'Shifting focus from teaching to research'

IN CONVERSATION

A professor in marketing and vice-chancellor at the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management and Higher Studies (Deemed University), Mumbai, N M Kondap has had a 12-year long stint with the institution. In a chat with Business Standard, he talks about NMIMS completing 25 years and future plans. Excerpts:

From a management institute to a deemed university, NMIMS has come a long way. What next?

We started in 1981 and have achieved a lot since then. The past two years have been a growth phase for NMIMS and we are planning to refocus ourself from being an institute to a university.

Thus we are establishing five business schools namely, schools of business management, technology management and engineering, pharmacy and management, family business, and a school for distance learning in management.

We have also launched a doctoral programme in management this year in association with Xavier's Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship, Bangalore, and T A Pai Management Institute, Manipal.

Other programmes include an MBA (global business), MBA (retail management) and MBA (services management). We will also be starting an MBA in pharma-tech which will be a five-year integrated programme after the 12th standard.

Is academic research a part of your agenda? How do you plan to promote it?

Yes we are shifting our focus from teaching to research, consultancy and training. The idea is to develop scholars. In five years time with each of our five schools offering doctoral programmes, NMIMS will have 75 doctoral students registered.

This means that slowly and steadily, research is getting its reward. We are devising a method whereby we would reward the faculty if there papers are published in international journals and magazines. The reward will be in cash and decided by a committee which will look into getting papers published in such international publications.

We are also working at reducing the teaching load of faculty by providing them an option to choose between research, developing case study or teaching. We have to evolve a mechanism where the faculty is free to pursue his interest and thus excel in the same.

Also, I think, we should also talk of is industry-institute partnerships. The research wing of the corporates should have a collaboration with the research wing of academics. Doing a project just for its sake will do no good. A research should have commercial proposition too.

Is NMIMS planning to make a foray abroad?

We are planning to open campuses in Dubai and Singapore by 2008 and would offer our MBA and MBA Tech programmes. We are also looking at academic tie-ups and student exchange programme with institutes abroad.

So far we have tie-ups with five institutes in France and are currently in talks with three institutes in Sweden and UK and five universities in the US. In India we have plans to branch out in North and South.

Do you think FDI in education should be allowed?

It does not matter. What is important is as long as the entry of foreign universities is governed by regulatory norms, it is good. Competition helps us raise our standards. We should look at FDI as an opportunity not threat.

If foreign institutes can attract Indian students, why can't Indian institutes attract foreign students. FDI will be a positive development for Indian education sector and this will lead to collaborations and synergy in the sector which is need of the hour.