B-school body charts road map for colleges

The Association of Indian Management Schools is drawing up a blueprint for its member colleges in order to enable them to tackle crises like the slowdown in a better way. The association, which met here at the Indian School of Business, will prepare a road map in a fortnight with focus on sustainability. The thrust would also be on reviving the placement cycles, which have taken a hit due to the market conditions, according to Shefali Gautam, its president.

Speaking to Business Standard, she said the changes would lay emphasis on leadership during crises, succession planning and knowledge sharing among others. “The newly-established colleges are finding it difficult to attract companies to campuses for recruitment. Either the companies are delaying the recruitments or there is a mismatch between the student profile and the role offered. In any case, the salaries have reduced 20-25 per cent compared with the last year,” she said.

There are over 1,800 colleges offering MBA or other management education programmes. Many of these have 25-30 per cent seats vacant. This year, the All India Council of Technical Education, the apex body overseeing the technical and management education, has given permission to a few more colleges and also allowed a few to run in dual shifts in the morning and evening.

The body, which is in favour of the government opening the higher education doors for foreign universities, will also make a representation to the government seeking free hand to institutions, particularly in fixing the fee of the management quota. The institutions, on their part, will have to be more transparent in the admissions, faculty recruitment and fee collection, said Gautam.

However, Union Minister of State for Higher Education D Purandeswari, who shared the dais on the inaugural day of the three-day AIMS meet, said the Centre was being cautious in allowing foreign institutions to open greenfield campuses in India as it might hurt the sensitivities of people of different regions. The effort, she said, was to protect the Indian students from fly-by-night operators. The government, though, was in the favour of foreign education providers forging agreements with Indian institutes at different levels.

She attributed the 25 to 30 percentage faculty shortage to high salaries offered in the private sector prior to the economic slowdown. “Students were discouraged from taking up teaching jobs,”' she pointed out.

Ajit Rangnekar, dean of the Indian of School of Business, felt the correction in salaries allowed all the stakeholders — management, students and the companies — to make realistic assessments of jobs and compensation. “The salary growth in the last few years was haphazard and grew 30 to 40 per cent, which is not a healthy trend,”' he said. ISB saw its average compensation packages drop to Rs 13-15 lakh per annum as compared with Rs 18-20 lakh last year.

Stating that there was a need for the industry to support theme-based research in B-schools to allow them to move away from the case method of teaching, Rangnekar said continuing management education, on the lines of continuing medical education, was also required. “On the brighter side, there is a brain gain and many corporate people are seeing teaching as a viable career option.”

Dipak Jain, dean, Kellogg School of Management, said there was scepticism about relevance of MBA schools and whether the students are equipped to handle financial and geo-political uncertainties. “The value of MBA, in spite of the present crisis, will not diminish but become more important in future. The management schools are in the business of attracting the best minds and making them attractive for the industry,” he said.