NBEAC focused on accreditation standard improvements, mentorship policy and virtual accreditation system.

Islamabad, 20th April, 2020. NBEAC invites pool of peer reviewers annually for discussion regarding standards of accreditation, revisions in standards, structure and policies. This year, a discussion forum was called upon in which more than 35 peer reviewers participated including, deans, directors and vice chancellors of leading universities and business schools from across Pakistan, including LUMS, IBA, NUST, FAST and other top universities. Discussion forum was chaired by Dr. Farrukh Iqbal, Chairman NBEAC.

Dr. Sadia Nadeem, DEAN, FSM, FAST-NU, Islamabad, initiated the session via zoom, by welcoming all team members and presented the summary of standards of accreditation, the standards previously followed (Rubric 2.0) and standards that are currently being followed (Rubric 3.0). She highlighted that previously NBEAC was following standards Rubric 2.0 however currently standards are updated with consensus of all peer reviewers input and better standards are set to be followed, Rubric 3.0.

Dr. Sadia added, our focus was the improvement of standards and to avoid any biasness in awarding accreditation to business schools. She further added, two standards have been deleted and one standard has be divided in to two. Further standards are refined on the basis of public/private sector differences, and repetitions in previous set of standards. Further going into details, she added that improvements in standards are done regarding autonomy of business schools, financial supports, external participation in academic governance, program/courses content and coverage, institutions responsiveness to corporate needs, academic honesty, students enrollment, students counselling and guidance, extra-curricular and co-curricular activities,  alumni networks, size of faculty of institution and its portfolio, faculty planning, faculty stability and turnover, faculty evaluation and assessment, R&D policies, adequacy of funding of research, contributions of research, code of moral principles & ethics, impact on communities, presence and adequacy of libraries, computing facilities, national and international linkages, participation in academic governance and last but not the least, functioning of placement office. Further improvements were incorporated in self-assessment report (SAR) and alignment has been done with updated standards.

Dr. Farrukh Iqbal, Chairman NBEAC, keeping in view the current pandemic situation, presented the idea of virtual accreditation process to peer reviewer’s team, however team members are of the view that though it’s a good idea but it would still take some time to switch from partial accreditation to complete virtual accreditation. Dr. Farooq-e-Azam Cheema, Council Member NBEAC & Dean Bahria University Karachi, presented the revised mentorship program. He focused on SWOT analysis and NBEAC’s strategic plan 2020-24 along with guidelines for mentorship programs. However, other team members added that mentorship policy still needs to be tailored to fit the particular institutions requirements.

NBEAC secretariat team under the leadership of PD NBEAC, Mr. Ahtesham Ali Raja is continuously working for improvement of business education in Pakistan. On the other hand efforts of Senior Program Accreditation Ms. Sania Tufail are also appreciable and she is completely focused and determined to take business schools up to the mark.