B-school quality

In a year in which B-schools have been hitting the headlines for the wrong reasons, the All India Management Association's 2004 rating of schools brings some cheer.

The good news: nearly 30 per cent of the 283 schools rated""79 to be precise ""figure in the A category.

Despite deficiencies in areas like research, faculty quality and governance, this is the category that strives to offer quality in management education. In 2003, the number of schools in this category was less than 70.

The increase is no great shakes when juxtaposed against the nearly 1,000 B-schools in existence, thanks to the inability of the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) to ensure quality.

Indeed, exposure to adverse ratings seems to have prompted more of the lower-rated schools of 2003 to pull out of the rating test. Over 80 of them actually did so. Two of the newest IIMs, the ones at Kozhikode and Indore, which are reckoned to be a cut below the other IIMs, also did not participate this year.

In 2003, though they figured in the A+ category, they didn't make it to AIMA's Super League. While rating fatigue makes even some good schools avoid the rigours of such annual exercises, there is little doubt that the vast majority of those who opted out this time did so for fear of receiving poor ratings.

This suggests that ratings are becoming important in attracting customers to campus""both students and recruiters.

It is often said that the best way to judge a school is by asking its customers. Or by looking at the kind of money they are willing to fork out to buy its products.

In placement season 2003, the average monthly starting pay at most of the Super League schools was upwards of Rs 50,000. But money is not a foolproof way of evaluating the worth of an MBA.

Many corporate recruiters admit that they go to the top schools because it saves them the trouble of sifting through lakhs of candidates; the B-schools have done that job for them at the admission stage itself.

In the case of the lowest categories of schools""those rated C in the AIMA survey""the pay levels tell the story.

The average salaries in this category were less than Rs 10,000 per month last year""not very different from what call centre jobs offer. With the growth of undergraduate courses in management""BBAs ""these schools also face competition from a new quarter.