Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) has launched a new MBA programme for the year 2011, closing down the old one that suffered a loss of Rs 20 million while nearly 3,000 students across the country were deprived of the provision of their degrees.
AIOU officials said on condition of anonymity that the university had been running two-year Master of Business Administration (MBA) programmes in Banking and Finance, Human Resource Management and Information Technology Management for the last six years. He said in 2008, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) had directed the AIOU MBA department Chairman Dr Syed Hassan Raza to chalk out a comprehensive plan for the three-year MBA programme that was to replace the already running two-year programme, as it had failed to impart quality education to students and had also resulted in the loss of millions of rupees due to the formulation of a culture of nepotism.
Sources said that when Raza failed to chalk out any strategy and funds were being used for no benefit to the programme, the university had to close down the MBA programme for a while and lost Rs 20 million per annum. “Ultimately, the administration was left with no option other than to close down the programme. Meanwhile, the HEC wrote a letter to AIOU administration to restructure the MBA programme for a duration of three years or up to three years and advised the university to introduce a four year BBA programme which was previously run in two years to meet the HEC requirements,” sources said.
He said these programmes were now running at AIOU but uncertainty prevailed among the more than 3,000 students in various parts of the country. “Now AIOU has started taking admissions for the three-and-a-half-year long MBA with four specialisations (HRM, Marketing Management, Banking and Finance and Information Technology Management) but the old students’ future is bleak.” In this regard, students had contacted AIOU vice chancellor (VC) personally and also written applications saying they were helpless and hopeless, he said.
Students of the MBA programmes claimed Raza was responsible for not formulating the new MBA programme and had swindled them in the name of the programme. They said under the supervision of the chairman it had been very difficult for the students to pass exams in the first attempt even though they were competent enough to do so.
An official at AIOU maintained that the annual loss of Rs 20 million had damaged the overall accounts and dignity of the university. “Earlier, tampering of admission forms of thousands of students, internal audit not being conducted, administrative and admission-related nuisances, and various other problems were faced by students across the country in recent months,” he said.
AIOU VC Prof Dr Nazir Sangi has constituted an inquiry committee to probe into the matter of where the finances were invested. However, as no action has been taken by AIOU authorities in previous such instances and no clues could be found, it is likely this would continue to be the case. “AIOU has suffered a huge loss and we were looking to dig out the incident while all possible measures will be taken by the AIOU administration to counter the difficulties of MBA students and make their future bright.” Raza told Pakistan today that the HEC had guided them to make the required changes in the programme.
“The process of formulating a new programme is ongoing and will be launched soon. I have not caused any loss to AIOU, all the money is spent according to the formulation of the new MBA programme. Corruption and nepotism are all fabricated blames and there is nothing true about them,” Raza said. When asked about students who were not able to clear exams without a reference, he said this was another baseless allegation.
