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Make
B-schools more relevant Oxford
gets £75m philanthropic gift Campus
Notes
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Make B-schools more relevant
A
lot has passed under the bridge since the fiasco that engulfed CAT 2009. The maiden attempt to go online by the organisers of CAT in conjunction with a foreign firm had resulted in chaos all round. But not much ink has been spilt so far to analyse the causes that resulted in such an embarrassment. One may think that the silence was due to our national ethos to avoid criticising the high and mighty. Perhaps it exemplified the adage that he who cannot do, teaches. After all, there could have been no greater sacrilege than to question the project implementation capabilities of those entrusted with such a prestigious responsibility. The first fundamental mistake committed was to ignore the age-old principle of plan implementation, “whatever I have not inspected, I have neglected”. There was a dire need to conduct a dry run simulating the scales of the mammoth task involved. Carrying out test-runs of the software in air-conditioned offices just to check if there were any bugs was not enough. A systems approach that integrated the hardware, software and the operational environment was needed. The second mistake was to give a go-by to contingency planning. Any plan that involves diverse operational facets must have pre-identified milestones that should lead to multiple options. In short, at no stage a manager should come across a situation, where he has to ask himself, “Now what?”. Because any plan that leads to a stage of “Now what?” is fundamentally and ab initio faulty. Once the organisers of CAT 2009 realised that there were major problems at hand, they did not have any contingency plan to fall back upon. They persisted with the “failure” for a long period to compound the embarrassment and then announced that they were switching over to the pen-and-pencil mode of testing. There is a requirement for our premier business schools to introspect and lay more emphasis on teaching the nuances of plan implementation. It is not that this aspect is not being taught today in these institutions. Perhaps the pedagogical approach needs to be revisited to ensure that the students imbibe the finer points of planning process and plan implementation. It may include introduction of role plays lasting over a period, where different scenario are depicted to train students in the process of plan implementation, coordination amongst different entities and most importantly, decision making in an ambiguous environment and that too when they are under stress. The trainers would have to be very ingenious to depict situations and create conditions, where students learn to implement plans under stress. It is worthwhile to note that Harvard Business School, one of the top-ranking business schools in the world, has recently modified its pedagogy to lay greater emphasis on field work. There is another aspect related to the teaching in our business schools that needs attention. Almost all the business schools try and follow a similar curriculum. And most of the times, the tendency is to imitate the premier business schools without taking into consideration the quality and aptitude of the students, and the capability of the faculty to deliver that curriculum. There is a need to realise that not all the students have the potential to work in corporate offices. Moreover, the capability of the MNCs to absorb the students coming out of our business schools is limited. Thus, each business school has to deliberate on its role and objectives. There are different types of entities in the industry. Apart from corporate houses, there are large-scale industries and also, the SMEs (small and medium enterprises). The capabilities and traits required of managers in different types of business organisations are different. Therefore, the curricula for these also have to be innovatively designed. Considering the nature of job, the type of workforce and the work-environment, a manager working with an SME requires different types of skill sets. Instead of laying emphasis on courses like strategic management, strategic marketing and strategic HR, the trainers would do well to design the curriculum to include courses like organisation of work and management of resources at the work site, etc. More importantly, the trainers would have to learn those aspects first before they start teaching. Different types of case studies and role-play exercises may have to be designed. Mushrooming of business schools in our country is often criticised and it is said that these are basically money-making shops out to cheat students. However, considering the size of our country and the expansion that our economy is witnessing, there is a need to have more business schools. But these schools have to identify their roles and objectives first and then design their curricula. The right way to go about doing this task is to first identify the skill sets required to be provided to a student and then design the curriculum. That rarely happens! Professional bodies like various management associations could help in this direction. They could act as bridges between the industry and the academia and help identify the skill sets required in different categories of the industry. The academic regulatory bodies, instead of harping on a model curriculum, should actually facilitate inculcation of diversity of business schools depending upon the needs of the industry, the caliber of students and the nature of work environment. Similarly, accreditation agencies should help in developing the list of skill sets in conjunction with professional bodies, see where a particular business school fits in, and then provide their ratings. After all, every car factory cannot be expected to produce vehicles matching the quality of Mercedes-Benz! The same goes for the business schools; every school cannot be expected to produce corporate managers. The writer is Vice-Chancellor, Chitkara
University, Himachal Pradesh |
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Oxford gets £75m philanthropic gift OXFORD University’s poorest students will be spared £9,000 tuition fees, thanks to the biggest philanthropic gift for undergraduate support in European history, the university announced. A £75m gift from the venture capitalist Michael Moritz and his wife, the novelist Harriet Heyman, will mean that students with family incomes below £16,000 will have tuition fees slashed to only £3,500 per year. This effectively abolishes the recent rise to £9,000-a-year fees. The first 100 beneficiaries will receive funding in the academic year starting this October and the university envisages that soon all students in the lowest income bracket — as many as one in ten Oxford undergraduates — will benefit. The unprecedented size of the donation - which will help establish a student support programme totalling £300m — represents a shift for Oxford towards the American-style endowment model of university funding. The donor, Michael Moritz, the chairman of Sequoia Capital, was educated at a Cardiff comprehensive school and Christ Church College, Oxford. He previously donated $50m to his alma mater in 2008. Moritz said he was inspired to support poorer students by “the kindness of strangers” who funded him through a British education. “The arithmetic is simple,” he said. “If you are a family earning under £16,000, the cost of an Oxford education, at £34,000, is terrifying. Every head throughout the UK should understand there is no obstacle for any of their pupils who have the academic ability to merit a place at Oxford.” Moritz hopes the funding programme will be emulated by other universities in the UK and Europe. — The Independent |
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Campus Notes THERE is a dire need of coordination between the education sector and the industry so that employment could be generated and need-based vocational courses could be started accordingly. These views were expressed by the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Ajaib Singh Brar, while addressing a meeting of principals of various affiliated colleges of the university recently. Dr Rajinder Kaur Pawar, Dean, Academic Affairs; Dr Inderjit Singh, Registrar; Dr M.S. Hundal, Dean, College Development Council were also present on this occassion. Prof. Brar said his earnest efforts would be to provide vocational quality education to students, so that job avenues could be created. He appealed to the principals to look into the problems of students and try to solve them on priority. He said education imparted to students should be inculcated with moral and ethical values, so that good citizens could be made. He said in the next three years, the university and college administration system would be computerised and digitised. The principals also shared their problems with the Vice-Chancellor on this occasion. Supplementary exams The last date for the online submission of admission form of supplementary examinations without late fee is July 20. According to Prof. R.K. Mahajan, Professor In Charge (Examinations), admission forms will be accepted till August 2 with a late fee of Rs 250, while with a late fee of Rs 500, August 10 will be the last date. With a late fee of Rs 1,000, students can also submit admission form by August 21 and with a late fee of Rs 2,000, the last date will be August 31, he added. “After the expiry of above-mentioned dates, a student can submit admission form at the enquiry counter with a late fee of Rs 1,000 per day; ten days before the starting of these examinations,” he clarified.
B.Tech students win laurels Three B.Tech (Textile Chemistry) students of the Department of Applied Chemical Sciences and Technology of the university excelled during their training course with the world-class Advanced Academy for the Development of Textile Technologists (AADTT). Dr Kamaljit Singh, Professor and Head of the Department, said while one student was adjudged ‘Outstanding Student of AADTT 2011-12’, the other two were declared ‘Innovative Students of the Year’. Dr Singh said the department, which is equipped with ultra modern facilities with a strong backing from the textile industry, has been offering the B.Tech (Textile Chemistry) course since 1995.
Refresher course concludes A three-week refresher course in education organised by the Academic Staff College (ASC) of Guru Nanak Dev University concluded on the campus recently. Speaking at the valedictory session, the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Ajaib Singh Brar, asked teachers to keep abreast of all the drastic changes taking place in the field of education and also to incorporate them in their teaching. He exhorted the teachers to emulate work culture of their counterparts in the best universities and institutions in the world. While Prof. T.S. Banipal, Director, Academic Staff College, felicitated the participants, the Vice-Chancellor gave certificates to them after the successful completion of the course. The Academic Staff College of the university is ranked 12th amongst the 66 Academic Staff Colleges in the country. — Contributed by G. S. Paul |
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