A avocation group cogitate finds that most MBA programs need better faculty, texts, and certification

by Alison Damast

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Business education is booming in India, on the other hand the bulk of rank-and-file programs in the country suffer from outdated textbooks, professors who don’t keep up with economic trends, and narrow curriculums, according to a recently released report by dint of. an Indian traffic group.

The Business Barometer reflection was issued last month by the the Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry of India (Assocham), the inhabitants’s leading chamber of commerce organization. It found that over the top 30 institutions, most business teach professors and lecturers in India’s business schools are ignorant of the cosmos’s major economic trends and key developments, such as the subprime crisis in the U.S. Few be read office publications.

The reflection’s inventor, Jyoti Bhutani, called the findings "shocking," adding that Indian businesses are finding it difficult to prepare top-quality graduates. She said there is "a very large gap" between the pay packages offered to grads of top Indian business schools (BusinessWeek.com, 4/13/08) and those provided to grads of the lesser institutions.

Faculty Not Up to Par

The survey was done to assess the faculty’s grasp on practical subject matter and general economic awareness at India’s various MBA schools. The business seminary market in India has exploded in the past few years, through more than 1,600 business schools offering undergraduate commerce and MBA programs (BusinessWeek.com, 9/13/05). But their academic standards remain uneven: No unmixed, voluntary regulator oversees the universities and colleges. As a result, the quality of many faculty members falls short, leaving students through a degree that is "devoid of any real value," said Bhutani, assistant director of Assocham’s research bureau.

"While the top B-schools of India are increasingly getting recognized internationally, the remaining thousands of management institutes in the country have dismal standards of faculty," Bhutani said via e-mail.

The study found that only 6% of the 258 faculty members she surveyed read at all pursuit gazette on a regular basis, with steady readership of business magazines "negligible." As a result, teachers are often ignorant of elucidation economic developments in India and the world. For example, 89% of the teachers did not know what India’s gross domestic product growth rate was in 2006-07. Almost 92% weren’t aware that the country’s foreign exchange reserves have surpassed $300 billion. The study raise that 91% of lecturers education a Business Environment class called did not know in what manner to read financial documents, and 90% did not know that the U.S. might exist in recession.

Additionally, in the greatest degree of the case studies or examples discussed in class are outdated because the library books used through lecturers are old. Many of the books are written by dint of. authors outside India, and teachers appliance case studies that be wanting Indian content.

A Patchwork of Certifying Agencies

"As the teachers themselves are ill-informed, even the students remain unaware of real-world developments," Bhutani said. "It has a direct bearing on the employability of the students."

Adding to the problem is a patchwork of more than a dozen accreditation agencies in India. The National Knowledge Commission, which serves in the same manner with an advisory group to India’s Prime Minister, criticized existing Indian regulators and accreditation bodies in a 2006 report.

"There are separate instances where one engineering association or a business exercise is approved, promptly, in a small house of a primate suburb without the needful teachers, infrastructure, or facilities, but established universities experience difficulties in obtaining similar approvals," the commission wrote in the report.

M.S. Shyamsundar, delegate adviser for the government-run National Assessment & Accreditation Council, said his agency had accredited about 15 business schools, all of which adhered to his agency’s strict criteria and guidelines. He acknowledged that the academic quality of business schools varies widely throughout the country. "I think we have diverging shades of quality institutions, ranging from very mediocre to very good," Shyamsundar aforesaid in a telephone interview.

Accreditation Must Be Improved

He said he hopes more business schools will come forward for accreditation in the next few years, a small space that will go a long way to improve the reputation of these management institutions. "Quality is one of the pressing concerns," he said. "This is why we are asking them to come forward for accreditation. Once they do this, the schools can know their strengths and weaknesses."

John Fernandes, president of the U.S.-based Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International (AACSB), said his agency is working with four or five of the utmost height Indian calling schools that are seeking AACSB accreditation. Most are members of the "elite" commerce school cadre in India, known as India Institute of Managements. None of the highest place Indian profession schools has accreditation from AACSB, one of the leading business school accrediting agencies.

Setting a high standard in opposition to Indian pursuit schools by dint of. satisfying a quality accrediting agency is an prominent step for Indian business schools, said Assocham’s Bhutani. An improved accreditation performance would have a ruffling effect on all Indian transaction schools, he continued, forcing them to improve the quality of teachers, materials, and professional exhibition.