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How to choose Management Institutes
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Students
desirous of doing their MBA are faced with a dilemma about which
institutes they should apply to. There are so many institutes that one is really at a loss
to know which ones are good and which ones are not. Each claims to be
better than all the others. In the absence of transparency and
information, the student really has no idea about the quality of the
education that one may receive and subsequently, jobs. This feature
answers the common questions that students have about institutes and
what should be the best strategy to select and apply to them.
Newspapers are full of advertisments of
management institutes inviting students to apply to them and seek
admission. Each claims to be better than the other. Names of foreign
affiliations are thrown about as well as all those wonderful jobs that
graduates of the institute were able to get. If one is "foremost in
management education", another is a "centre for excellence" and still
another is a "pioneer of management education in the country". Exotic
teaching methods, such as yoga and meditation, have been introduced to
give the courses a local touch. There is, however, no way of knowing
whether the claims are true or not.
Unlike the West, there is
no rating of institutes or a criteria against which a student may
assess himself before applying. Nor is information easy to get from
these institutes. Though the concept of the MBA degree is borrowed from
Western universities, our institutes do not share information.
For
a student, this poses a daunting task. Applying to all the institutes
is not feasible because each requires you to buy a prospectus at a
hefty price. The only way out is to depend on market reputation and
hearsay and make an assessment whether an application should be made or
not. A broad indicator is whether the institute has government approval
or not, but since a number of questionable institutes boast of approval
by the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), the tag has
become quite meaningless.
The scene has been made more
confusing by unscrupulous activities by some institutes. Many demand
donations from students and it is easy to get in if you can pay for
your seat. Others have a system of "non-resident quota" in which one
must pay double the fees and secure a seat.
In the absence of a rating
system, a rough way to assess the institutes is to classify them in a
broad category. One method could be as follows: a) the top 10
institutes which have a very good reputation, b) universities offering
MBA programmes, c) institutes set up by industry or having industrial
backing, d) institutes without any industrial backing and set up by
academics or unknown people, and e) foreign degrees offered through
correspondence.
One should, of course, try for the best
institutes and prepare well for admission. If one is not able to match
the high scores required, it would be better to look for institutes
lower down in the list. On no account should one pay capitation fee,
because one would be stuck with a worthless degree even after paying
heavily for it.
Comparing Institutes
The situation of
admissions in management education is quite dismal, indeed. The system
is exploitative and there are many operators who have opened institutes
to cash in on the demand for a management degree. Lacking facilities
and staff, they operate like small shops. Unfortunately, even reputed
universities and institutes are not able to provide good management
education. For example, the good teachers are perpetually on leave as
they manage to get assignments from abroad. Only those with parochial
outlooks and limited teaching skills are left. Visiting faculty often
fills in the gaps. It is difficult to find teachers who are trained in
the case discussion method, so essential in management classes.
That
is why there are only a few institutes which have a good name. Industry
too does not recognise many institutes and this is the reason that
there is a glut of MBAs. The smaller institutes prefer to take only
those candidates who can get jobs through their parents' contacts,
which is later used to sell the institute. But if one is to make a
career, the ideal thing is to get into a reputed institute.
Of
late, many foreign universities have started advertising their
management programmes in India. It is possible to get a foreign degree
without leaving the country. The value of such degrees is doubtful and
it is unlikely that they will have the same acceptability as a
full-fledged degree.
Ultimately, it may be said admission to
MBA courses is like a roulette wheel. There is a long way to go before
some order can be restored and the activities of money-making
institutes can curtailed. For that, the government would have to play
an active part and not sit back after granting approval. In fact, it
may be advisable to review the approval after some time and cancel it
for those institutes which are not able to maintain standards. An
authentic rating of the institutes would also help the students.
The
system has to move from being exploitative and become more
professional. It is an irony that those who are to teach management to
others actually need a watchdog to ensure that they are managing
themselves properly.
You can look at the following 15 options. There could
be other options as well, but beware of smaller institutes claiming
AICTE approval as also those offering foreign degrees in India.
Indian Institutes of Management, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Lucknow, Indore and Calicut.
Xavier Labour Relations Institute, Jamshedpur.
Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi.
Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai.
Management Development Institute, Gurgaon.
S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai
Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai
Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad
University of Punjab, UBS, Chandigarh
Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneshwar
Bharatidasan Institute of Management, Tiruchirapalli.
Pai Management Institute, Manipal.
Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune.
Sydenham Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai.
International Management Institute, New Delhi
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