Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore’s Centre for Public Policy (CPP) has embarked on an ambitious mission to mould business schools into world-class institutions.

As a first step, CPP held a meeting on ‘Building Quality in B-Schools: Opportunities and Challenges’ in partnership with eMBArkers group to help B-schools strategise. (eMBArkers has been founded by alumni of XLRI and IIMB's PhD programme and its main aim is to ‘Build Bandwidth in Management Education’).

Quality factors

Addressing directors of 85 Bangalore-based B-schools, Rajeev Gowda, Chairperson of Centre for Public Policy (CPP) at IIM Bangalore, said, “Business schools should focus on quality factors, including industry interface, management and governance.”

“Schools need to pay attention to student selection processes, student outcomes, research, curriculum, faculty and learning and physical infrastructure to create a brand of their own,” he added.

India’s rapid economic growth has created a demand for management professionals and entrepreneurs. Nearly 4,000 business schools have emerged to produce the MBAs that can fuel India’s economic transformation.

Quoting a recent Assocham study, Gowda said, “The study is shocking for it reveals that nearly 150 management institutes are likely to close down this year. In the wake of this crisis, Centre for Public Policy at IIM-Bangalore and eMBArkers have come together to improve the quality of MBA education.”

There is no shortage of resources for learning today but “we must create an ecosystem to ensure sharing of best practices, to incentivise good teaching and to change mindsets,” he added.

Quality disparity

Samir Kagalkar, co-founder and director of eMBArkers, stressed that there is an urgent need to network directors of business schools to usher in a cohort-based approach to quality improvement. “The directors of these institutions can create a dynamic environment and bring in transformation,” he said.

“eMBArkers have seen the good, the bad and the ugly side of the management education. Having walked through the hallowed portals of the best b-schools, we bring the best practices and information that can help all business schools reach the heights occupied by the top institutes,” he said.

“Having seen the regional b-schools as well, they understand the huge compulsions under which these schools (and by extension) the faculty members have to work. They realise that it is only by working with the faculty community that transformation can happen,” he added.

> anil.u@thehindu.co.in

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