Making Management Education Effective in India

By Neeta Baporikar

She is a distinguished academic and author, currently Professor/Director (Management), Namibia University of Science and Technology, Namibia

 Amidst the tens of thousands of management graduates churned out by the 5,500 B-schools in the country, only 7 per cent turn out to be employable, says a recent study conducted by ASSOCHAM. Is it not then, a rather sad state of affairs, that the present 5500 plus B-schools in India fail to provide the much needed managerial skills for the country to usher and find its place among the developed economies.

According to Late Prof. Dayal – Management Education

India has one of the world’s largest higher education systems and management education has been in the fore front since 1950s. Due to industrialisation of the economy, demand for management education increased because it became a popular choice due to career prospects. This led to a proliferation of management education/institutes. According to Late Prof. Dayal during 1950s- 1970s, an average of only four management institutes was set up every year as compared to 150+ yearly average by 2000. Consequently, the quality spectrum of the institutes became extremely wide. At one end, there are a few elite institutes that have state-of-the-art infrastructure with a global ranking, while, at the other end; there are a large number of institutes generating educated but unemployable or poorly employed youth. So the issue then is: how to deal with this catch 22 situation. The answer lies in making management education effective!

The time has also come to reckon that there has been too much of misfiring in the name of management education. Be it in terms of management education being elitist, aligning with western school of thoughts, wide variation in quality or mercenary administration of these institutions. This has resulted in creating management graduates more suitable for corporate sector and that too more for western developed economies on one hand and poor quality educated and unemployable graduates with low managerial and entrepreneurial skills on other hand. It is rightly said ‘Realization is the best teacher’ and if this misfired aspect of management education has been understood then we are one step in right direction. Next is to make sure that, we don’t go overboard in terms of indigenizing, resulting in throwing away the baby with water.

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According to Einstein ‘all that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual’, so one thing which can be done to ensure this happens is to make management education effective. This is possible with a comprehensive review of where India stands today in the map of global economies and then work at all three levels:

Policy Level

1. Alignment of polices and structure of management education to national economic and social planning.
2. Governance and structure of the management institutions for holistic, inclusive and equitable access.
3. Quality Assurance and global benchmarking through accreditation systems.

Institution Level

1. Glocal approach in selecting academic leaders who can balance global and national requirements.
2. Faculty driven rather than administration driven institutions.
3. Ensure teaching-learning rigor and holistic student development.

Education Level

1. Appropriate updated curriculum, suitable teaching pedagogies for transfer of knowledge/skills.
2. Focus on developing right management graduate attributes.
3. Quality research oriented qualified faculty of desirable qualities rather than mere qualifications.

Thus to make management education effective there is a strong need and focus on the national requirements per se. Sincere situational analysis, honest policy formulation, rapid deployment and integrated effort can go a long way. I am confident and believe in what Nobel Laureate Tagore has said: “everything comes to us that belong to us if we create the capacity to receive it”.

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