What’s Been Going Wrong With MBA in India?

What’s Been Going Wrong With MBA in India?

When it comes to naming a PGDM school, people immediately think of  The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. For Hyderabad, it is the Indian School of Business. And such is the state with all states in India. It would’ve been a good thing, only if we wouldn’t have a plethora of b-schools – more than 5000 – everywhere across the country. What’s the point of opening up so many management schools, if they’re not going to provide a worthwhile and all-round education to the students? Why should a candidate, after months and months, and often years of studying aspire to take an admission to not a lower ranking but a low standard b-school? Why should there ever be an MBA or PGDM school with low standards existing at all?

They Suffer from a Poor Curriculum

That’s the very first reason behind all hell breaking loose in the area of MBA education. The way the curriculum itself has been designed, and on the top of it the poor way of its deliverance – it ultimately takes a toll on the students. The course should be designed keeping in mind its practical implications in the industry. Because what good is the theory for a student if does nothing to make them more aware of and teach them ways to tackle the real-life corporate problems. The right way to take this obstacle head-on is to keep reviewing the coursework periodically so as to keep it abreast with the industry standards of those times. This is the only way that after passing out of even the good b-schools, students won’t find themselves unemployable by companies who think they are at best, mediocre. And that brings us to our next point.

 They Observe a Poor Placement Ratio

We were talking about more than 5000 b-schools that the country has. As impressive as this number is, about 2000 of these colleges which are at the bottom of the ranking list, are unable to place even 15% of their management graduates. Companies are troubled, and rightly so, by the education system followed by these schools. With bookish knowledge being the only kind that students are being acquainted with, a case-study approach being limited in very few colleges, companies find themselves doubting any decision to take MBAs from just any institute. It, therefore, goes back to the previous point – placements can only be improved if the pedagogy at every PGDM school, Delhi, Hyderabad, and every other city undergoes a major change. 

Everyone’s Looking for a Quick Fix

A person has a degree in Engineering, but they never like anything about the field. How do they change their field? Get an MBA or a PGDM. Someone’s tired of getting more or less the same paycheque every month, year after year. How do they jump to an insanely high salary bracket? Get an MBA or a PGDM.

There are so many students looking to get a management degree, but only a few are able to crack the entrance exam with exceptional scores. How to get the remaining students a seat in exchange for a huge fee? Open a b-school. How to get an impression of running a decent management school? Design a shoddy curriculum, get some people from respective industries with little or no experience to teach, and get a decent infrastructure that can hold the students, teachers, and the curriculum together.

It’s a quick fix that everyone’s hoping for, on both the sides. And that frankly fixes nothing in the end. Both sides need to have a clear idea of what they want and the reason why that want it. A candidate should be getting an MBA for all the right reasons. Similarly, every PGDM school and all Indian cities should not just see students with low scores as their big chance to earn loads of money, while in reality they make them pay with their careers and eventually their future.

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