Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has banned another educational institution, the Imperial College of Business Studies, Lahore, Daily Times has learnt.

According to sources in the HEC, the commission banned all academic activities of the college over none-fulfilment of desired requirements.

“The HEC Pakistan has observed serious irregularities and mismanagement in the academic operations of Imperial College of Business Studies, Lahore. Henceforth, the HEC has banned the… college from offering further admissions with effect from April 2017 at all levels of degree programmes,” reads a closure notification.

A large number of students are enrolled in the campus. The HEC also issued a parents/students warning in the national press as well as on its official website in which the students had been asked not to take admissions in any programme being offered by the college.

The HEC said that the degrees of students who would enrol there would not be recognised by the commission.

The sources said that the HEC had received some complaints against the Superior College. After that, the commission devised an inquiry committee for a probe into the matter. The team visited the campus and found that many programmes being run in the college were not up to the minimum standard set by the commission to run any degree programme in any degree awarding institute (DAI) or university.

Besides incomplete criteria of the programmes, the sources added, many other irregularities had been found by the commission’s team. It observed that the college did not even have a good infrastructure.

The sources said that the team also learnt that the college did not have the required faculty and other official staff to run the academic business, wherein some existed faculty members were less qualified.

The HEC then informed the college administration about the discrepancies it had learnt during the course of investigation. “After that, the HEC finally decided to close down the campus,” said a senior official of the commission wishing anonymity. The HEC’s media wing confirmed the decision. It said that the decision had been made after observation of several irregularities in the college.

When asked about the future of enrolled students, it added that the “students registered with the Imperial College of Business Studies, Lahore, were not to be affected”. It added that only the degrees of students enrolled after April 2017 would not be attested.

Earlier, the HEC had also closed down some institutions of higher education level over similar shortage of requirements in them.

Global Institute Lahore was one of such educational institutions, in which several shortcomings had been found in respect of desired criteria to run any university or DAI. The institute finally shut down last year.

Similarly, Al-Khair University was another higher education institute that had been shut down last year by the HEC for incomplete academic arrangements. The commission also banned all affiliated campuses of Al-Khair University. Besides that, some academic programmes at various universities were also been shut down over lack of required criteria to run them.

Recently, the commission notified the closure of around 24 academic PhD programmes of the International Islamic University (IIU) Islamabad when the PhD review committee of the commission found irregularities in the functioning of these programmes. After a long investigation by a three-member PhD review committee, the HEC finally recommended closing these academic programmes of the varsity.