for research, Laghari asserted that the rankings were conducted objectively.
Vice Chancellors present at the press conference urged the HEC to consider the services of an independent, third-party organization for ranking in the future.
Laghari replied in the affirmative and said that HEC is going to seek the services of an independent body to ascertain university rankings for the next year.
No overall list
The HEC did not release an overall list of university rankings.
HEC Chairman said that it was too difficult to equalize data in different categories to arrive at a consolidated list.
Following is a list of universities according to their ranking in the various categories as released by HEC:
Agriculture
- University of Agriculture – Faisalabad
- Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University – Rawalpindi
- University of Veterinary & Animal Sciences – Lahore
- The University of Agriculture – Peshawar
- Sindh Agriculture University – Tandojam
Business Education
- LUMS, Lahore
- IBA, Karachi
- Sukkur Institute of Business Administration, Sukkur
- SZABIST, Karachi
- Institute of Management Science – Peshawar
Engineering and Technology
- Pakistan Institute of Engineering & Applied Sciences (PIEAS), Islamabad
- UET, Lahore
- GIKI, Topi
- Mehran University of Engineering & Technology, Jamshoro
- Institute of Space Technology, Islamabad
Medical
- Aga Khan University, Karachi
- University of Health Sciences, Lahore
- DOW University of Health Scienes, Karachi
- Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences, Jamshoro
- Khyber Medical University, Peshawar
General Universities (Large)
- NUST, Islamabad
- University of Punjab, Lahore
- University of Karachi, Karachi
- COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Islamabad
- Government College University, Faisalabad
General Universities (Medium)
- QAU, Islamabad
- Government College University, Lahore
- FAST-NUCES, Islamabad
- Fatima Jinnah Women University, Rawalpindi
- Gomal University, D I Khan
General Universities (Small)
- The University of Faisalabad, Faisalabad
- Beaconhouse National University, Lahore
- Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Islamabad
- University of Science & Technology, Bannu
- Isra University, Hyderabad
Seven Pakistani universities were recently ranked in the top 250 Asian universities for 2013 by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), a UK-based university rankings agency.