Business schools in India, including the IIM, need to rethink and reinvent their MBA programmes, said Harvard professor and global management education authority, Shrikant Datar at a Pune event.
The business schools in India, including the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) and top B-Schools, need to rethink and reinvent their MBA programmes, extensively to the emerging trends, said Harvard professor and global management education authority, Shrikant Datar. He spoke exclusively to DNA on the role of business schools in India.
A professor of accounting at Harvard University and co-author of seminal book Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a Crosswords, Datar was in the city recently to attend the 2011 Convocation of Foundation for Liberal And Management Education (FLAME), as a chief guest, at Lavale. He also delivered a talk at a special session, organised jointly by the Harvard Business Publishing and MBAUniverse.com, at the Hotel Marriot, Pune.
“It is an interesting dilemma that when we talk about business education in the US to change the way they operate and rethink their approach towards MBA education but the the IIMs, top B-Schools and rest of the business schools in India should also rethink on the effectiveness of their MBA programmes,” said Datar.
He said that instead of trying to catch up with the IIMs, as a standard goal, the other B-Schools must significantly rethink on the issues of quality, which might require
rationalisation.
On his hypothesis, based on inputs from India, Datar said that there is still a big gap in terms of critical thinking, leadership skills and experiential learning.
“It is very important for students to get engaged in what they are learning. In my opinion the role of faculty is not to get students engaged but to act as facilitators, what I call role reversal. The key output of creativity must be student driven,” he said.
With the biggest concern in India being to find skilled faculty, Datar said, “Faculty’s role is of a catalyst. It is crucial how the students learn. The faculty must understand that students must have the ability to learn how to learn. Areas like developing leadership skills, creative and critical thinking and innovative ideations by students demand more attention.”
Speaking about the business education eco-system in India compared to the US, Datar said, “In India it is not as strong as that in the US. In India, each school is interested in doing there own thing, there is no connection between the schools. Your connections within the very vast system will lead to ideas that become more global and broaden your horizons along with an increase in the educational value.”
The US B-Schools’ course development efforts, he said, had more global focus because of there sharing of syllabus and content material.
As the product lifecycle shortens, newer skills and innovative leadership becomes more important.
Datar said a whole new kind of skills will be in demand. “Sadly, there is very less emphasis on research in India. The faculty members have to do research and the B-Schools must train different resources, process and select different kinds of people. For research to be India relevant, B-Schools over here must build their own research culture and environment rather than copying from elsewhere,” he added.
On the lack of industry-academia collaboration, Datar said B-Schools must take industry inputs into account and not distance from the industry. He said that education is something more than the next job and the intention must not be focused on the first job but in development of career.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}