In the wake of current global economic crises, it become important for the business graduates to develop comprehensive strategy by learning modern techniques for avoiding such financial crises in future.
Dr Ishrat Hussain Director Institute of Business Administration (IBA) said this while addressing CFA signing ceremony between CFA Institute, the global association for investment professionals that awards the prestigious designation of Charted Financial Analyst (CFA) to the brilliant business graduates and IBA on Tuesday.
He said that it is the great success that IBA defeats Lahore University of Management Sciences, College of Business Management (CBM) Karachi and other business schools in a tough competition for wining CFA partnership programme held in Singapore last year and achieved the CFA Programme Partner award.
He said: "Employers are increasingly seeking job candidates with both academic degrees and professional qualifications such as the CFA designation. "I believe the aspiring investment professionals in Pakistan are realising this as seen by the growing number of CFA candidates here," he said.
He said that "the partnership means that BBA programme of IBA covers at least 70 percent of the Level I topics of the CFA Programme Candidate Body of Knowledge (CBOK), and its MBA Programme and MS (Finance) Programme separately cover at least 70 percent of the CBOK topics for all three levels of the CFA exams. "I encourage all our students to pursue the CFA designation, as it is highly regarded in the investment field globally," he said.
He said that recognition of IBA as CFA Programme Partner signals to potential students, employers, and the marketplace that the university curriculum is closely tied to professional practice and is well suited to preparing students to sit for the CFA exams.
He said that as part of the partnership, students in the three partnering Programmes are entitled for scholarships, access to CFA Institute curriculum's, journals, webcasts, and other educational resources, and each student will have access to one online Level I sample exam.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr Ashvin P. Vibhakar Managing Director (MD) CFA Asia-Pacific Operations (APO) said: "Students graduating from the partnering Programmes will have a firm grounding in the CFA Institute ethical and professional standards as well as the CFA Programme.
He said: "increasing charter holders in the country CFA management has decided to award 60 deserving students with scholarship, which is the highest number of scholarships given by the CFA Institute to other partnering countries."
He said that solid foundation of the CFA Programme curriculum is developed through extensive collaboration with practitioners throughout the world, essentially representing the knowledge, skills, and abilities that serious investment professionals need to carry in the real world.
He said: "IBA joins 77 other CFA Programme Partner institutions world-wide including prestigious colleges and universities such as the Said Business School at the University of Oxford and London Business School in the UK, University of Southern California and The Johnson School at Cornell University in the US, Peking University in China, Waseda University in Japan, and others top business schools. He said that CFA Institute is the global association for investment professionals. It administers the CFA and CIPM curriculum and exam programmes world-wide; publishes research; conducts professional development programs; and sets voluntary, ethics-based professional and performance-reporting standards for the investment industry.
He said that CFA Institute has 100,000 members, who include the world's 86,700 CFA charter holders, in 133 countries and territories, as well as 136 affiliated professional societies in 57 countries and territories. He said: "In Pakistan, CFA Pakistan has been working closely with regulatory bodies and is constantly striving to improve professional and ethical standards amongst investment professionals by vigorously advocating fair and transparent capital market.
Mir Muhammad Ali, CFA Pakistan and member society of CFA Institute said that the registration rate in Asia for appearing CFA exam is increasing on each passing year. 68pc candidates are registered in CFA exam in December 2008 out of which 2,000 candidates belongs to Pakistan with an increase of 47pc.
He said that increasing demand of the program, a large number of candidates get registered last year but due to very tough examination system only few become charter holder and pass percentage remained 39.5pc. He said that IBA management has decided to start CFA certificate program and would declare it mandatory to get CFA certificate for completion of their studies.