Quality of management education of Indian B-schools out of sync with the times

Updated on: Monday, August 13, 2012

RC Bhargava, Maruti Suzuki chairman, said at the opening of the two-day Indian management conclave 2012, held on August 9 in the Capital, 'Quality of management education offered by the Indian B-schools is out of sync with the times and not addressing needs of recruiting industry."

Bhargava, who is also the chairman of board of governors of Indian Institute of Management at Ranchi, attributed the lack of quality to the unchecked expansion of B-schools in the country in absence of a formal study to determine the real demand for management graduates in the industry and low industry-academia interface.

Bala Balachandran, Kellog professor of management and founder of Great Lakes Institute of Management at Chennai, stressed on the customer centricity as the key element in establishing a credible B-school . His advice was: be distinct or extinct. He said B-schools must improve their delivery system.

Amit Agnihotri, convenor of the Indian management conclave referring to the crisis facing Indian management education said, "Majority of the over 3,500 B-schools are facing challenges both on admissions and placement front. B-schools need to realise that the era of sub-standard academic delivery is over."

The second day of ongoing Indian management conclave was devoted to finding solutions to the challenges being faced by the ever-growing list of Bschools in the country.

If the underlying theme of day one of the conclave, organised by MBAUniverse.com, was finding suitable jobs for the B-school graduates, day two focused on issues such as building institutional excellence and institutional culture, among others.

M Masood, president, Association of Indian Management Schools ( AIMS), MJ Xavier, director, IIM, Ranchi, Savita Mahajan, deputy dean of Indian School of Business (ISB), Eileen Peacock, senior VP and chief officer and Asia for AACSB International were some of the other speakers at the session.

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