Harmonization of Indian Business Education in the context of Global Education

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1 Harmonization of Indian Business Education in the context of Global Education 1 2 Dr. Nirmala M., Uma Devi A.M. 1 Senior Assistant Professor, Canara Bank School of Management Studies, Bangalore University, Bangalore Ph: nirmala.cbsms@gmail.com 2 Research Scholar, Canara Bank School of Management Studies, Bangalore University, Bangalore Ph: uma_am@yahoo.com ABSTRACT Businesses have transcended boundaries today and management professionals are required to be equipped with new skills to handle business in a global playing field. Added to that is a constantly changing business environment with uncertainties and volatility, termed as the VUCA world, which makes strategizing and decision making an uphill task. With this background, this paper is an attempt to analyze the present management education in India and whether it has attained the capability to train management professionals who can address the present and future business needs. This is a descriptive desk research and the data for the study has been obtained through secondary sources only. The study has found that by and large, apart from the top tier B Schools in India, the rest of them have been falling prey to declining quality and have failed to live up to the expectations of the industry. This paper attempts to identify the reasons for the declining trend and though there is a significant potential and the right climate, what are the critical factors that can drive Indian management education to Global standards. Keywords: Management Education, Accreditation, Management Research, B-School Ranking, Industry-academia Interface 1. Introduction Management Education in India is almost a century old and was first offered in Chennai in 1903, India's first business school Commercial School of Pachiappa charities. In 1913, Sydenham College in Mumbai was established followed by Shri Ram College of commerce in Delhi in In 1961 two IIM's were launched. IIM Calcutta in collaboration with Sloan school of Management at MIT and IIM Ahmedabad with help from Harvard Business School. The 1990's saw a big boom in B Schools being set up in the country. Businesses started hiring BSchool graduates and groomed them for executive positions paying them hefty salaries. The trend continued with MNCs offering International positions like Boston Consulting Group, Lehman Brothers, P&G, HSBC, JP Morgan to name a few. This however is the rosy picture and is limited to only the premier tier I B-Schools in the country. IGNOU also has helped in the spread of business education in India by making it affordable to the common masses. It's open learning programs has become successful. It also has launched Gyan Darshan a TV channel to deliver the business course content across India. 2. Objectives: The study has been carried out with the two-fold objective stated below 1. To analyze the present position of Management Education in India 2. To identify the challenges towards globalization of Indian Management Education 3. Scope of Research: 15

2 This research is purely based on secondary data. The study has been conducted only from the perspective of the dimensions identified for the study. There could be other dimensions affecting the globalization of management education. 4. Research Methodology This is a descriptive research and attempts to present the status of management education in India today. It is analytical, in that it tries to analyze the reasons that have hindered globalization of management education and also looks at the positives which can help the country make its management program truly global. The data taken for the study is through secondary sources only. This paper looks at the Globalization of Indian Management Education from the following perspectives: Table 1: Dimensions considered for the study Sl.No Dimension 1 Accreditation - International Accreditation 2 Admission Process-Quality of Student Intake and Foreign Admissions 3 Global Alumni Presence 4 Impetus to Research 5 Global Rankings The following table presents the various types of MBA programs that exist along with the no of institutes offering these programs and their salient features Table 2:Type of Management Programs in India and their Features Type of MBA No. of Institutes Salient Features IIMs(13), IITs(6), NITs 30+ Strong Legacy, Stringent processes, Established delivery setup; Autonomy Central and State University MBAs Low fee structure; Offer 'MBA'degree and MBAs offered by affiliated Private Colleges Private University MBA 650+ Top-10 match IIMs and are strong on Industry collaborations, faculty base, Updated curriculum, Rest are a mixed bag Ministry supported and Industry Promoted MBAs like IIFT, IRMA and ISB No Exact Estimate Government mentorship; financial Assistance; Projects on major government & public policy Industry driven curriculum PGDM Programs About 300+ Few are strong on Industry collaborations, faculty base, updated curriculum Rest are run of the mill programs Executive MBA programs 44+ Offered mainly to working executives with 5+ years of experience. Lauch pad to further their careers in management. Correspondence / Distance Learning MBA Programs 162+ Industry acceptance is generally not present but offers the option of learning without quitting work. Hence works well for working professionals. But the fear of churning out half -baked professionals does exist. Source: compiled from and 16

3 5. Dimension 1: Accreditation Accreditation is a process of validation in which colleges, universities and other institutions of higher learning are evaluated. The standards for accreditation are set by a peer review board whose members include faculty from various accredited colleges and universities. As per business dictionary, accreditation is defined as "certification of competence in a specified subject or areas of expertise, and of the integrity, awarded by a duly recognized and respected accrediting organization". Business schools provide India's rapidly growing industry with management professionals. In India, AICTE, NAAC,NBA and CRISIL provide accreditation to BSchools. This aims to recognize and nurture quality management education, while helping employers and aspiring management graduates find business schools that best match their needs. AICTE has approved 662 PGDM and 3217 MBA programs in the country while there only 70 MBA institutes approved by NAAC. Table 3: AICTE Approved PGDM/MBA programs PGDM Institutes 2015 Vs 2014 MBA Institutes 2015 Vs 2014 Central 48/49 318/331 Eastern 52/54 140/145 North Western 87/91 401/433 Northern 217/ /514 South Central 51/49 832/851 South West 40/45 272/282 Southern 83/90 378/401 Western 84/91 383/407 Total 662/ /3364 Total PGDM/MBA No.of PGDM/MBA Closed in Source : AICTE approval process handbook From the table 3 and the above chart, it is alarming to note that 159 AICTE approved PGDM/MBA programs have closed down in 2015 alone. This speaks about the deteriorating 17

4 quality of MBA programs as also the failure on the part of the institutes in delivering to the expectations of the stakeholders. The National Board of Accreditation (NBA), India initially established by AICTE (All India Council of Technical Education) in 1994, came into existence as an autonomous body January 2010, with the objective of Assurance of Quality and Relevance of Education, especially of the programs in professional and technical disciplines, i.e., Engineering and Technology, Management, Architecture, Pharmacy and Hospitality, through the mechanism of accreditation of programs offered by technical institutions. NBA has introduced a new process, parameters and criteria for accreditation. These are in line with the best international practices and oriented to assess the outcomes of the program. All essential prerequisites for international accreditation are included in the accreditation process of NBA. Therefore, NBA acts as a catalyst for the Institutions planning to acquire International Accreditation. Only 85 MBA programs have NBA accreditation in the country. CRISIL Business School Grading aims to help business schools achieve higher degrees of academic excellence, establish the right profile of institutes and showcase an institute's quality to students, faculty and employers across India. About 50 MBA programs have been accredited by CRISIL so far. Table 4: Accreditation of MBA/PGDM programs by Indian Bodies 5.1 International Accreditation There are three truly international accrediting organizations: - The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) - The Association of MBAs (AMBA) - The European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) However, less than 0.25 per cent of Indian B-schools have received any of prestigious international accreditation. Such international accreditation gives an advantage of international recognition, status and exposure. As these accreditations are based on assessment and verification of several parameters, including rigor in admission process, learning expectations and assurance, faculty quality, course curriculum, infrastructure, international interface, ethics, diversity, innovation, placements, among others, it serves the B-schools by informing them of their strengths and weaknesses vis-avis their global peers. 18

5 5.1.1.AACSB The US-based Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) was established in 1916 as a membership organisation for business schools. In 1919, the first AACSB Accreditation Standards were adopted with the primary objective of improving collegiate business education. Today, the AACSB Accreditation Standards are used as the basis to evaluate a business school's mission, operations, faculty qualifications and contributions, programs, and other critical areas. AACSB accreditation ensures students and parents that the business school is providing top-quality education. It also ensures employers that AACSB-accredited business school graduates are ready to perform from day one. AACSB's accreditation standards drive impact, innovation and engagement with students, employers, and various stakeholders. The standards are rigorous, relevant, and benchmarks of quality. Institutions that hold AACSB accreditation are committed to high quality and continuous improvement - a powerful differentiator worldwide. Currently, the following Indian business schools are accredited by AACSB: 1. Indian Institute of Management Calcutta 2. Indian School of Business, Hyderabad 3. T A Pai Management Institute Manipal There are several B-schools who are members of AACSB, but have not received accreditation AMBA The Association of MBAs (AMBA) is one of the major accreditation bodies for postgraduate business education and was established in The London-based group positions itself as "the world's impartial authority on postgraduate management education". The AMBA system judges the quality of a business school's strategy, mission, faculty, students, curriculum, and assessment. It differs from AACSB and EQUIS as it accredits a school's portfolio of postgraduate business programs rather than the entire business school. To date AMBA has accredited programmes at 210 business schools in over 70 countries. Its process of accrediting an MBA program includes reviewing compliance with over 100 criteria, most of them qualitative rather than quantitative. The criteria fall into seven dimensions: history and development of the institution; facilities and libraries; teaching faculty, teaching standards and research track record; program administration, career and alumni services; student admission standards, diversity and cohort size; curriculum content, program mode and duration; and learning outcomes. Some of the key AMBA criteria for the accreditation of an MBA program include: - All admitted students should have at least three years of full-time post-graduation work experience upon the start of the MBA course - A school should have a track record of at least three years of graduating MBA students before it can be accredited - An MBA program should have a cohort size of at least 20 students. - At least 50% of the faculty of an MBA program (including visiting faculty as part of the total) are normally expected to have PhD degrees - A full-time MBA curriculum should contain no less than 500 contact (teaching) hours and a 19

6 distance-learning MBA program should have no less than 120 contact hours The following business schools in India are AMBA-accredited: 1. Indian Institute of Management Calcutta 2. Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode 3. Indian Institute of Management Lucknow 4. International Management Institute, Delhi 5. Management Development Institute, Gurgaon 6. S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research Mumbai 7. Great Lakes Institute of Management Chennai EQUIS EQUIS (managed by the Brussels-based European Foundation for Management Development - EFMD) is one of the major international systems of quality assessment, improvement and accreditation for business schools that provide courses in management and business administration. EQUIS evaluates a business school's governance, strategy, programs, students, faculty, research and development, executive education, contribution to the community, resources and administration, internationalisation, and corporate connections.the fundamental objective of EQUIS is to raise the standard of management education worldwide. EQUIS assesses institutions as a whole. It assesses not just degree programmes but all the activities and sub-units of the institution, including research, e-learning units, executive education provision and community outreach. Institutions must be primarily devoted to management education. EQUIS looks for a balance between high academic quality and the professional relevance provided by close interaction with the corporate world. A strong interface with the world of business is, therefore, as much a requirement as a strong research potential. EQUIS attaches particular importance to the creation of an effective learning environment that favours the development of students's managerial and entrepreneurial skills, and fosters their sense of global responsibility. It also looks for innovation in all respects, including programme design and pedagogy. Institutions that are accredited by EQUIS must demonstrate not only high general quality in all dimensions of their activities, but also a high degree of internationalisation. With companies recruiting worldwide, with students choosing to get their education outside their home countries, and with schools building alliances across borders and continents, there is a rapidly growing need for them to be able to identify those institutions in other countries that deliver high quality education in international management. As of now, only two business schools in India are accredited by EQUIS: 1. Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad 2. Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore SAQS In addition to these truly international accreditation, The Association of Management Development Institutions in South Asia (AMDISA), based out of India (Hyderabad) provides SAQS (South Asian Quality Assurance System) accreditation, which involves mentoring, selfassessment documentation, peer review and apex committee evaluation. In India, the following business schools have received SAQS accreditation: 20

7 1. Asian School of Business Management, Bhubaneswar 2. ICFAI Business School Hyderabad Campus 3. IILM Institute for Higher Education, New Delhi 4. International Management Institute, New Delhi 5. Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad 6. Institute of Public Enterprise, Hyderabad 7. K.J. Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research, Mumbai 8. Management Development Institute, Gurgaon 9. SVKM'S NMIMS School of Business Management, Mumbai 10. Prin. L.N. Welingkar Institute of Management Development & Research, Mumbai 11. Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB) 12. XLRI School of Business and Human Resources, Jamshedpur ACBSP In 1989, several B-schools found that the AACSB-accredited business schools had an emphasis on research, while most business schools had emphasis on teaching. Based on the analysis of this gap, ACBSP (Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs) was established to accredit business schools with emphasis on teaching and learning. Currently ACBSP accredits nearly 8,000 programs at over 1,200 campuses across the world. However, ACBSP accreditation is widely seen as less stringent that of other accreditation bodies such as AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA. Currently, some programs of the following B-schools in India are accredited by ACBSP: 1. Amity University, Noida 2. Apeejay School of Management, New Delhi 3. ICBM - School of Business Excellence, Hyderabad (Doctorate degree only) 4. Jansons School of Business, Coimbatore 5. Lovely Professional University, Punjab 6. PSG Institute of Management, Coimbatore 7. Ramaiah Institute of Management Studies, Bangalore 8. Regional College of Management Autonomous, Bhubaneswar 9. School of Communication and Management Studies, Cochin (Doctorate degree only) Importantly, only doctorate degrees in some of these institutions have received ACBSP recognition.the validity of such accreditation is also important as the accreditation can be withdrawn anytime if the required criteria are not maintained by the institute. Table 5: International accreditation of Indian MBA /PGDM programs 21

8 Tier I programs are housed in institutions with autonomy to review the content of curriculum and make changes as a result of recommendations from accreditation visits. These institutions have the fiscal and academic independence to engage in continuous improvement actions without waiting for the approval of outside bodies unlike the affiliated institutions. Table 6: Comparison of International Accreditation of MBA programs with other Asian Countries Source: 6. Admission Process Some of the metrics used by business schools for measuring quality are: students quality, placement, faculty development and teaching pedagogy. 6.1 Quality of Student Intake Getting admission to one of the premium business schools is considered to help students in their growth. Common admission tests are conducted by IIM's for admission into their schools. Other business institutes also use the CAT score for their admission process. However admission to the tier II and III BSchools are through entrance exams conducted by respective state governments and Private B School associations. The minimum eligibility criteria is set to 50% at the graduation level and no GD or PI is conducted unlike the premier BSchools. WorkExperience is also not mandatory in tier II and III BSchools which affects the receptiveness of management education. The Business schools admit students from a variety of background like engineering, commerce, 22

9 medicine, science and liberal arts. This helps in the diversity and a good classroom experience. Business schools are continuously upgrading the skills they are imparting to make it more relevant to the industry requirements. 6.2 Admission of Foreign Students AICTE prescribes a maximum of 5% of total intake for NRI student admission in accredited colleges. The presence of foreign students studying in manage*ment programs in India is a very small number. No exact estimates were found. 7. Global Alumni Presence The premier Tier I B Schools, accounting to about the top 20 B Schools (including IIMs, ISBs, IITs/NITs, XLRI etc)in the country have been having companies recruiting for international positions from years. This does ensure global presence of students but again limited to tier I institutes mainly. 8. Impetus to Research Research Contribution from Indian Management Education has been miniscule. This has been due to various factors like lack of funding for research and lack of support from industry. The Naveen Jindal School of Management - The University of Texas at Dallas Top 100 business School Research rankings has only one institutee ie. ISB from India at no. 97. Within the country, contribution to Research between stands as follows: Table 7: University of Texas at Dallas Research Rankings: Contribution to Management Research between in India 23

10 9. Global Rankings In the Global MBA Rankings published by Financial Times, only 3 Indian Management Institutes exist in the top 100, which are IIMA Rank 26 ISB- Rank 32 IIMB-Rank 82 This dismal performance of Indian Management Schools in comparison to China (Rank No 11), again underlines the lack of quality in Indian Management Education in the Global Scene. Majority of the top ranked institutions are from US and Europe, followed by Australia and Canada. 10. Suggestions & Conclusion From the above data and discussion it can be observed that though India has the largest number of B Schools in the world, it has lacked the competence to rise up to Global Standards barring only the few IIMs, IITs and ISB. Indian Management Education can go global only if the following measures can be adopted particularly the tier II and III institutions: 1. Admission process to be made more stringent ; Admission to Management Education to be only awarded by merit and to people with Work experience, 2. Minimum Entry level criteria and prerequisites to be redefined. 3. Bridge courses mandatory for all students, particularly in economics, statistics, accounts and English to improve entry level quality 4. Skill development aligned to industry requirement and to be made core requirement to be mandatorily fulfilled. 5. Continuous Industry Involvement in curriculum development and revision. 6. Industry support for Industry-academia interface (for internships, industrial visits, corporate guest lectures, projects etc). 7. More widespread use of MOOC platform for students to get on par with the latest subjects of industry relevance offered by universities across the world. 8. Emphasis on research; Government and Industry Funding for Management Research. Indian management research need not necessarily follow the American model; Western theories always need not be extrapolated to the Indian context rather new indigenous theories should be developed as India is the strongest emerging economy and the entire world is looking up to India for investments, markets and human capital. 9. Approving and Regulatory Authorities to curb mushrooming of sub-standard management institutions. 10. Faculty Recruitments should ensure that only those with industry experience and academic orientation are in.constant upgrading of skills,industry sabbaticals, consultancy assignments with corporates, conducting MDPs, contribution to Research should be made compulsory and linked to performance appraisal. Sufficient Time, infrastructure and resources also need to be made available. In conclusion, the organizational change processes and globalization of businesses should now 24

11 trigger a change in our management education and research. There are more Indian CEOs than any other nationality after Americans in S&P 500 companies, finds a study by Egon Zehnder. It has to be noted that the CEOs, though have had their basic graduation in engineering from India, all of them have had their Management Education from abroad. Nevertheless Time magazine terms CEOs as India's leading 'export' and states that the subcontinent could be 'the ideal training ground for global bosses'. We must leverage this vantage position in the business climate and make our Management Education truly global. References: 1. Arun Kumar Kaushik and Jagbir Singh Dalal Management Education in India Research Paper Uttarakhand Technical University 2. Khatri et.al., Management Research in India: Current State and Future Directions.IIMB Management Review; June Vipin Gupta and Kamala Gollakata, Quality in Business education: A study of the Indian context. Paper prepared for and presented at the Business Education and Emerging Market Economies: Trends and Prospects Conference, Technology Square, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, November 7, Agnihotri & Chaturvedi, 5th Indian Management Conclave-2014, New Delhi, Discussion Paper, Indian Management Education Vision 2025 extracted from EPSI-MBAUniverse.com 5. AICTE Approval Process handbook retrieved from 6. L i s t o f N B A a c c r e d i t e d M B A / P G D M p r o g r a m s e x t r a c t e d f r o m 7. L i s t o f C R I S I L a c c r e d i t e d M B A / P G D M p r o g r a m s e x t r a c t e d f r o m 8. List of NAAC accredited MBA/PGDM programs extracted from 9. International Accreditation for Indian B Schools extracted from The UTD Top 100 Business School Research Ranking extracted from University of Dallas, Naveen Jindal School of Management, Global MBA Ranking 2015, FT.com Business School Rankings extracted from 25