Prospects for Management Education in India

Management education is increasingly becoming important and playing a central role in the success of managers and organizations worldwide. The importance of the education sector, particularly a professional discipline like management studies, is increasing day by day in our country. In India, Management education has seen a remarkable growth in recent years as reflected in the steep rise in the number of higher learning institutes offering programmes in management at various levels but it is a complex one. Management Education system in India is governed by the central government through Ministry of Human Resource Development and its statutory bodies like AICTE, UGC etc. The quantitative growth of institutions in private sector smacks of attempts to commercialize and this need to be curbed. These institutions need to play a major role in producing the right quality and quantity of managers to meet the requirements of the market place. Nowadays the management institutions are facing a lot of problems for attaining quality in management education. In order to improve the quality of management education being imparted in 17 National Institutes of Technology (former Regional Engineering Colleges, RECs) and to grade them to the level of IITs, these institutions have been fully- funded institutions under the central government. These institutions aim to improve the standards and offer world- class quality management education matching the global standards so as to attract the students to Indian Management Educational institutions. An effective management education is a must to produce world-class Indian managers besides making India a regional hub for management education. But some state level aided and self-financed institutions cannot attain this level of education. The students and parents are expecting more performance from these institutions except IIT and IIMs. This paper mainly concentrates on challenges and perspectives in management education and also explains the way of improvement of quality in management educational institutions.

Challenges and Perspectives

One of the main challenges of management institutions is to obtain NBA (National Board of Accreditation) certificates. In order to improve the quality of management education and for attaining excellence in service of institutes, they must get accreditation to NBA. The setting up of NBA for managerial education and NAAC for general education under the initiative of AICTE and UGC respectively has been incorporated for infusing and improving the quality of education. The NBA carries out workshops, programmes and other activities for finalization of evaluation procedures and methodologies. It has to assess the quality of various constituents viz. administration, human resources, physical resources, academics, library, computer facilities etc. the establishment of NBA accreditation in various institutions is by and far neglected because of the programmes that have to be conducted. The institutions do not wish to spend resources in this regard and therefore, avoid this accreditation, even though they know it would improve the educational standards. The next challenge is the quality benchmarks are not implemented by the management institution due to several constraints which they are not able to overcome.

Management Education: the Present Scenario

The US National Science Foundation (NSF) Task force on TQM has come up with the following Quality Management Education: “Quality Management education is the development of intellectual skills, managerial skills and knowledge that will equip graduates to contribute to society through productive and satisfying management careers as innovators, decision-makers, entrepreneurs and leaders in the global economy of the twenty first century”. The Ministry of Human Resource Development announced Constitution of National Mission on January 10, 2002, with the main objective “to prepare and implement a long-term strategy for Management education in the country”. Management education is essential to improve the managerial manpower of the country. Managerial manpower is the key to industrial growth and development of the country. Quality is the fabric of every organization, and it is a vital component for its survival. Nowadays pass percentage, placement success rate, knowledge dissemination and the skills acquired constitute the vital output for management education programmes. Unfortunately, these are at unsatisfactory levels in management education, because some of the problems plaguing these institutions are lack of infrastructure, shortage of qualified faculty, poor student results, improper placement facilities etc. there is need to improve the quality of education. This can be achieved through establishment of Quality Improvement Techniques and National Board of Accreditation (NBA) for entire institutions.

Cause and Effect Diagram

The Cause and Effect diagram is one of the easiest and most useful tool for defect minimization. It assists in identifying root causes by asking, repeatedly why a cause exists. To identify and solve a problem it is important to know the real causes and the interrelations among causes. The cause for less performance has been explored and cause and effect diagram has been developed.

In order to enhance the effectiveness of Indian Management Education system the following suggestions has to be considered. The cause and effect diagram of figure brings together the various reasons, which eventually lead to the inefficiencies observed in MEIs. We would consider these reasons to come under the sub-division of student, faculty, infrastructure and methodology. A proper selection process of students must be established with guidelines, rules and regulations that make sure that the admission process is done only on the basis of merit. Before admission, proper orientation programmes must be conducted to make the students aware to the course in hand and it’s potential. Especially the government has to take severe steps in selecting the students those who having professionally qualified in under-graduate courses and scored high marks in competitive examination must be preferred in management education like rated business schools in India.

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With reference to faculty, the knowledge of the staff can be improved by conducting faculty development programmes / management development programme. Furthermore, regular seminars and workshops must be conducted to give them both experience and involvement in the subject matter. During the recruiting process, as far as possible, experienced staff must be considered and preference must be given to Ph.D holders. The overall attitude and work culture of the teaching and non-teaching faculty must be improved through counseling and quality circle programmes. The main purpose of the quality circle programme is to solve academic related problems.

The overall improvement of the infrastructure of the Management Educational Institutions (MEIs) can be done by providing digitalized library (E-learning) and well-equipped business communication laboratories. It should have a standard curriculum in the first year while in the second year the school should have autonomy and freedom to evolve curriculum as per the market needs. Arrangement of software courses along with free Internet access must be provided to the students and faculty. Furthermore, an Academic Performance Development Cell (APDC) must be established to enable proper planning and introduction of new specialized courses/subjects into the curriculum with due considerations after meeting all the requirements for such programmes. Along with these, library and canteen facilities must also be provided. Through the provision of library facilities, proper guides and references are available in plenty to both students and staff to give them more knowledge on a larger scale.

The teaching methodology is a major cause for the inefficiencies witnessed in MEIs. On the whole it can be improved by employing ideas and means that complement each other. The use of teaching tools like LCD/OHP and other constructive methods on involvement must be encouraged. Various workshops, seminars and conferences must be conducted for the staff to improve their subject knowledge and also supplement to research activities. An adequate amount of interaction between the institute and industries must be established to give staff and students proper view or ideas concerning the industrial field. The management should hire the expert members of various discipline including industrial executive and emerging entrepreneurs to give lectures to give exposure and to enhance the employability skills among the student community. The lack of proper provision of incentives to the staff and students has result in lowered efficiencies of the institution on the whole. A well maintained reward system would result in better performance among the staff and students and also that creates a healthy competition among the faculty. The Institutions should have a visionary leader to create a corporate quality culture to sustain in global competitiveness.

Implementation of the various ideas discussed above eventually result in the progressive excellence of the Management Education Institutions.

Conclusion

Management Education in India is increasing at exponential growth, both inside the country and foreign franchises are in providing Management Education. Management education should be seen as a discipline contributing to the development of economy and society beyond business. For bolstering leading position, good management schools in India need to keep the global best schools as their lodestars. Blessed with exceptionally bright students, dedicated faculty and staff, and formidable reputation for professionalism, MEIs have the potential to emerge as global leaders in setting new aspirations, and showing the way to achieve them.