HEC’s latest Pakistani university rankings are here, some unexpected names in the list

Yesterday Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed, Chairperson HEC, unveiled HEC’s 5th ranking of Pakistan’s Higher Education Institutions (HEI). National University of Sciences & Technology (NUST), Pakistan Institute of Engineering & Applied Sciences (PIEAS), Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute (GIKI), Quad-e-Azam University (QAU) and Punjab University (PU) grabs the top honors.

In order to better the quality of higher education in Pakistan, HEC has taken various steps to bring them at par with the international standards. By keeping the process as transparent as possible, the HEC has released the new list because they feel ranking is one of the measures to scale the success of efforts of the HEIs to achieve the international competitiveness in education, research, and innovation. The last four HEI rankings were released in 2006, 2012, 2013 and 2015.

The universities have been ranked following a criteria that was formulated in 2015. The rankings are based on their cumulative score of Quality Assurance (15 pts), Teaching Quality (30 pts), Research (41 pts), Finance & Facilities (10 pts) and Social Integration/Community Development (4 pts).

Here’s a breakdown of the universities based on the categories of Overall Top 10, Agriculture, Business, Arts, Medical, Engineering, and the General Category.

Overall Top 10 Higher Education Institutions

Engineering Category of Higher Education Institutions

Business Category of Higher Education Institutions

37 universities were not considered in the ranking based the ineligibility criterion. Alama Iqbal Open University and Virtual University fell in the category of Distance Learning institutions, Pakistan Military Academy – Abbottabad (PMA) and Pakistan Naval Academy – Karachi were not applicable. 34 other universities were given the charter after June 10th and hence were not considered.
Source: HEC