The Hindu Business Line : Management school coming up at Thiruvananthapuram

A Rs 30-crore management institute, styled Asian School of Business (ASB) and aiming to be among the best in the continent, will be the latest attraction at the Electronics Technology Park (Technopark) here.

ASB will operate from a 12,000-sq ft facility in one of the Technopark buildings from July, according to Mr George M. Thomas, President, and Mr G. Vijaya Raghavan, Honorary Director. By 2007, it proposes to raise its own campus on a 15-acre property, close to Technopark.

Speaking to newspersons here, they said the initial focus would be on three management programmes, namely, a full-time MBA course, a Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGPM) for working professionals and a Post Graduate Programme in Management for Entrepreneur Managers.

Flexibility in timings will be what that goes to make these courses stand out from the rest offered by various universities, they added.

The programme for entrepreneur managers has been designed with an eye on those destined to assume overall responsibility of their family businesses. "Typically, these people do not look out for jobs themselves but seek to employ managers. The programme aims to equip them adequately to be able to run the businesses independently as also to find the right pool of talent to man them."

Fees for the two-year PGPM programme will vary in the range of Rs 3.5 lakh to Rs 4 lakh. But this will be not a constraining factor for admission of the meritorious but indigent student. The school will tie up with financial institutions for arranging funds for such students.

The programmes will seek to develop leadership qualities and professional management capability in the students, said Prof M.N.V. Nair, former Dean, IIM-Bangalore, and founder Director, Bharatiyar School of Business, Coimbatore.

An accomplished faculty, featuring those roped in from the US, will lead the programmes that will have national and international acceptability, Prof Nair, who is associated with the project as a technical expert, said.

Other focus areas will be empowerment of NGOs through a full-fledged PGPM and both short as well as medium-term programmes designed to prepare profe- ssionals for positions of management in institutions working to improve social and economic conditions.

Being set up and managed by a society registered under the Travancore Cochin Charitable Societies Act, ASB is dedicated to the mission of "creating competent and caring management professionals with the passion to lead".

The assortment of methods of delivery of the curriculum will include lectures, discussions, case studies, computer simulations, role-play, group projects and presentations by business leaders.

In the initial years, ASB will use reputed standardised test scores followed by group discussion and personal interview.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page