IBA/University of Dhaka

The 84th Executive Board meeting of the Association of Management Development Institutions in South Asia (AMDISA) was held at the IBA Library Conference Room of the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), University of Dhaka on 15th May, 2024. President of AMDISA and Honorable Director of IBA, University of Dhaka, Professor Mohammad A. Momen presided over the meeting. Prominent academicians from leading business schools in India, Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Bangladesh attended the meeting in-person. Others joined online through the Zoom platform from Pakistan, Bhutan, and India.

Welcoming the members of the meeting, Professor Mohammad A. Momen remarked that the mission of AMDISA is to promote management excellence in South Asia by fostering networking among institutions specialized in management/business education and also by facilitating their partnership with corporate enterprises and public agencies in the region. He expressed greater need for regional co-operation to accelerate the pace of interaction between academics, students, and industry stakeholders in the SAARC region.

The meeting was attended by Prof. Dr. Abdur Rab from Bangladesh (former President, AMDISA), Dr. Ashok R Joshi from India (former President, AMDISA), Mr. Shathif Ali from Maldives (former President, AMDISA), Mr. Abdulla Nafiz from Maldives (Member, AMDISA), Dr. Asanga Ranasinghe from Sri Lanka (Member, AMDISA), Dr. A H Kalro - Chairman, AMDISA SAQS Committee, Dr. S. Padam - Chairman, SAQS Accreditation Awarding Committee, Prof. Lakshman Watawala, Past President, AMDISA Sri Lanka, Mr. C. Ramakrishna - Executive Director, AMDISA. In addition, Prof. S. Sreenivasa Murthy from India (Member AMDISA), Prof. Naukhez Sarwar from Pakistan (Member AMDISA), Dr. S. Akbar Zaidi from Pakistan (Member AMDISA), Dasho Kunzang Wangdi from Bhutan (Past President AMDISA), Dr. Syed Zahoor Hassan from Pakistan (Past President AMDISA) joined the meeting virtually.

Established in 1989, AMDISA is a network of Management Education and Management Development Institutions. It is an international not-for-profit association. It has 316 institutional members. Its mission is to “Promote management education and management development activities in South Asia, taking into account the economic, social and cultural context of the region, with the firm dedication to world-wide exchange of experience and ideas in the fields concerned.” It is the only association which networks management development institutions across the eight South Asian Nations through exchanging information, facilitating inter-country research initiatives, conducting regional conferences, workshops, colloquia and other programs.

One of the most notable endeavors by AMDISA has been the launch of the SAQS (South Asian Quality Assurance System) accreditation framework. SAQS emerged in an EFMD - AMDISA cooperation through a European Union funded Asia - Link project in 2003-04. It is inspired by EFMD's EQUIS criteria and is a globally benchmarked system for mentoring, quality improvement, quality assurance and accreditation. SAQS accreditation processes lead to improvement by highlighting the need to meet internationally accepted quality standards. So far 34 schools have been granted accreditation - 1 from Bangladesh, 29 from India and 4 from Pakistan.

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The day-long Executive Board meeting emphasized the enhancement of quality of education through compliance with the SAQS framework and took a landmark decision relating to SAQS accreditation of Open Distance Learning (ODL) and Online Programs (OL) with a proviso that only such ODL and DL programs that have regulatory approvals of their respective country will be considered for entering the accreditation program. AMDISA expects to launch this initiative by the end of this calendar year in December, 2024.

The program ended with expression of firm commitment to uphold the mission of AMDISA by strengthening the collaboration among member institutes.