There is a lot of action in the recent years at some of the best b-schools in India towards improving pedagogy, curriculum, profile of students, etc. However, there seems to be this eerie feeling that something is not done in the right way or rather nothing is evolving out of the system. This is probably mainly due to the status-quo that some of these institutions have amongst their educators or responsible "top-management" guys; but I also subscribe to the fact that our MBA passouts are stigmatized in the lines of corporate growth in India. What I mean by this is - the kind of work or the level of good work that their counterparts are doing in some of the other parts of the world aren't available aplenty to these kids who are judged against draconian job-descriptions, outdated service standards, and the theory of "managing the Indian way".
India's challenges have been different. We don't have the market potential nor the kind of psychographics that some of these MBA students study about, that confuse these people to such an extent that they tend to dis-associate themselves from the learning in MBA and try to follow their bosses in learning about how things are really done.
There are scientific ways to explain why MBA adds nothing to one' s creativity or analytical prowess, and rather acts as a potentially limiting factor for human creativity and organic growth of the mind.
But in this case, let me take one part of the problem and try to address it. Let's begin with asking some questions to the top-guys from the b-schools and Universities and it will be good to know if these people have answers to these queries. My belief is that by answering and acting upon these questions, some of them can really revolutionize the way MBA adds value to anyone's career.
Questions to the Diro/ Reformers:
1) How often do you collect relevant global trends to change the pedagogy and the content of learning in your MBA program? Is it weekly/ monthly/ or quarterly?
2) What is the alternative to the age-old "case-study-method"? Have your faculty thought about developing something better than that?
3) What is your strategy in recruiting students for your program? Do you have specific pedagogy or content for people with different profiles, or interests, or with similar psychological patterns?
4) How do you develop learning environments other than "group-tasks" and lectures and micro projects? How are you placing the most important concepts for these people to learn?
5) What amount of research that your faculty is engaged in, is directly contributing in the development of these students? How many students are assigned to faculty members for their dissertations/ research in particular areas?
6) What is the $$ ROI for each student who joins and then passes out from your institution? Do you have a system to formulate, track, etc while providing the right set of environment and learning to ensure that there is minimum deviation in the ROI calculated for the person?
7) How are your students interacting with global leaders who are some of the best in their domains? Do you have a structure wherein these global leaders are involved in some research or work with your students?
8) What will happen if your placement process is discontinued for your students? Do you have an alternative way to implement a better process and also sell the idea to the students who would join your institution?
9) What is the diversity in the kind of offers that students are seeking out, beyond consulting/ investment banking/ FMCG? How are you making sure that firms from across the globe who have such diverse requirements are followed by your students throughout their stay in your institute, and that they are working continuously with such firms and job roles?
10) Do you have metrics to provide faculty performance as a function of $$ROI per student, research work, and also the overall diversity of job-roles and organizations that are recruiting from your institutions?
