Author Topic: Change in IBA's admission policy  (Read 2424 times)

Offline iram

  • Editorial board
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3849
  • My Points +16/-3
  • Gender: Female
Change in IBA's admission policy
« on: April 20, 2008, 09:58:27 PM »
Change in IBA's admission policy

Dear Editor

I am an aspiring candidate for the Institute of Business Administration, Karachi's (IBA) MBA program and have been preparing for the university's written admissions test. My preparation though came to an abrupt halt upon finding that IBA has suddenly changed its admissions policy merely two months before the test date, making sixteen years of education compulsory.

Approximately 3000 applicants apply to IBA annually after preparing for months by joining private tuition centres and investing as much as Rs 22,000 for their preparation. Most of these applicants, like me, have a two/three year bachelors' degree from HEC recognised universities but, once this biased policy goes into effect, we won't even have the chance to apply. The deciding factor for admission in any university is the admissions test, which, ensures that candidates of similar caliber are admitted in the institute irrespective of their backgrounds. In this regard, this policy is discriminatory and unfair. Why should others and people like me be robbed of the chance to apply just because IBA suddenly decided to supposedly 'raise its standard of education'? Is this to say that a two/three year degree makes an applicant any less than an applicant with a four-year degree?

I fail to understand how IBA expects applicants to fulfill this requirement so late into the admission cycle. Such a requirement should have been made public at east a year ago to give a fair chance to all the applicants.  Another option that could have been offered was the provision of a foundation year to such applicants to make up for extra credits. This is a widely held practice in many top business schools in the USA, Europe and Canada where universities still accept students with a three-year bachelors' degree.

This sad scenario also brings to the fore the absence of uniform reforms taken by the HEC concerning higher education. Many institutes have been and are still offering two/three year degrees thereby crippling the chances of their graduates of getting into good universities. The HEC should ensure that all institutes are offering a four-year bachelor degree before enforcing universities to adopt this new policy.

I plead to the Board of Governors of IBA to think very seriously about the impact of this unplanned and rash decision on the future of innumerable applicants like me before inking the policy and marring many futures.

 --A dejected applicant