On the right track
> INCEIF is a step closer to be among world's prestigious business schools
INTERNATIONAL Centre for Education in Islamic Finance (INCEIF) is on track for a globally recognised accreditation, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) which is the most renowned accreditation association of business schools.
Following a two-day AACSB Mentor Visit on campus, Prof Andrew Griffiths said: "I have seen an improvement from the last visit in 2015. There is a positive shift towards focus on quality and on strategy which is in alignment with INCEIF's goal.
"I also see an improvement in the quality of research being churned out by INCEIF," said Griffiths who is the Executive Dean of Faculty of Business, Economics and Law at The University of Queensland, Australia.
An AACSB mentor is appointed when an applicant's eligibility application is accepted, and is selected from a pool of deans/heads of school who are very familiar with the AACSB standards. It is a voluntary role.
During Griffiths' visit, INCEIF management shared with him the progress of the university's AACSB journey which kicked off in June 2013. One of the things considered under the AACSB accreditation process was INCEIF's impact on the industry.
Since 2015, INCEIF's research has been ranked first in Malaysia amongst the higher education institutions in the Research Papers in Economics (REPEC) rankings.
As at 2016, INCEIF is the only institution to have the research of five professors recognised by REPEC, among the top 30 academics in Malaysia. INCEIF ranked 40th in Asia as a university. Within the Financial Economics & Finance Department category defined by REPEC, INCEIF is ranked 30th in the world. For INCEIF, this is an outstanding achievement as it is ranked higher than even some of the 16 faculties in prestigious institutions such as The London School of Economics and The Henley Business School of the University of Reading.
Griffiths also had a session with INCEIF Student Representative Council.
"I was impressed by the students' willingness to engage and speak out on their experiences at the university. They also gave shared thoughtful and considerate suggestions on how to improve their time here as a student," Griffiths said.
INCEIF hopes to fulfil the requirements and be accredited by the AACSB by 2018. With the accreditation, INCEIF gets a step closer to be the global reference point for Islamic finance, and joins other AACSB accredited business schools such as Harvard Business School, The Wharton School and London Business School.
INCEIF deputy president academic Datuk Prof Syed Othman Alhabshi who chaired most of the sessions during the two-day visit said: "The progress made in our AACSB journey is an important step towards making sure that INCEIF would not only be benchmarked locally but also globally, and also against some of the most respected institutions in the world."
Since it welcomed its first batch of graduates in 2009, INCEIF now boasts 1,332 alumni from 72 countries worldwide including US, Japan and China. The increasing diversity of INCEIF students is a source of pride for the university. It affirms INCEIF's role in developing world-class talent for the global Islamic financial services industry and puts Malaysia at the heart of this development.