Two years ago, Neha Deshpande, secured her postgraduate diploma in human resource management from a reputed B-schools in Pune. The diploma cost her around Rs 10 lakh, but did not fetch her with a job in her specialisation, human resource (HR). After a struggle of two years, Deshpande has joined the work force albeit as a technical expert in writing.
Deshpande has joined the likes of many such management graduates in Pune and other cities in Maharashtra who despite the coveted management degree are far from landing their dream job.
Placement has been the deciding factor for students to chose an institute to seek admission. And with many colleges faltering on this front, several of them have seen almost 50 per cent of their seats going vacant. Some have also reportedly shut down their department of management or courses.
In Maharashtra, over 17,000 seats have remained vacant under the centralised admission process (CAP) in B-schools for this year. A recent report on vacancies in technical institutes submitted by a state-appointed committee revealed that 58 per cent of MBA schools had more than 35 per cent seats vacant for the 2013-14 academic session. Many of the institutes experienced weak response during the admission process. Only the top 15-20 B-schools in the state have managed to fulfil the quota. The average fee for private B-schools ranges between Rs 4 lakh and Rs 8 lakh a year.
"It is true that B-schools across Maharashtra are in trouble. There are several reasons for it. There is a huge demand supply gap for management schools. In the last few years, the state has seen mushrooming of B-schools. This uncontrolled growth of management schools has lead to deterioration of its quality," said C M Chitale, professor and former head, department of management of sciences, University of Pune (PUMBA).
There are 40,968 seats available in 368 management institutes this year, of which 17,478 seats are vacant. Under the CAP rounds, conducted by the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE), 32,867 seats were available.
There is a huge demand-supply gap in case of management schools. There are far more institutes than the actual requirement. Under Pune University, there are more than 260 B-schools with 22,000 seats.
"If there are institutions shutting down, fundamentally, there is a problem with their quality. This is a consolidation process where the good institutions stay and the bad ones shut down. This is a temporary phase and we see enrollment figures going up in the next two years," said Shankar S Mantha, Chairman, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), country's technical education regulator.
The situation remains bad for colleges even after the discontinuation of group discussion (GD) and personal interview for MBA admission. From the last year, the state higher and technical education department skipped GD and personal interview (PI) for MBA admission. These were two important stages during admission to B-schools in Maharashtra till last year.
Scores of Common Admission Test (CAT), Management Aptitude Test (MAT), Xavier Aptitude Test (XAT) and AIMS test of management admissions (ATMA) will also be accepted for admission. From this academic year, most states, including Maharashtra, have discontinued their state-level tests and opted for CMAT score. CMAT is an all-India test conducted by AICTE.
"MBA is a different ball game, and special skill sets are required to be an MBA. We are running the courses in a completely different manner, compared to the US or other western countries. A 120-hour programme is made available for the students. Also, many online course are is available for free," said Milind Pande, project director, MIT School of Telecom Management, Pune, Pune.
According to Pande, trained faculty is another serious issue in the B-schools. The faculty itself requires appropriate training on regular basis. Very few institutes organise training programmes for the teachers. In a nutshell, the reasons for unhealthy growth of B-schools are increased fee structure, quality of institutes, demand supply gap, untrained faculties and bad practices in running the institute.
(With inputs from Kalpana Pathak)
