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Anjali Prayag

Prof. Prakash G. Apte, Director, IIMB

Bangalore , Sept. 19

THE Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, has with changing times met up to new challenges in management education. Needless to say, rewards have come its way. First it was rated `India's best business school', next `Asia's best', and now stands among the top 100 business schools in the world (WSJ ratings). In this interview with Business Line, Prof Prakash G. Apte, Director, IIMB, talked of the state of management education today, new centres, programmes, plans and initiatives at the Institute.

In the last 2-3 years, the number of students with work experience (at the Institute) has been rising. Is there any particular reason for this? Perhaps, because the course fee is going up every year?

The employment market has shrunk because of the recession in the IT industry. This could be one of the reasons for experienced people applying for the course. A lot of companies have closed down and people have lost their jobs. One good option is to acquire a degree. This trend is not unique to India or the IIMs. It is happening the world over. One of the reasons is the economic downturn and the IT bubble burst.

Do you think it's a healthy trend (having students with work experience)? Or is it better to have a mix of both types?

Well, we want people with experience but we don't want to have them for these reasons (losing jobs).

Are you consciously selecting students with such a background?

No, it's not a conscious decision. In the US now, most schools have made some experience mandatory. In India, we don't want to do it right now because tell me, who can land a job here just after graduation. If we make work experience mandatory, then we will only get a one-dimensional batch of engineers and accountants. The intellectual diversity will be missing. And we'll have fewer girls too.

You've been rated as one of the 100 best business schools in the world by WSJ, which was based entirely on the recruiter's perception. Can this feather in the cap be attributed to the IT wave? In other words, have major IT recruitments pushed up your ranking?

No, not at all. In the last 2-3 years, the IT industry has not been a major recruiter. And global recruiters look for talent from all over the world, not just India. Some of our big recruiters have been consultancies and finance companies.

The Institute recently started several centres: Centre for Public Policy, Centre for Corporate Governance, Centre for Capital Market and Research. Can you tell us more about the activities here?

We have several centres: The Centre for Software Management, a Centre for Insurance Research and Education. We have just started the Centre for Corporate Governance. Some of the centres have been generously funded. The CIRE has been funded by some insurance companies. Some of these centres are virtual centres. They don't have an endowment or an office or staff. It's started by two or three staff members who get together and say `let's focus on research in this area'. The Centre for Capital Market and Research is one such. The Centre for Public Policy is endowed by UNDP. We are promoting programmes and research in all these areas through these centres.

The Institute has been contemplating distance education for some time now. When is it going to come through?

We will probably launch it early next year. The design of the programme is such that it is targeted at entrepreneurs and owner-managers of small enterprises. It will not be like an MBA programme but short-term condensed programmes. We may have one for family-owned business, but it may not be in the distance-learning format.

Of late, there has been a fall in the number of students opting for doctoral programmes. Have you also experienced this?

No, on the contrary in the last couple of years, it has gone up. It could be because of the economic downturn. Here for example, there are 16 candidates now as against seven last year.

All the IIMs are looking at cutting down subsidy from the Government. How expensive will the course be then?

Yes, we have been looking at cutting down the subsidy. Right now I don't want to say whether the full cost will be passed on to the students or not because costing is a complicated issue. But yes, gradually subsidies will be eliminated, but we will also make sure that no student is turned away because he cannot afford the fees. Loans and scholarships will be easily available.

But will the course fee, which is now about Rs 2.5 lakh for two years, escalate to what ISB (Indian School of Business) charges (around Rs 10 lakh)?

Next year, it will be around Rs 1.5 lakh per year, which is Rs 3 lakh for the entire course.

What are the other new programmes that the Institute is initiating?

We have been conducting collaborative programmes with other business schools abroad for executive education. We have also been getting enquiries for conducting courses in West Asia and SouthEast Asia. Schools in UAE and other West Asian countries want us to offer our regular MBA programme there, off-campus. They will provide us with the entire infrastructure. They want our professors to fly in for a week, offer a course and come back. We have to think a lot about it before accepting it. We have not yet considered the option as we feel encapsulating a course in 3-4 days will be difficult. Normally, our courses are for 33 hours and very interactive. But a lot of American schools are already doing it. They land there on Tuesday and teach till Friday and go back. How effective these off-campus courses are, one cannot say.

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