Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Management schools get interim relief with SC stay order

Chaturvedi is alternative president, Education Promotion Society of India, which along with the Association of Indian Management Schools, had petitioned the apex court against the notification. He says he is in possession of the minutes of the meeting held on 20 September 2010 when the controversial provisions were put on the table. Chaturvedi claims that the meeting was held and the crucial decision was taken "without a quorum".

Interestingly, the dearth of regulations in management education in India has been a cause for worry. According to figures provided by Career Launcher, a management test preparation company, there are approximately 3000 MBA colleges in India. "Very optimistically, only 150 of these provide quality education," says chairman and co-founder, Gautam Puri.

FICCI general secretary Dr Rajiv Kumar proposed a self-regulatory mechanism which can be adopted by management institutions at will. "It is just a beginning of an idea; an intermediate step to avoid both no regulation and over regulation," he says. However, with a wide disparity between demand and supply and countless sub-standard colleges, self-regulation doesn't actually seem to a viable option.

Consider this. According to KPMG, the total number of seats in top 40 B-schools is around 10,500. The number of seats available in the good ones is for less than 5% of the MBA applicants. An increasing awareness and the premium commanded by management students in the job market have led to spurt in demand for management education in India.

The number of students who took the common admission test ( CAT) conducted by the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) has been steadily rising till 2009, touching almost 2.5 lakh. After the test went online, the number went down in 2010 to approximately 1.86 lakh candidates. The number of Graduate Management Admission Test (for foreign MBA) applicants from India is also growing. In 2009, 30,633 Indians appeared for GMAT, a 128% increase in five years.

As is well known, the country's corporate sector wants MBA executives, even at the lower levels, to have an overall knowledge of the corporate world. But how to ensure students don't fall into swindlers' trap?

TV Mohandas Pai, board member and director-HR, education and research and administration at Infosys Technologies, offers some unique suggestions which go beyond self, over and under regulation.

"The AICTE can keep a watch on new institutions for the initial years. These and the old institutes can be regularly rated by an independent body like Crisil. To tackle the menace of high fees, AICTE can come up with scholarships." Looks like a workable suggestion indeed!
ET

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