I think it is not proper to blame students and faculties alone.
I think we are all to be blamed.
STATUTORY AUTHORITIES / INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS ETC
Somebody in the statutory authorities world said that we need 1 lakh mba every year and immediately AICTE / UGC / All managements started to work in ensuring that there are several institutes and cummulatively these institutes can produce 1 lakh mba.
Neither did CII or FICCI or BMA or AIMA or any of these commercial organizations even care to question these figures. The statutory authorities have granted permission without even seeing whether there are sufficient faculties. The minimum qualification for a faculty is an MBA with 60%. Let me honestly tell you that in a class of 60 students, it is only 5% of the students who get less than a first class. Why internal marks / assignments amount to almost 50% of the total weightage and this is as per the university rules.
The TOP MANAGEMENT / TRUSTEES
The number of MBA institutes simply seem to be increasing. Why? Many of the trustees / top managements are builders, industrialists and for whom constructing a MBA college gives them some amount of respectability in the society. What does it cost them to build a MBA college-- around Rs. 20 to 25 Cr. --- one time expenditure on infrastructure including AC, Wi-Fi etc With an expected 50% capacity they have broken even at the current level of fees.
Ensuring placement of students, classes being conducted etc are all the job of the directors, who has full responsibility but no authority.
The Faculty
Where is the faculty? If the minimum qualification as per AICTE is a MBA, then many of the colleges would prefer to recruit fresh MBA and pay them less than that payable as per 6th pay? Considering that there is severe recession and jobs are scare. There are very few managements who pay the full 6th pay in the private sector. The central and state universities will in any case pay the full amount.
Let us also analyse the faculties. In many of the colleges, most of the faculties are women ( I hope I am wrong when I write such statements). Mostly married and teaching is the best job -- no tension, no stress, just come and teach. Prepare a few slides and over. The slides prepared once is repeated year after year and there is hardly any modification or up gradation. Even the small up gradations to incorporate the latest environmental situation are not carried out. In many cases, the faculties feel that if they give a copy of their ppts as handouts, it is okay. Their job is over.Tier 2 the faculty shortage is really severe.
In many of the colleges, the library as well as the computer lab is empty and there are no faculties forget the students.
If we try to take people from the industry, then the question is where are they? People employed in the industry are not available. Top priority is always the industry and this is just a time pass. Many of them are willing to come on Sundays when the industry is closed. The industry personnel are not concerned about the students and the institutes. They just come deliver the lecture and go. They do not try to bring out the co relation between the theory and practice. Let me give you an example, one of the industry faculties made a statement that all that you have learnt as theory is BAKHWAS -- crap -- not valid in the corporate world. He was explaining the Micheal Porters 5 force field analysis. He said that we never use such theories. In one of my interaction, he made a similar statement to me and I just asked him as to how does he evaluate his business. He gave me a big lecture and said that we look at competitors, government policies, the factory looks at the suppliers and as a marketing personnel he looks more at the customers. I only told him to please read the Micheal Porters 5 force field again. All that he said has been conceptualized by Micheal Porter in his 5 force theory.
People who are retired from the Industry are now wanting to serve the society. Why-- some of them said Dr Gopal, I need to keep myself busy otherwise I will go mad. In jest, they also mentioned you know my wife will start screaming at me if she sees me all the 24 hours at home.
Let me honestly tell you what I said above is true for not all 100% but perhaps a large number of the faculties.
The Students
At any orientation or otherwise if we ask the student why do you want to do your MBA? The answer is PLACEMENTS. Not one single soul is interested in acquiring knowledge. Everybody whether he is from a Tier 1 city or from a Tier 2 City is not interested in climbing the ladder. All of them want to become a Vice President from day one. They are all interested in job profile + good branded organization + very good salary. Is this feasible? They are not interested in reading or even trying to co relate with the external world, Marketing and HR are known to them from day one. But difference between Marketing and Sales is question mark. Finance and Statistics and other such quantitative subjects are the most difficult subjects but read and practice just before the exams -- solve a few examples and aim for just 50 to 60 Marks.Thank God, I passed in these subjects.
They will never visit the library or computer lab. You see CP Technology is very good -- Copy paste technology. Everything is available in Google including the necessary slides. So why read. Just sit one day before the exam or submission date and that is good.
Is this culture only in Tier 2 or Tier 1 schools? or in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities? In my opinion it is true in all schools today including the top b schools.
Even in Tier 1 cities, language profiency leaves much to be desired. Tier 2 and Tier 3 are bad. None of the students are willing to develop themselves. Many of them feel that they are masters and know everything. The students are not interested in reading at home even those parts of the subject that has been taught in the class. Why no time? Sir travel time is so huge!! One gets tired when one reaches home etc.
How does one change these patterns?
Are assignments / live projects / case study discussions / reverse learning a solution?
I do not think that blaming the faculty or the student or even the ranking of the college is the solution? In my opinion the problem is everywhere. Only in some cases it is slightly more and in some cases it is slightly less. In colleges which have residential premises, the situation is slightly better
thanks
Prof. Dr. R. Gopal
On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 8:04 PM, R P Singh <rpsingh55@hotmail.com> wrote:
I agree with Samar. There is a big gap between what is an MBA and what it should be specially from tier 2 or tier 3 schools . When we interview them specially from these institutes, it is really very pathetic situation. They have no comprehension of managerial concepts, no skills, no confidence, no energy or zeal or understanding of their future role and no idea about their career or life goals. It is very difficult to select a large majority except very few that also by lowering your standards a bit at times. Samar,s suggestions are welcome, if academics from these institutions and students together try to change the situation by design. Regards, Dr R P Singh
Sent from BlackBerry® on Airtel
<http://mbamockery.blogspot.com/2012/09/are-tier-2-mba-colleges-losing-plot.html>
-----Original Message-----
From: "Prof. Bholanath Dutta" <bnath.dutta@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 14:10:34
To: <join_mtc@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [MTC Global] Fwd: Are Tier 2 MBA Institutes losing plot ?
Dear All,
Greetings!
Please find below an article forwarded by Sri Virendra Goel.
Regards @ Bholanath
SEP <http://mbamockery.blogspot.com/2012/09/are-tier-2-mba-colleges-losing-plot.html>
30 <http://mbamockery.blogspot.com/2012/09/are-tier-2-mba-colleges-losing-plot.html>
Are the Tier 2 MBA Colleges losing the plot ? <http://mbamockery.blogspot.com/2012/09/are-tier-2-mba-colleges-losing-plot.html>
samar kagalwalla
I write this as a keen observer and supporter of good education, in particular at post graduation level.
Recently I have had a chance to interact with some students from MBA institutes in Mumbai. If I may expand a bit, Tier 2 institutes ( I myself is a pass out from one such institute some 6 yrs back )
I direct my observations towards students, professors & alumni - their roles & expectations
Let me begin with our young friends - Students. There is a tremendous expectation gap.
In all my interactions with them, I have only heard terms like " placements ", " packages ", " roles " etc from them.
My question to them was very simple - Convince me about your skills , confidence to deliver and knowledge to give you the above things. And there I was exposed to " generalization ". " lack of confidence", " half knowledge " and usual " Student Cribbing".
GAP 1 - Individual Fit v/s Placements
For me everything boils down to ones attitude. One can be fresher by experience, but not by knowledge & confidence. One can be part of a Tier 2 institute, but its up to self to get the best out of the college. One can be exposed to 'n' number of corporate interactions but it will be futile if one has closed down his / her mind.
I was zapped to hear from my interactions that students attend a seminar and come out complaining that we did not understand the jargon's used by the speaker. My reaction was " Did you ask ? " and i again got blank faces. " Did you Google once your were out of the seminar ? " and I was explained that we could not take notes as we did not understand ? . . . Are we hear to learn - unlearn - learn or just " de-learn "
I was doing a small workshop with batch of 4 - 5 students. And I could see fear of attending interviews. To boost their morale I gave them a small exercise which was " Speak about your passion for 5 mins" All of them struggled - lack of confidence, no content and more importantly lack of passion in speaking about their passion.
Still I gave them benefit of doubt and insisted that they prepare about the same topic and speak again after 7 days. The effort was of no use as they I got similar response. On my inquiry with the students I got one more shocker : " We have never in our years of studies got an opportunity to speak on such a topic " . . I said this is not a topic, it is your passion . . .
A simple advice as a fresh post graduate - Get passionate about things in life . . If you not passionate, why will companies hire you for any role. Every role these days require only passion . . rest all is monotonous !
Let me target a educationists a bit and I beg your pardon . . my observation and comments are only for improvement of "we students"
GAP 2 - Creating good decision makers
I am of a great believer that teachers make or break students. They create opportunities for you to take decisions and build confidence. However I found student being indecisive.
Expose them to on ground realities. Students starve to know practical application of theories. I have had feedback from students that " Sir please can you let us know how exactly is a corporate work culture ? . . can you let us know roles in different sectors ? . . Can we know where do we get good cases besides Harvard & ICFAI " . . if these questions are being asked a month before their placement starts, I blame the educationists equally.
Students will expect that their placements should happen, but as a educationists I feel there should be evaluation as to how much have you prepared them. I have come across comments like " We are told take up any job and change in 6 - 12 months ".... Is this a tick mark item ? .. Aren't you encouraging indecisiveness
I am not compelling you to hand hold them, but become mentors. Be accessible to students so that he can be free to express his views to you ( good or bad ). Encourage practical training and work out modules for dialogues . .
GAP 3 - Contribution of alumni to the success
Alumni are the marketing arm of a successful institute. Hence it is a bilateral agreement which college should have - continuous improvement and program delivery from their side & brand building of the institute amongst the stake holders by the pass out . . .
Being an alumni let me take a snip at some of my counterparts. Its been my observation, barring select few, this community of individuals believe that the institute ( because it is tier 2 ) has not role in his / her career development or as being a successful professional. The feeling is as if it was a big favor they did to the institution by taking admissions. And when such individuals interact with the bunch of future MBA's, they develop the same feeling amongst them. I have always discussed the same with deans and HOD's of colleges to get the right alumni to face the students. There is anyways enough negativity, and it is only the positivity that an alumni brings to the students, which leads to the spark.
Have more alumni meets, which will create ground for corporate interaction. And engage the alumni's at regular intervals with various initiatives of an institute, so that there is a connect which continues to remain forever.
To conclude, at end of my interactive sessions, i felt sad that in spite of having such a bundle of talents, MBA as a course lacks channelization of energy. If we can work towards the same, our education system will be a exciting and a rewarding place to be in.
I may have sounded sarcastic and frustrated, but it was important I highlight certain basic gaps which can be addressed in particularly by so called Tier 2 MBA colleges.
thanking you and with kind regards
Dr. R. Gopal
Director, Dean and Head of the Department
Padmashree Dr. D. Y. Patil University
Department of Business Management
Sector 4, Plot on 10, CBD Belapur
Navi Mumbai 400 614
Tel. ++ 91 22 27565616 Fax. ++ 91 22 27575064
Tel. (M) 98203 56428
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