Challenging the script: Change in B-school education can be remarkably slow

The MBA degree is fittingly the most market led formal educational qualification in India today.  From the broad rise in applicants and uniform course offerings through the 90’s to the many new specialisations and other domain specific offerings today. Subjects like entrepreneurship, product, healthcare etc. that are increasingly being offered at top schools indicate a pressure and hopefully, desire to respond to new realities.  

Of course, a combination of government backing and a major metro still works to make for a really great combination. That explains the resilience of FMS, Delhi University at the top, or the rise of DMS, IIT Delhi, besides the continued hold of the ‘older’ IIM’s in the top heap.  In fact, the struggles of the newer IIM’s only underscore the challenges building an institution from a smaller town can throw up in India today. Unless you challenge the script, as IIM-Shillong or say, IIM-Kashipur has tried.  

Government backing extracts a price, be it flexibility, and eventually, quality. For every FMS, there are university department in states whose MBA course are floundering. Privately managed institutes are more than holding their own in those places. 

Today, an IMT Ghaziabad, IMI Delhi, or the three out of the top 5 in West zone, privately managed institutes have built their case by being far more responsive to new realities. 

Of course there are areas where they simply cannot compete. The truism, ‘support education, not the educated’ was perhaps never more relevant than these top institutes, when it comes to the ROI (Return on investment) rankings.  It can be very difficult to go up against state subsidies, with 9 out of the top 10 ranks taken by government backed institutes. The two leading Delhi based institutes, unsurprisingly, are table tippers here.

The table I found most interesting though was the rankings table for institutes based on entrepreneurship.  These institutes have not just responded, but moved a little ahead of the curve when it comes to their focus on entrepreneurship. For make no mistake, in India, I would venture to say that the typical MBA student is probably far less entrepreneurial as compared to her counterparts in other comparable markets. An MBA at a top B school is still seen as a ticket to stable job with higher earnings.  It’s something I discovered the hard way, when I took some sessions at top schools in the past year on entrepreneurship. Students might blame everything from preparing a small nest egg to paying off student loans to even lack of a co-founder, but in the top institutes, I would venture to say that less than 5% actually join with a plan to consider entrepreneurship. 

Even those taking specific courses join after a little work experience, or after concluding (correctly, I might add), that an entrepreneurial mindset is a valuable asset to have even in regular firms today.   

The pity is that the biggest worry about turning entrepreneur remains as old as it was a decade back, despite the improvement in many metrics like ease of doing business etc. The fear of failure.  It’s something that cannot really be taught perhaps, but as of now, I doubt any of our institutes are even trying. After all, with the whole degree arguably reduced to a preparation for the final placements show, how can they? Since it is enterprise we are talking about here, perhaps it will be the students themselves who need to find a way out here. 

And a way out has to be found.  As sector after sector faces disruption, be it through startups that innovate complete layers or processes out of the value chain, to changing consumer preferences, and now, even change forced by issues of sustainability, I believe MBA’s are being caught short.

To take one example, in an education system where the environment and sustainability barely get a mention in schools and most graduate courses, it is normal to find students nonplussed at the whole ‘brouhaha’ around climate change. Think about the employee who is tasked with an order to source energy from renewable sources.  Or lead a move to make all facilities zero discharge for water. Or even find ways to ‘compensate’ for the firm’s impact on the environment. These are real challenges today, which our management pass outs need to know. Management students need to see these as an opportunity to do better than the previous generation of managers, who are perhaps even worse off in most cases. Finding a solution to a ban on single use plastic, for instance, could make fortunes.  Words like circular economy have acquired a whole new urgency which needs to be understood and appreciated by any self-respecting manager.

Change can be remarkably slow in education. And so it goes with rankings of institutes too. The good news is that in this decade we have seen enough changes in the lists to indicate that we could be on the cusp of bigger movements. There are many institutes out there, beyond the top 10, or even the top 20, who are working hard to find a way to deliver the best product to their customers (the students and corporate world). I for one certainly believe that the era of government backed institutes dominating the lists might be ending sooner than we expect. Though I would never underestimate the power of alumni backed overhauling at some of the best ones, to keep them up there. After all, one of the most powerful reasons for a business education remains the network you build, preferably for life. That’s one area where the top institutes, even government backed ones, have truly caught up with the world, and are beginning to build on these networks finally.

The author is founder of IamRenew.com.