DOI: 10.7763/IPEDR. 2014. V70. 27 In Quest to Quality: Are We on the Right Path? Mohammadi Sabra Nadeem 1, Qaisar Abbas 2 , and Uzma Javed 3 1, 2, 3 Comsats Institute of Information Technology Islamabad, Pakistan Abstract. Accreditation of business education is considered as one of the tool to address quality of program higher education institutions imparting. Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan has taken an initiative by putting up a national quality assurance framework for business education to meet the challenges of the quality of higher education in Pakistan. NBEAC (National Business Education Accreditation Council) has introduced national level accreditation standards to assure quality business education programs. The present article presents a comparison of the standards of NBEAC with international accreditation standards, EQUIS, AACSB and AMBA. Keywords: Accreditation, NBEAC, AACSB, EQUIS, AMBA, Higher Education, Pakistan. 1. Introduction The importance of business schools cannot be ignored in the socio cultural development of any country. They play a prominent role in developing a student capable of decision making, the information about market place and the process to operate businesses. To full fill the aim of business schools it is necessary to monitor and evaluate the quality of education they imparting in the students. The close monitoring and accreditation enable an institution to maintain the quality of program [1] Accreditation of business education is a quality assurance process under which the quality of the business education program is evaluated by the external bodies to determine if the required standards are meeting or not. If the set criteria met, the accredited status is granted by the evaluating agency. Accreditation results in the improvement of internal process. It is seen as valuable distinctive mark for achieving high quality standards. Allows institution to recruit and select highly qualified faculty as well as offer existing faculty an opportunity to augment their capabilities by research. Accreditation gives visibility to the institutions in term of allowing students to make choices while opting for admission in institutions thus making it legitimate in the eye of stakeholders [10], and signal in the market about the quality of program [5]-[7].To prove their commitment to assure quality and innovation of their programs successful business schools opt for international accreditation [3] [7], [9] Further to this notion, accreditation process is considered as a driver to trigger institutional change as its provide an assessment about the strength and weaknesses of an institution and enable it to improve it [9]. However, before opting for international accreditation there is always need of accreditation from national accreditation council. Despite the importance of business education in the socio economic development of a country, very little emphasis is given to the quality of business education imparted by the institutions in Pakistan. The issue of quality remained unaddressed before the establishment of Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan [8]. In its quest to quality, NBEAC was set up by HEC and has been considered as the important measure to improve the quality of faculty, infrastructure and research [2]. Based on the Ordinance No. LIII of 2002, National Business Education Accreditation Council (NBEAC) was established by Higher Education Commission (HEC) on 15 August 2006. “Enhancing the Quality of Business Education”, as its mission NBEAC aims to evaluate and scrutinize the Business administration, Public Administration, Management sciences and commerce programs. On the basis of standards abreast with local need as well as highly comparable with international standards of quality assurance [3]. Therefore NBEAC criteria were established that cater both regional requirements and international competency. The basic purpose of NBEAC accreditation is to signal in the national market about the quality and legitimacy of  Corresponding author. Tel.: +9251-5731808. E-mail address: sabra_nadeem@yahoo.com. 140