Models of B-Schools in India

With over 50 years of history of management education in India, we are surrounded with several issues and concerns which directly or indirectly affect the future growth and quality of mana­gement education. By default or otherwise, however, We need to look into all these matters this stream of education has contributed a lot in improving the overall economic and employment growth of our country, but the issues and concerns remain valid even today.

In order to upgrade their career prospects, every year lakhs of students in India seek admissions to B-Schools. The questions, however, remain-how to select the best amongst thousands of B-Schools and whether degree/diploma in MEA is worth it? What factors should be used to assess and evaluate the quality and value of the institute? The same is the case with recruiters and other stakeholders-where and how to go about to find out the best? The issue is how to measure those who are better than others or how they are similar to each other or different, though all end up with offering the same PGDBM or MEA degree.

This has further been complicated with the mushrooming growth of B-Schools affiliated to different regulatory bodies like AICTE, UGC, Deemed University etc.

The same is the case with the state aided or university departments, as they cannot decisively be termed as better than the rest, except for a few. While the tuition fees may be comparatively low in the university system, they do not have the freedom and autonomy to revise or improve the course curriculum or the admission system. There are other factors and issues. It is a myth and some institutes claim to be the centres of excellence, as they simply have huge infrastructure and charge exorbitantly high fees. In many cases, students are further confused with the difference between MEA and PGDBM degrees.

In the following paragraphs, an overall picture of the existing status of management education in India is given.

Models of B-Schools: Different models of B-Schools existing in the current scenario are:

1. Department of a University: Of late, most of the universities have established a separate department of

management for MBA programme.

2. Deemed Universities: Over hundred deemed universities have been established and recognised by the. University Grants Commission (UGC) to . teach and offer MBA degrees. Transparency of academic activities and good governance are questionable. However, there are always exceptions, and some of the deemed universities have performed very well. For example, IITs in India have independent department for MBA programme. The quality of teaching and the students of IITs are much better and are comparable to those of the top B-Schools of India.

3. Institutes affiliated to Universities:

Many private B-Schools are affiliated to some universities for their MEA programme and degrees. But in most of the cases, it turns out to be universities providing only distance learning degrees which may not benefit the students at all.

4. Autonomous Institutes:

Most of them are approved by AICTE and award PGDBM degrees. Quality of education provided by these institutes varies depending on the quality of governance of the institutes. IIMs were created as autonomous bodies in active collaboration with Government of India and State governments and provide PGDBM courses. IIMs are considered to be the premier institutions in India.

5. Distance Learning Programmes:

Open Universities like IGNOU, Kurukshetra University, Annamalai University and many other universities provide distance learning MEA degrees. Normally, a distance learning course is not considered to be of much use.

With different kinds of models available for management education, students often get confused about which one they should opt for. Moreover, the information generally available about the institute is not always true. In order to attract students, many a time, some institutes give their success stories in their advertisements, particularly highlighting the infrastructure, faculty, placements, networking with foreign universities, foreign tour etc. Added with advertisements, the institutes also publish brochures, giving information which, at times, is not reliable.

In a divergent country like India, where due to existence of regional disparities in distribution of the management institutes, lots of students from small towns and cities come out every year who largely depend upon the information provided in the advertisements and brochure of a institute, filled with hopes and aspirations to pursue management education, but in the end, they feel disappointed as they do not find what they read about prior to admission.

Admission system: The multiple system of entrance test for admission is yet another area of concern and issue for immediate attention. The admission/ entrance tes t in the management institutes depends upon the requirement of a particular institute. The test varies according to the institutes and their affiliation or associations with the regulatory body. Many institutes have developed their own entrance test. It is difficult to give the list of all entrance tests, but we believe that there may be more than 30 such tests. To name a few are: CAT (Common Admission Test), MAT. (Management Aptitude Test), XAT (Xavier Aptitude Test), FMS Test (test for admission into Faculty of Management Studies), GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Te~t), CET (Common Entrance Test), IRMA-­AlEE (Institute of Rural Management Anand: All India Entrance.Exam), MH­CET (Maharashtra Common Entrance Test), G-CET (Gujarat Common Entrance Test), admission tests carried out by the State Technical Education Boards, University regulated tests ete.

CAT is used by all the IIMs and most of the top management institutes. CAT is considered as one of the best competitive exams to judge the potential of the candidates.

There is, however, lack of standardisation i.e. one common system of admission in a management institute in India. It is really a matter of concern that for the same level of degree, different standards of entrance tests have been introduced by different institutes. These tests are of different standards and as a result, the quality of intake of students also differs. This kind of practice is perhaps prevalent nowhere in the world and we are unique in following it. This will never allow us to standardise our quality of management education in our country.

Fee Structure: This is yet another area to be looked at. The fee structure of management education in India varies and ranges from Rs. 11 thousand per annum in a few schools to Rs. 9 lakh per annum. While some university departments or affiliated institutes have low fee structure due to being Government funded, others have low to very high fees structure which, at times, does not seem to be justifiable. The variation has generally been seen in autonomous institutes. We have not come to any kind of understanding as to what should be the appropriate cost/fee structure for a good MBA education. So far, no rational basis has been established and Institutes are arbitrarily charging fees at their own discretion.

Faculty Recruitment, Development and Retention: One of the issues being faced is in the area of faculty related issues namely faculty recruitment, retention and development. In a very short span of time, we have witnessed a massive growth in the number of B-Schools, however, the number of faculty has not grown at the same pace. This has led to a gap between demand and supply of qualified, competent and experienced faculty. Good quality of faculty is a major pre-requisite for all the good business schools, however, because of this gap in demand and supply of faculty, good quality of faculty is found to be missing. Faculty to student ratio, in different institutes, varies from 1:6 to 1:25/30, which has an impact on quality of imparting education. The institutes have, therefore, resorted to poaching of faculty from the peer groups and this has in turn led to the retention problem.

In addition, the governance of the institution has contributed to the present climate. In order to meet requirement of a large number of faculty, the B-Schools have compromised on the quality of faculty recruited, by not giving any consideration to the fact whether they are qualified for imparting management education or not. MBA is a highly professional education which requires faculty with high competence not only in terms of having a Ph.D. degree but also in terms of having the required experience in academics & industry / corporate sector. Unfortunately, this is not available in most of the institutes as almost 50% of the faculty recruited, do not have the required experience and in many cases, even fresh MBAs have been recruited to fulfill the requirements.

Faculty, as academicians by nature, need to and want to work in an environment where basic facilities are available for research, attending conference, seminars, writing papers, MDPs and many other activities in addition to teaching which is not found in most of the institutes.

The need of the hour is to strengthen the faculty development strategy & programme and train the faculty irrespective of the background they may be from. The strengthening of FDP is an absolute must-have in the given situation, both for meeting the requirements and improving the quality of management education in India.

Pedagogy & Research: Quality education is a consequence of effective pedagogy amongst other factors. Lack of skill and knowledge in designing courses in the management education area, is much more important than the content or teaching techniques. We do realise that the lack of teaching techniques, in a large number of management institutes is evident, which has a direct impact on the quality of education.

Generally, Indian B-Schools rely mainly on Harvard Case Studies based on American or European situations which are different from Indian cultural values and business environment. But management theories of 'Western B-Schools are not relevant to India and so Indian B-Schools should stick to their own management philosophy. To enhance students' critical and analytical thinking in Indian business context, the students should be allowed to discuss case studies related to Indian business environment. But lack of availability of such case studies is a major problem. Though some premier institutions claim to have a pool of case studies and many other institutes have taken steps towards writing their own case studies, these practices have not become popular yet.

One of the main strengths of the best B-Schools is their strong research base and its impact on society. Scientific status of a discipline depends on the quality of research it produces. Research not only enriches the quality of teaching, but contributes to the advancement of the discipline also. Although management education has been on academic scene for nearly half a century in the country, there is regretfully, not much to write home about the quality and the volume of research undertaken by management schools and scholars in India.

We strongly believe that the future of management education in India is closely interwoven with the quality of research it produces. Research which reflects scholarship; research which advances the discipline; research which promotes management knowhow; research which encapsulates and aligns management with Indian ethos, values and culture; research which deals with management beyond business and research which anticipates future priorities and concerns, has not come yet. While there should be opportunity for management scholar to pursue research in his area of interest, schools could also identify their own research thrust. At macro level, there should be nationally and regionally coordinated programmes in important, identified and publicized areas of management, relevant to Indian economy and society.

MDP: Management Development Programmes carried out by the B-Schools, not only give them the edge of industry interface, but also help them financially, by generating revenue for the institute. In India, one of the main strong points of the JIMs and other top institutes like MDI (Management Development Institute, Gurgaon), is the MDPs carried out by them, which helps them maintain a strong relationship with the industry through interaction like MDP . JIMs have a very strong relationship with the industry as well as with the Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) of India, which acted as a saviour during their campus placements during the economic recession of 2009.

Barring a few institutes, MDP has to go a long way in making its presence felt in most of the B-Schools.

Standardisation through Accreditation and Survey Methodology: One of the indicators for India's success will only be known when the institutes are accredited by the global associations of accreditations. By getting rated and ranked in the national environment is not likely to raise the quality and standard of management education, unless they compete, qualify and are accredited by the international accreditation bodies. So far, Indian Institutes have not been able to place themselves in top 100 global ranking. It proves that Indian management education still has a long way to go as far as global recognition is concerned.

Similarly in case of international accreditation, apart from JIM, Ahmedabad and Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon, no other Indian institute has been accredited by international organisation as far as our knowledge goes. JIM, Ahmedabad has the accreditation of the European Quality Improvement System (E.Q.U.I.S.). MDI is the first Indian Business School which is internationally accredited by the Association of MBAs (AMBA), London and MDI has also been granted South Asia Quality Assurance System (SAQS) accreditation and National Board of Accreditation(NBA)

To have a global platform and attract students from outside the country, it is necessary for the Indian management institutes to try for these global accreditations.

Conclusion: It is obvious that we lack proper planning in establishing management institutes in India vis-a.-vis the manpower requirement. In the absence of implementation of provisions established by the regulatory bodies, the chances of improvement are very bleak. Apart from applying the present provisions meticulously, there is a need for -improving the provisions in qualitative terms and not just in

quantitative terms.

History of management education shows that there is a big gap in quality between the institutes established during 1950/60s to 1990s and institutes established in the later period. It is observed that as the number of institutes in India started increasing, the quality of management education started deteriorating. It is very obvious that the institutes established in the first two generations i.e. from 1960s till 1990s were few in numbers, but they have been maintaining their quality of education till now, or rather, have improved it. They have the best faculty and are hub of research. They take pride in their alumni.

But after 90s, the management education in India got surrounded by a mix of B-Schools. Some are, no doubt, doing well, but many others lack quality.

In absence of proper implementation of the provisions by the regulatory bodies, due consideration has not been given in separating the best from the rest. As a result, the students graduated from different institutes have different levels of competence. Students graduated from some of the management institutes cannot be even termed as management graduates in the real sense of the term as the quality of such institutes is at much lower level.

This problem needs to be resolved. Proper standardisation of management education and presence of single regulatory body are the need of the hour. Improvement is a continuous process. Majority of the business schools should keep on improving with time and try to move to the next level of excellence. Expansion without preparation and quality maintenance is not proper. Lots of new B-Schools have brought in improvements in infrastructure and boast of their state-of-the-art facilities, but governance, leadership, faculty quality also equally matter and are valuable factors. Though standardisatipn is an important factor, diversity and innovation in curriculum are also required.

We need to look into all these matters and aim at building a management education system of excellence in the country.