There is a perceptible change in the business of management education in India. On the one hand, the number of aspirants is on the decline and on the other, there are B-schools that are shutting down their operations. The shakeout forces us to deliberate upon what it takes to build a great B-school and the line that separates the institutes of excellence from the fly-by-night schools concerned only with profit

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THE B-SCHOOL DIVIDE
There is a perceptible change in the business of management education in India. On the one hand,
the number of aspirants is on the decline and on the other, there are B-schools that are shutting
down their operations. The shakeout forces us to deliberate upon what it takes to build a great B-
school and the line that separates the institutes of excellence from the fly-by-night schools
concerned only with profit.
Fly-by-night operators, who joined the B-school education bandwagon only to mint money, will finally
be weeded out and quality B-schools upholding the values of excellence in education will survive and
scale up.
The shakeout is likely to be fuelled by the awareness that many b-schools in the country do not have
the required levels of faculty, curriculum and infrastructure.
By Gyanendra Kashyap & Rajlakshmi Saikia

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Facts
Number of seats in business schools in India grew from 94,704 in 2006-07 to 3,52,571 in
2011-12
A boom in India’s management education sector saw the number of B-schools triple to almost
4,000 over the last 5 years
Students’ lack of interest can be attributed to either growing awareness regarding the quality of education
offered by the institutes or the high investment, which makes it unaffordable for many
According to a research report by Crisil about 140 schools offering MBA courses are expected to
close this year, as 35% of their places were vacant in 2011-12, up from 15% in 2006-07
In 2008, 2,76,000 people took the CAT exam and in 2011 the number was 200,000
XLRI had 102,329 admission applications in 2009-11, this number dropped to just 60,316
in 2011
FMS Delhi had 75,000 applications in 2009, the number dropped to 57,226 in 2011

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“A great business school offers a bundle of experiences to students including
learning, networking, and corporate exposure.”
The administration of a school must arrange incentives to constantly foster great student experiences
and to recruit the kind of faculty who will have a major impact on practice through research and writing.
Learning is critical to an excellent experience and here there are many
modes of learning: student-to-student, faculty to-student and experiential.
Networks and a helpful group of alumni are few of the most valuable assets that come with the MBA.
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“The focus is on teaching at three levels - business skills, decision-making &
leadership”
3 critical factors of the best B-schools
Ideas - ideas not just from faculty members, but also from students, and alumni - for all of them to look
at the world and find better, more effective ways to manage and lead businesses.
Talent – a great school must have talented students, who can absorb the ideas, evaluate and know when
to use those ideas, integrate and adapt to a given situation and finally implement.
Network – a strong network allows a B-school to bring in top guest speakers and hire adjunct faculty
members from the industry.
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“A global focus that permeates the curriculum, faculty, students, activities & alumni is
critical”
3 critical factors in a great B-school
Outstanding research faculty who bring current research into the classroom as teachers
A community of scholars and practitioners, which includes the faculty, staff, students, and alumni which
facilitate richness of ideas that challenge thinking and yield better ideas
A global focus that permeates the curriculum, faculty, students, activities and alumni.
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“Recruiting the world’s best professors has enabled to create a pool of faculty who
bring to class a combination of their excellence in teaching and research”
4 key factors essential for an outstanding B-school
Quality of the school and its alumni network - a strong alumni network, with camaraderie and a real
sense of belonging to a supportive international community, adds to its quality.
Learning environment – since its creation in 1881, HEC Paris’ focus has always been to set the highest
academic standards in both research and teaching.
Selectivity - the MBA program is among the most selective in Europe, attracting a diverse group of top
students from more than 35 countries around the world.
Partnerships - HEC Paris has close ties with many top business schools around the world.
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“Business leaders highlight the need for talent but also have little hesitancy in laying
off its core asset in the short-term search for an increase in the quarterly return”
Traditional determinants of a good B-school
Good intake - highly intelligent and selectively recruited students with some work experience
Great throughput - recruitment of the best faculty involved in cutting edge research
A constantly changing stream of courses to reflect changing circumstances
A dense network of former graduates in the corporate world essential for successful placement of current
graduates
The advantages of reputation, gained from either being the first mover or large endowments or unique
innovations
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9. Passion for
excellence www.peoplematters.in
“Academic excellence goes beyond classroom learning, to acquiring knowledge that
can be used ultimately for the benefit of mankind”
Research is a primary building block in academic excellence. We try and stress this importance to our
faculty who are always in pursuit of excellence through research.
Human values and contribution to the society in a sustainable manner also build an excellent Institute.
This is all the more important in today’s business scenario where values are only used as fashionable
words rather than the society’s lifeline.
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“Great B-schools are ones which are in the business of creation of knowledge,
application of knowledge and dissemination of knowledge”
An academic institution must be known for intellectual contribution in terms of research and publication.
Faculty members are the soul of any good academic institute. Therefore, it goes without saying that
quality of faculty and research is the hallmark of a good B-school.
B-schools must focus on sources of generating value by means of consulting, executive education,
training, MDPs and workshops for board level people.
Integration of experience and thought is important. One may have great strategic thinking but one needs
to have a structure in place.
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October 2012
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