Letters: Land vs learning

This refers to “Driving states up the learning curve” (August 30). The justification provided by the dean and associate dean of Indian School of Business (ISB) for acquiring subsidised land from the Punjab government raises even more doubts about the school’s real intention. The argument that ISB is a not-for-profit institution and, therefore, deserves highly subsidised land cannot be considered seriously. There are many non-profit educational institutes promoted by the corporate sector and wealthy individuals; by similar logic all of them also deserve free or subsidised land, preferably in multiple locations.

Obviously, in the competition for low-cost land, schools like ISB can compete successfully as a result of an established brand image created because of the financial muscles of the promoters and academic reputation of the faculty, both permanent and visiting, drawn globally from some of the finest institutions. But the dean and his colleagues must ask two questions. One, is ISB’s research and teaching contribution in India already so significant that the school has a moral right to ask for subsidised land from other local governments for expansion? And, two, is it ethical for them as a management institution to do so?

We are told of the growth of employment near the school with a small disclaimer that ISB is not directly responsible for all this job creation. If no research has been done to prove such a relationship, why has the fact been mentioned at all? Obviously, we must accept ISB’s implicit role in employment growth to justify its case for subsidised land in other states. A good way of claiming hefty rewards for unproven performance!

It is true that institutions like Harvard, Cambridge, Stanford and so on have been pushing the frontiers of knowledge for hundreds of years. Many of these institutions have been operating from single campuses without experiencing any adverse impact on their academic output. In contrast, our premier management institutions, within a short period of their existence, are already in land-grabbing mode to create campuses in different regions. The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, which is nowhere near the best international B-schools in terms of research, publications and original thought, is also gearing up for this lucrative land grab (and will probably be joined by other IIMs).

If ISB and other institutes truly want to become our Harvards and Cambridges, they should think of innovative managerial solutions in this era of the communications revolution, to provide top-class education without trying to corner land as well as other scarce resources of the country.

Abhijit Bhattacharya, Ahmedabad