ISB to provide executive education in Pak

Indian School of Business (ISB) on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding with Institute of Business Administration (IBA), the oldest business school outside of North America, to provide executive education in Pakistan.

Under the MoU, signed by ISB deputy dean Deepak Chandra, and Ishrat Husain, dean and director of IBA-Karachi and former governor of the central bank of Pakistan, ISB will offer open enrolment (short duration) and custom-designed programmes (specialised courses devised to cater to specific needs of a particular organisation) through its Centre for Executive Education (CEE).

“In the first year, we are looking at a portfolio of 12 open programmes of 3-to-4 and 12-to-15-day duration. We will explore custom-designed courses after holding discussions with thought leaders and the industry in Pakistan,” Chandra told mediapersons.

To begin with, the proposed programmes would focus on family business, entrepreneurship, business leadership, strategy and related domains. On the anvil are programmes on public-private partnership (PPP). The first programme is slated to commence in June 2012, initially classroom-based learning at IBA-Karachi, with options to add technology-assisted models in due course.

“The CEE, whose revenues exceeded $12 million (around Rs 60 crore) in 2011-12, has always been working in the emerging markets to collaborate on executive education. We see a lot of participation (at ISB) from these markets. But, creating a relationship ... this (IBA) is the first one. Our plan is to have more such relationships in future,” Chandra said.

ISB will adopt its ‘faculty portfolio model’, wherein it has 50 faculty on campus and 100-125 visiting faculty from abroad, for its initiative in Pakistan where programmes on computer sciences and business management are in popular demand.

The CEE had provided training to over 4,000 professional through 125 programmes last year alone. The centre is looking at expanding its international footprint by reaching out to Bangladesh, Iran, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Turkey, Mexico and Nigeria.

“India had made huge advances in higher education, science and technology and we in Pakistan should benefit from these achievements. I hope the collaboration between ISB and IBA is beginning of a long process of collaboration between other institutions of higher learning in the two countries. We look forward to exchange of students and faculty, and collaborate on research,” Husain said.

Negative list
On the negative list for trade with India, notified by Pakistan, Husain, said currently 6,800 items were allowed to be traded.

“There were over 1,200 items in the negative list, which will be phased out by the end of this December. Once they are out of the negative list, India will be given the most-favoured nation status by our government to conduct trade,” he said.