Time For B-Schools To Look Beyond Corporate Interests, Help Govt

The time has come for B-Schools to focus on capacity building of government employees who implement schemes.

Used for representational purpose. (Photo: iStock)

In India, the business of B-Schools has flourished but the content and quality of management education have not met the needs of the industries. A recent ASSOCHAM (Associated Chambers of Commerce of India) report finds that 93 percent of MBA graduates passing out of 5,500 B-schools are simply not employable!

There are several factors that explain such situation, including the fact that course contents, pedagogy, and adoption of technology (if any) are not oriented towards skills and knowledge required in the industries at national and regional levels.

Our management schools are still vying with each other to catch up with the legacy of premier schools in America and Europe, although global business focus has already shifted towards Asia and Africa. One wonders how the B-Schools would survive with dated curriculum and pedagogy in the wake of faster digitisation of economy and business.

Unfortunately, management education in this country has not been a ‘home-grown product’ to address the national/regional challenges of economic and social development. Besides, barring a few institutions, the business schools have always remained glued to the corporate sector.

Time has come for B-Schools to focus on capacity building of government employees that are engaged in implementing numerous schemes including those related to the social sectors (health, education, water, sanitation and hygiene).

The national and state governments have their own institutions to conduct a variety of training programmes for their employees at national/state/district/block levels. However, those training programmes fall far short of the management education necessary to implement development programmes. The government training institutes also lack capacity to design and run such a programme.

It is in this context the B-Schools have a greater role to play.

They can develop an appropriate management course encompassing inter alia evidence-based planning, grass-root level implementation with community participation, monitoring and impact evaluation.

Such programmes can be offered through virtual classrooms using latest digital technology, and at a very low cost. However, the real issue is whether B-schools are willing to participate in sustainable development of the country with a deep sense of social responsibility.

This is an important issue since mushroom growth of business schools underpins only the commercial interest of the private owners.

Another challenge for a business school is to build its intellectual capabilities, develop consultancy experience, and establish a network with a large number of stakeholders including the government agencies and the sector experts.

(Dr SK Chaudhuri is at IMT Ghaziabad as a Distinguished Professor in the area of Finance. This is a blog and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)