'Quality gaps in B-schools despite upgrades'

The big B-school event of 2007 was not just the battle over autonomy for management institutions or the huge salary hikes for MBAs.

Rather, it was the significant improvement in the number of middle-rung business schools in the country.

This is one of the key findings of the 2007 annual B-school survey of the All India Management Association (AIMA), published by Indian Management, a Business Standard publication.

An overview of the ratings shows that there are significant changes in many of the categories.

For instance, the number of institutes in the A category has come down from 37 last year to 23 this year. The biggest change, however, has been in the middle segment, where in the B+ category, while there were 40 institutes last year, the number has shot up to 61.

The ratings focus on five core parameters: intellectual capital, interface with industry, governance, admissions and placement, and infrastructure.

The survey expectedly brings out the huge gap in quality among schools in the various categories.

For example, if you take the intellectual capital parameter, the average Super League school (the top-rung) has around 54 PhDs in their faculty. At the next level, the figure drops to 37. Then it crashes steadily all the way to C category schools with just three PhDs apiece.

Again, if you were to take the average number of titles published by the Super Leaguers, it is 26. The A-plus schools (below the Super League) also did a respectable 25. But by the time you get to the C schools, it's practically negligible.

There is also a vast difference in the average Indian salary paid to MBA graduates. While it is about Rs 10 lakh per annum for the Super Leaguers, it is just Rs 1.58 lakh a year for the schools in the C category.

The survey highlights some key challenges that B-schools face across the country. For one, research is clearly at a premium in most B-schools. Second, the huge teaching loads inflicted on faculty particularly in the lower-rung schools highlight an acute shortage of teachers. Third, particularly for those MBAs graduating from B and C category schools, employability and job-fit remain an issue.

However, despite these issues, B-schools continue to get a growing number of applicants every year. Institutions are also revamping their courses and curricula to suit the changing needs of students and industry.

The top rung B-schools in particular are on a global drive with many of them setting up campuses overseas, establishing exchange programmes with international institutes, inducting summer trainees and students from overseas, and having companies from abroad coming to them for placements.

Of the roughly 1400 B-schools approved by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), 201 participated in the AIMA survey conducted by IMRB International.

Of these only 194 were rated as others did not qualify or sent in their questionairres late. The full listing and related stories appear in the September edition of Indian Management.

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THE SUPER LEAGUE

Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi

Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore

Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta

Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad

International Management Institute, New Delhi

Management Development Institute, Gurgaon

National Institute of Industrial Engineering, Mumbai

SVKM's NMIMS, Mumbai

Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar

Xavier Labour Relations Institute, Jamshedpur

(in alphabetical order)