PGDM in a serious spot! 

The Post Graduate Diploma In Management  (PGDM) schools  known better for their autonomy and popularity among the  B-school students and the employers are facing a    serious existential crisis after the recent Supreme Court judgement pronouncing  that MBA education is a non-technical one and therefore cannot come under the purview of the  dreaded All India  Council  for Technical Education (AICTE).  The mood in the PGDM camp  is sombre even though  quite a few voices among their leadership  have been  raised over the years taunting the AICTE and questioning its relevance. Instead of rejoicing that finally there is a chance for them to come out of the  AICTE  clutch  which was perceived as  retrograde  by all and sundry, there is already a strong  buzz  favouring continuation under  the Regulator's  charge rather than face the uncertainty of a University system. They fear that   ultimately  they would be pushed to under the circumstances by the Apex court which is hearing a three year petition challenging  an AICTE Reguation by the PGDM  institutes represented by Association of Indian Management Schools (AIMS) and Education Promotion Society of India (EPSI). In the current year the "approvals" have already been received and the   admissions have been done at the PGDM schools. There is bound to be serious crisis in the coming admission season  unless things are resolved  quickly on the ground.

Unlike the MBA courses run by affiliated colleges of the Universities, PGDM by definition has  been known for its autonomy, but for the Regulatory approval of AICTE.   The "AICTE approved" tag is now familiar with the students and the  schools also  proudly wear the medallion  and advertise it  wherever needed, even though in private conversations they may criticise the  AICTE for its "over-regulation".  The arrangement of having University Grants Commission (UGC) and the AICTE  respectively for  overseeing quality  of MBA and PGDM courses respectively   was practical  for the government also, until now.  With the Supreme Court having said  AICTE  should not  have any say in the MBA courses quality it would be hard pressed not to acknowledge the fact that PGDM courses  modeled after the MBA courses cannot also be termed as "technical" and therefore cannot be regulated by the AICTE.  Then who would "approve" these courses, who would ensure there is intrinsic quality in  these and who would arbitrate in case of any dispute on their  way of working? The easiest and the most logical thing for the government and the Apex court is to send the PGDM schools  back to  the University system  and make these  at best independent affiliated schools under the UGC. 
The tragedy and stark reality is that both UGC and AICTE have miserably failed in ensuring  high quality  in  post graduate courses  resulting  in corruption, extremely poor course  delivery, poor quality of faculty .....all of which resulting an extremely poorly trained  managerial workforce.
This has to change and change very fast if we hope to man our companies with the best talent there is. The industry which is the user community cannot  remain as mute bystanders   while the higher education institutions deteriorate and fade away owing to the  intrigues played out by the regulators, the government  and the rest. 

post supreme court and after

saving the PGDM schools

I have been trying to bring together all the top PGDM schools on same wavelength to keep the focus alive even after the SC judgement. From what I can see and observe while the PGDM schools keep fighting among themselves, the government has marshaled its forces well to support its ill conceived attempt to ensure quality in business education. My strong conviction that unless the schools themselves are clear about which way they want to move and are able to convince the government, nothing much is going to happen with or without SC support. This is the reason why I was pushing the international accreditation option hard through SEAA Trust which created so that at least a few dozen schools would move up the quality ladder to match with the best in the world and in the process cause a trickle down effect on quality and also help build a stronger case for allowing the special status of PGDM schools to continue.

Without freedom to decide on curriculum, pedagogy, faculty recruitment, admissions and of course on fee, you cant build world class campuses in the country. To say that the private university model of the US can be reciprocated in India is a false premise as neither there is any major corporate philanthropic support nor is there freedom to charge the kind of fee that would offset the cost of providing a world class MBA.

I realise that the problem is more fundamental. There is as yet any reliable, transparent data or for that matter there is any intention at all in the industry about becoming transparent themselves which makes the job of AICTE type of regulator more easy. No one is serious! NEUPA study will be another multicrore effort like that of the national knowledge commission and a source of harassment for everyone until it is completed and its report like all other research reports prior to it and also the reports of the various committees would be concigned to the dustbin of political expediency and it would be business as usual.

My feeling is that we in the community as usual are training our guns in the wrong direction. The real fight is about attitudes and this needs to change. After all we need high quality higher education institutions to run our businesses, governments and institutions of future and we cannot afford to ignore this. We need to build trust about educational institutions and stop exploitation of the parents and students by ever smarter education service providers and only then we would be able to fight AICTE more meaningfully.

Tracking business schools , Indian and Global

SPOTTING YOUR FAVOURITE B-SCHOOL!

The biggest challenge for any aspiring student and also the faculty not to speak of the recruiter is to find the right b-school and believe the right parameters for judging whether the school is really the "right one" or not. The way to do is.
1. Laborious way of reading and knowing about all the business schools as information about these appears in the newspapers and news channels. There is no guarantee here as you need to read hundreds of papers literally to get some idea about the b-schools and what they offer and still you will not able to say whether you are in the right track.
still it is worth reading in India

• 1. The Economic Times
• 2. Financial Express
• 3. Business Standard
• 4. Business Today
• 5. Business India
• 6. Business World
• 7. Outlook

for business school news

and abroad

• 1. US News and World Report
• 2. The Economist
• 3. Wall Street Journal
• 4. Financial Times
• 5. Business Week
• 6. Forbes Magazine

for business school related news

2. The usual "ask the neighbour" way with all the limitations and biases associated with individual information and counseling

3. believe the popular rating and ranking. Once again you have a bizarre number of choices here. India there is

• 1. Business India ranking (which the author of this blog runs)
• 2. Business World ranking
• 3. Business Today
• 4. Outlook
• 5. Competition Success Review

Internationally you have a number of top rated ranking and rating reports of business schools.

• 1. Business Week ranking
• 2. Financial Times ranking
• 3. US News & World Report ranking
• 4. The Economist Ranking
• 5. Forbes ranking

4. The next option is for the government sites to provide with the information. Even here the information may be hard to find and would take the skill of an investigative reporter to read through the fine print and figure out whether the school is worth joining or not.

In India you have
1. All India Council of Technical Education
2. University Grants Commission
3. Association of Indian Universities
4. State Education departments
5. Union Ministry for Human Resource Development (MHRD)


5. The public website both from within India and abroad.
Some of the popular ones in India

• www.coolavenues.com
• www.indiabschools.com
• www.bibschoolsurvey.com
• www.pagalguy.com
• www.indianmba.com
• www.managementquest.com

Abroad

www.topmba.com

www.b-school-net.de

A brief and telling extract from the article in Rediffmail.com may article on b-schools
IIMs (Indian Institutes of Management), the premier management institutes in India, have sprawling campuses and for decades have been the preferred choice of students wishing to pursue an MBA. Demand has increased much faster than supply, making the IIMs jointly the most difficult institutions to enter.For example, for every 600 students that aspire to an IIM Ahmedabad seat, only one is selected. Naturally, these are among the best and brightest in the world. Unless there is a reason to restrict entry for the purpose of preserving the quality/scarcity rent of an IIM MBA, intake to each of the IIMs can be increased without any significant additional investment.The faculty-student ratio, one of many signals of institutional quality, should also not be a constraint. Compared with their US counterparts, the faculty-student ratio at IIM-A is only 1:8, while it is 1:19 at Wharton and 1:14 at Harvard Business School (HBS).IIM-A admits around 250 students a year, while its two American counterparts admit about 900 each. IIM-A annually enrols just 1,620 students in its executive MBA program, against over 8,000 by both HBS and Wharton.

Information about B-schools

The most difficult aspect about tracking higher educational institutions is the sheer complexity and bizaare range of information that is available, much of which would be unusable as well!

I personally have always felt that the Rating and Ranking exercise I myself have been doing for the past eight years in India see www.bibschoolsurvey.com has actually brought out more information and knowledge about the business schools than any great inroads have been made in benchmarking the quality of each of the schools.

In any event there is so much of division among the bschools when it comes to quality and spread that it becomes nearly impossible to categorize them in any scientific manner.

There are IIMs to begin with, then there are university schools, there are autonomous schools, there are management departments of engineering colleges, post graduate colleges teaching management and so on. When it comes to graduate degree in management, it is complete chaos out there.

But thankfully there is also a lot of websites that give information about the schools and what they have to offer.

Here is one from abroad http://www.4icu.org/in/ which is a listing of some of the top Indian colleges and universities not confined to teaching only management. The list is elaborate and very interesting even though many of the fields of enquiry is empty which is quite predictable considering the the schools keep their information and their unwillingness to share knowledge as a matter of rule.

Changing AICTE B-school norms, suggestions

• Copy of document submitted to Fr Abraham, Director XIMB a member of the Four member committee to suggest changes to the Norms and Standards being prescribed by AICTE for the B-Schools. (18th August 2007)
  
  By A Thothathri Raman
  
• Original norms of AICTE for approvals is available by following this link from the AICTE website.
  

MODIFICATIONS SUGGESTED

Clause 1.2 (AICTE Norms and Standards document)

The assumptions need to be redrafted in the light of the fact that there are increasingly sectoral oriented schools, schools of differing quality and reach, schools catering to specific market segments etc., where an omnibus one size fit all assumption for MBA programme will not work.


The overall assumptions could be redrafted in the following lines:

• The management education should be able to prepare the students with all round skills and knowledge to manage diverse situations and industry challenges in the highly competitive and dynamic markets.
• Management education should be oriented towards providing communication, soft skills and high standards of ethics and value system to prepare the students for a globalised world
• Management education should be imparted with intense classroom teaching, research orientation, practical experience based on on campus simulation and off campus exposure, involvement of industry experts and other distinguished faculty from other peer institutions from India and abroad.
• The orientation of the MBA education should be towards building leadership quality in students based on team working, ethics, social commitment and good governance.
• MBA education should be highly technology oriented to facilitate the students to understand practical use of competing technologies and the impact of Internet, telecommunications on the lives of everyone.
  
  1.3 model curriculum
  
  Model curriculum should include
  
  knowledge management, information management and Internet use
  Customer management, retail marketing, networking
  supply chain management, industrial management, international financial and trade flows
  E-commerce using Internet, mobiles, handheld devices
  Globalisation, Global compliance, WTO, social clause
  Policy management, politics and cyber law
  Impact of markets, financial sector on business prospects besides the usual marketing, finance, OB, business environment, law
  
  All the above subjects should account for at least 60 per cent of the total MBA curriculum with another 20 per cent allowed for new subject experiments within the broader framework of MBA. The remaining 20 per cent should be devoted to live projects, summer projects etc., of which at least 5 per cent should be allocated for a synapsis by the MBA student
  
  
  Why a MBA Synapsis: The idea behind a synapsis by a MBA student should be to encourage research orientation to the students as after all industry is based on research and such orientation would greatly help in building a great career for the MBA students.
  
  It would also add to the repertoire of research and possibility also lead to publications for the b-school concerned. It will also provide a rich source of case material for the school.
  
  The synapsis should be based on a contemporary subject and the student should be encouraged to publish the research report and also take up a viva voce to defend his case.

2.0 programme structure

This would be modified to reflect the changes proposed in section 1.2 .However, overall the idea the students should be given a reasonable orientation in mathematics and statistics is an exemplary one and need not be changed.

2.1 and 3.0

there should be no rigidity in proposing 12 courses per year or the 1200 to 1400 hours exposure and this should be best left to the schools concerned as there is an increasing trend for specialization catering to one segment of industry or the other—for example retail oriented schools are coming up, so also finance oriented schools, supply chain oriented school, technology management oriented schools and so on.

A minimum number of class room contact could be suggested say 800 hours leaving the upper limit open to the schools.

Likewise the core courses should redefined to impart the basic skills of finance, marketing, communication, statistical skills, decision making skills, awareness of business environment, industrial relations, business law etc., and this package should be made compulsory to the schools and a minimum number of hours should be prescribed for each subject rather than fixing 20 hour or 30 hour per course. Communication for instance should be taught for more than 100 hours throughout the two year period. Likewise business environment could be taught in two classes or three hours but its practical orientation should be through the entire course period and as such the students should be periodically tested for their awareness about business environment.


Three year prescription for executive MBA should be removed and a flexible fast track approach should be suggested where an executive on a sabbatical should be able to complete the course in one year while another set could take more than three years based on classroom contacts.

One year MBA should be actively encouraged for working executives with more than three years of experience and who are willing to take sabbatical of one year or a break in career.


4.0 Entry qualification is an area which require tremendous reforms.

the entry test system allowing multiple tests should be replaced by a single national test available throughout the year and administered by an independent testing house should be introduced.
Such a test should be continuously updated by an open source method with a core team controlling the quality in a transparent manner
The schools should be permitted to use the test scores for at least two years after the test is given and the results of such test should constitute not more than 50 epr cent of the admission eligibility criteria with the rest 50 per cent divided between acadmic scores, and academic consistency, personal interview, group discussion, essay, publishing record of the student, corporate experience etc.,
Even the universities should be accepting the common national admission test score and there should be strictly no other admission test allowed by any institution.
Application for admission to any institution should be given free of cost or only on cost basis and the student should not be burdened with the cost of colourful brochures etc.,by the school. Complete details relating to the school should be available in their websites which should be notified to the students.
the schools should be encouraged not to invite more than twice the number of students than there are seats for the admission interview and the final selection information should be available in the website transparently for anyone to scrutinize the results.

The spirit behind the admission procedure is to help the institutions to identify and shortlist candidates based on their qualifications, experience and suitability to pursue the MBA course with least expenses and inconvenience to the student community.

The 2 lakh plus applications for CAT is not a reflection of the quality of the IIMs but poor governance of the admission procedure which is making lakhs of people despondent in seeking admission in vain and making them spend needlessly. IIMs earn a huge sum as a result and even assuming they spend the entire amount in the conduct of the exams the entire exercise is unwarranted and wasteful of public money and time. \

5.0 Intake of the students

While the 60 student per batch should be accepted as a practical time tested suggestion, its scientific validity should be proved through empirical and causative research on the ground.

This apart there is no need to place any capacity restriction on the size of the batch or the overall admission of students except that there should be suitable infrastructure, faculty numbers and other facilities for smooth conduct of MBAcourse. The current artificial cap on MBA capacity is retrograde and it should be withdrawn and the market forces shoudlbe allowed to decide the capacity.

Accreditation should be fine tuned to keep a strict vigilance on the quality of the courses and the way these are being conducted. More public accredited bodies within the ambit of the national regulator AICTEshould be encouraged to keep the MBA quality the highest and suited to the industry needs.

6.0 Examination norms

While the structure of the exams may be conducive and even the evaluation procedure may be time tested that the evaluation is being done by the school without any verification or supervision by an outside source is undermine the quality of such evaluation.
To elaborate, while the Universities conduct the examination for the courses being conducted in its affiliated colleges ensuring uniformity and quality, all autonomous colleges conduct their own tests and evaluate these on their own. A peer review process should be evolved to allow an outside preview of the evaluation to decide on quality of such evaluation.



Infrastrcuture

There should be no minimum criteria for the infrastructure in terms of land, build except that the overall definition of the ideal size required in relation to the number of students should be maintained since we are advocating that there should be no cap on the student admissions

Also ownership of land and also the building is retrograde step except that the authority could insist on long term lease aand other proof of consistency and legitimacy to conduct the classes. This is on the premises that the job of infrastructure provision is not the business of businesses of any kind while they should be concerned with their core business. Incidentally if the business feels that it should have its own factory or building it will go ahead and build. Why should be otherwise in the case of a business school?

Faculty

Faculty qualification should not be the sole criteria of determining faculty quality or adequacy as this leaves out people with industry experience or expertise in the world which is increasingly getting specialized. The sectoral management schools would be using faculty from industry with no phd qualification.
However long term viability of an education enterprise cannot be based on such visiting faculty or also on faculty with less qualification. There should be a healthy blend of faculty with phd and also those with lesser qualifications but with more industry exposure.

Also remuneration should be left to market forces and the AICTE or MHRD can issue from time to time advice based on research by industry associations like national HRD network on faculty compensation.



Ends

Thothathri Raman