RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: The 5th Deans and Directors Annual Conference, organized by National Business Education Accreditation Council (NBEAC) of Higher Education Commission (HEC was held, here on Monday.

NBEAC chairman Dr. Hasan Sohaib Murad chaired the Conference. Sindh Governor Muhammad Zubair was the chief guest. Commenting on the conference theme ‘Creating Impact with CPEC,’ he said, the theme is significant in two respects; first, it is generating a discussion in the wake of changing landscape of economy and multilateral relationships in the region; and second, it is connecting business education with CPEC which will have a long-term impact. He said success of CPEC depends very much on the consensus, commitment, continuity and collaboration of all stakeholders including political parties, public and private sector organizations, military, civil society, and of course academia.

Key note speaker, Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed, chairman HEC, on this occasion said, leadership in education, particularly in priority areas is critical. He said to take other stakeholders in mainstream into confidence was also needed since it would make policies executable and functional which have potential to chart socio-economic future of the country.

Other keynote speeches that set the tone of the conference were delivered by Stephen Saaca, chief executive officer of Global Business School Networks, USA, and Dr. Zaki Rashidi, Associate Dean of Management Sciences at IQRA University.

One of the four panel discussions during the first day of the conference revolved around the ‘Collaboration with Chinese Business Schools’ where Prof. Dr. Lai Desheng, Dean of Business School Market Beijing Normal University, Prof. Zhiwen Yin, Associate Dean at School of Management in Fudan University, Prof. Frank Y-H Ying, Dean of Department of Business Administration at National Taiwan Normal University, and Dr. Prof. Guo Xuetang, Director of Institute of International Strategy and Policy Analysis SUIBE spoke.

The panel discussion was moderated by Dr. Ishrat Husain, currently serving as the chairman of the Centre for Excellence in Islamic Finance (CEIF) at IBA. Other plenary sessions discussed leveraging Karachi for CPEC and shifting roles of business schools in society. Capacity building workshops focused primarily on the matters of Accreditation and Reaccreditation, and meeting the challenges of business schools/department within the context of large universities.

The first day of the conference culminated with a call for papers segment that served as a platform to present original scholarly papers relevant to the theme of the conference.