Q&A: Dezso J Horvath, Dean, Schulich Business School

'India is our only campus abroad'

As international B-schools test Indian waters to set up their campuses, Schulich Business School, part of Canada-based York University, has already tied up with India’s GMR Group to build a campus in Hyderabad. Schulich Dean Dezsö J Horváth tells Kalpana Pathak the one in India campus is the school’s only full-fledged campus abroad. Excerpts:

When will your campus be up and running? We have acquired 25 acres land in Hyderabad to set up a full-fledged campus for a global MBA programme, the same that we offer at our Toronto campus. Around 15 acres of this campus is for school and 10 for recreational activities on campus. We will be operational in September 2012 with a student capacity of 60 which will increase by another 60 in the subsequent two years. So by 2013 we will have 180 students in India. Opportunities offered to students at the Toronto campus will be available here as well. We have partner schools overseas in countries like France, Korea, Thailand and China, but India campus will be the first full-fledged campus abroad.  Does this mark an end to your association with SP Jain Institute? Yes and no. We have been associated with SP Jain Institute of Management and Research for over three years now. While we will deliver the MBA programme through our Hyderabad campus, we may look at carrying on our relationship with SP Jain through other research and exchange programmes. They have been a very good partner and we would like to take this partnership forward even if its in other ways.  Your programme fee at Rs 30 lakh is pretty high. Do you think Indian students will have an appetite for your MBA programme? Yes we charge high fee. But our MBA is value for money. It is not about how much you charge but how much your students generate after five years of graduation. Schulich is ranked among the highest when it comes to value for money in an MBA programme.

In any dimension we match any best B-school in the world today. Schulich’s MBA programme has been rated among the top 10 in the world as per The Economist’s 2010 rankings, and 6th among non-US schools by Forbes. We have had a good response from Indian students as we have taken the second batch of students now. We see the demand for a good management programme only increasing.    Foreign universities may have to deposit $10 million as corpus to come to India. Your take on that. It is not yet clear if this money has to be paid in cash or one just needs to provide a guarantee for the same. While it may frighten away a lot of international universities which wish to come to India, for us it is not a deterrent. Whatever happens we will be here in India. I am a good fund raiser and I know the Canadian government will support us.