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Business Education
brighten their future prospects. But educationists are of the opinion that integrated management courses are not likely to cause much of a stir across India Inc. “Students undergoing integrated regular BBA and MBA programmes will possess knowledge in only one stream – management. They will be more adept at running the monetary aspects of a business, rather than becoming good leaders. India needs agents of change. We need great leaders, even if they are not the best managers,” says Professor Dhankar. Also, people possessing undergraduate degrees in alternate disciplines will have an edge over ‘pure’ managers when the job market for management professionals shrinks. That is not to say that graduates from sought-after educational brands like the IIMs (case in point, IIM Indore’s IPGP) will not be hired by the industry. “Students from such premier institutes will be hired anyway. But students undergoing integrated management courses from unknown institutions are not likely to be in demand,” he adds.
Challenges to Integration Faculty: High-quality research-oriented faculty can strengthen the learning and research culture amongst students. Institutes adopting the integrated pattern may need separate faculty to teach undergraduate students, who have raw, yet more creative minds. They question more and are less exposed to the industry. While some faculty members may not mind teaching undergraduates, all postgraduate-level teachers cannot be expected to comply. Discrimination between students: Discrimination between students cannot be ruled out with those who have cracked a highly competitive admission test getting preferential treatment. The integrated course’s students may be perceived as being of lower calibre.
IPGP: Leader of Change? A lot of future initiatives hang on the fate of IPGP: Will its fresh design succeed? Will it usher in a new era of management education in India? Will more leading postgraduate B-schools take the plunge to cater to students across the management education spectrum?
If they do, will they continue to be known for their academic rigour and in-depth industry research or will the move dilute their brand? The jury is still out on that. Subscribe to the daily electronic newsletter from EDU at http://edu-leaders.com/content/newsletters