Eighth AIMS International Conference on Management

January 1-4, 2011

Issues and Challenges of Management Education in India

Karam Malla Reddy Kmreddy20@yahoo.com St. Josephs PG College, Hyderabad
Human Resource Development in India is growing at faster space particularly in the higher Education. The professional Education i.e. Management Education is not an exception. Today the Management Education delivers through regular and Distance mode of Education by many Universities - open, foreign franchises disregarding the quality of Management Education. The Ministry of Human Resource Development and AICTE for Technical Education is not able to regulate and monitor the Professional Education. This paper will try to highlight issues and challenges of Management Education which includes the need for Entrepreneurship Development and start ups as part of Management curriculum and updating.

1. Introduction
Human Resource Development in India increasing rapidly and Management Education and Technical Education is not an exception. The Management Education and Technical Education is imparted by the Central and State Universities in India through regular mode and distance mode in the country. There is a competition among universities in providing this education as many programmes as possible. These institutions are under the control of HRD, Central Government and State Government. Apart from this there is another set of institutions which are Autonomous under the Central Government and supervision of All India Technical Education Council. There is another set of institutions i. e Management institutes which are specializing in the fields of Management education like Indian Institute Management which are considered as the Top institutes in the Management Education with a large no of specializations, these students are considered as cream of the Management Education and comparable with any foreign universities, the admissions are done on all India basis. The students coming from these institutions are mostly engineering and Mathematics, Commerce and Economics. The percentage of the students coming from these institutions is very small. These institutions are well endowed with all the resources and thus provide quality management education and Placements are 100 percent with good packages in good Corporates.

2. Issues of Management Education

The rapidly changing face of Global business demand a management education and Graduates who can face complex problems and ready to adapt to more challenging scenarios in the corporate sector. Todays Business schools try to equip their students with essential management tools and theories to apply in the corporate sector. Another dimension of management Education is that we cant only prepare graduates for the corporate sector but also to other sectors like Public Sector, Research and Development and training and to the Educational Institutes in the country. Therefore a major issue is to prepare graduates with theoretical Knowledge of management and specialization and certain amount Practical Content in the Management Education. Another Important Issues of management Education is Different institutes working under different authorities. All India Council for Technical Education is Nodel agency for giving Permissions only confined to this, all other requirements on paper, it appears every thing as per the AICTE norms. But truth is different these institutes has become Commercial Business centers, today the only Business which is relatively profitable. The people who established these Institutions has become richer and richer over period of time The students who are coming out of these Institutions has become poorer and poorer, employability only 15% to 20% of the graduates coming out of Institutions. The Regulatory mechanism has failed miserably at all levels and it is very difficult to monitor these Institutions by any organisation because of most of the people in this field are connected to the political leaders and parties and some of the political leaders themselves own of these Institutions, Therefore it is very difficult to set right these Institutes. There is a need to have an organisation to look after these institutions under one roof irrespective of where they are with stringent methods to save these education and see that Graduates Coming out of these Institutions has a Good Placement in some organisation or the other. Most of the Bschools or colleges running these courses are not having any awareness about the quality and excellences in educations, therefore it should be made mandatory for all the institutions to have internal quality centers to regularly discuss with respective departmental staff involved in the teaching of theses courses. 1707

Eighth AIMS International Conference on Management

January 1-4, 2011

Distance mode of education is also not having uniform number of years, some Universities have three years of MBA Programme and other Universities have only two years. Most of these students do not have any practical training during these programmes. Therefore these programmes should be made uniform pattern of duration and exposure to practical field knowledge during these programme is essential to enhance the quality of the programmes.

3. Challenges of Management Education

Management institutions and colleges aims to have better way of educating their people, to todays Competencies required for the best possible Strategies in their programmes. Proper Management Skills of the Challenges to be faced by Corporations. Major issues are management education is Curriculum offered in Business Schools. This has been labelled as Contemporary movement.

Restructuring of Management courses at all level is the need of the hour as the Indian Economy becoming emerging markets in the Global context, the need for the Corporates to face the challenges of Strategic Management of the various industries. Therefore Management Education aims and objectives have to be very clearly spell out so that the institutions engaged in the turning out the graduates will get a clear cut message to prepare then to face the intricate policies of corporate sector curriculum should be oriented towards students needs and demand from the various requirement of corporate sector. This is area which requires a constant updating of the curriculum in all the institutions imparting Management education and in this AICTE should make it mandatory for all the institutions to change suitably to meet growing needs and graduates coming out will be applying theories and practical knowledge to face challenges and perform in manner comparable with International Standard of Business. Curriculum updating and teaching quality should go hand in hand. Teaching techniques in the class rooms has to be drastically changed to make teaching interesting to the students and full use for the career development. New methods for teaching technologies and case studies methods to be used to upgrade the students knowledge in the core subjects along with they need to learn soft skills like communication skills and group discussion on important challenges of Global Managers and executive so that when they take up the jobs in the Corporates, they can apply in performing the whatever duties to be performed without any difficulty. These technologies also need well prepared materials used in the class rooms with proper illustrations. Thus it will enhances the capabilities of the Management students not only to take up jobs in the corporate sector but also can think of some start-up programmes and become entrepreneurs to provide jobs for others instead of job seeking. Teaching approaches and orientation programmes to update the information. The Teachers has to be given orientation in teaching methodologies and new innovative methods have to be introduced. When a teacher goes to a class he/she has to prepare the content that is going to be delivered with necessary data and with reference literature or books which are prescribed to a particular subject. The teachers also provided with an opportunity to have an Academic interaction with peer groups and exchange of innovative methods of teaching and their impact on reaching to the unreached students. The AICTE should make it mandatory to organize one week programme every year for all the teachers where teachers have opportunity of discussing the problem of teaching and other related issues. Another important challenge of Management education is Research and teaching needs linking, Research for the teachers is essential component of quality education. Unless teachers themselves update and find out new ways of imparting the core subjects and soft skills to the students. This should be done on regular basis constant up dating will be done. Teachers with research work will be more analytical and systematic in teaching the subject than others which will definitely enhance quality of Teaching in the class room.

4. Infrastructural Facilities
Infrastructural facilities like basic physical facilities, building, class rooms, students language seminar rooms, audio-video rooms, waiting rooms, canteen facilities and exclusive waiting room for girl students. These are the model facilities quantitative requirement of space i.e. 10-12 sq ft per student with proper seating and lighting arrangement in the class rooms - every class room fitted with OHP/LCD projector for teaching purpose.

5. Library and Lab Facilities

After faculty library and Lab facilities will essential components of the quality education. Library should have stock room, magazine section and enough place for the students sit and spend their time for preparation and for learning practices - with proper furniture in the Library. Lab with computers and necessary software package 1708

Eighth AIMS International Conference on Management

January 1-4, 2011

should be available for conducting practicals for their course and also it should be available for the students to learn the required skills. The requirement of computers will commensurate with number of students. Desire to be world class quality education is grater challenge today to the most of the institutes and B-School; having management courses. The faculty mindset change is very important this requires retaining strategies and compensation package to the faculty which many of the institution are not in position to meet the high compensation to the faculty. The faculty should be motivated to understand research and publish the research work. This will be the most important component of quality and excellence in education which will attract the good students in to the course. A part from this giving facilities to the faculty and students will further enhances the quality education and quality support staff to the faculty and students will an additional facility which will be supporting the academic activities in the institution and addition to the quality education.

6. Financial Support or Funding

Major challenge to all Management institutions in the country is financial support or funding to these institutions, except the IIMs in the country and some of the Autonomous institutions who are charging heavy fee for the admission into their course. In the universities both central and State universities and affiliated to the universities are finding very difficult to maintain the minimum facilities. Some management institutions are not having proper physical facilities. There is a heavy shortage of qualified faculty in theses institutions. The respective central or state government should come forward to help these institutions or allow the management institutions charge fee on their own like Autonomous Management institutions are charging. This will be creating competition among these institutions in providing quality education and other faculties. The Autonomous colleges are to some extent overcome the financial problem and are able to meet the some quality bench marks. There are large number of institutions which are under the free regulation of the state government should allow these institutions to have their say in fixing the fee structure so that they can overcome the financial problem which is hindering the quality education in the management education. Rapidly changing face of management education has to co-up with Global challenges and demands who understands complex problems and is ready to adapt to more challenging scenarios. Today business schools try to equip their students with essential management tools and theories to apply in the corporate world. B-Schools and Management institutes focus should also be extended to the ability to deal with failures considering these in dearth of failed strategies or bad decisions in the corporate world. Failure of management helps fresh graduates to take risks with more confidence and thus helps them to develop the ability to think big and innovative in their approach. Management institutions should try to improve their financial position so that managing the programmes as per the bench marks will be possible. This requires the consolidation of Existing institutions and no further expansions both in universities and colleges in view of financial implications.

7. Conclusion
Management Education in India is increasing at exponential growth, both inside the country and foreign franchises are in providing Management Education. Management education in India is imparted in Central and State Universities in regular and distance mode of education with inclusive growth. The regulatory mechanism of State and Central universities is not able to contain the failures of Management education. The All India council of Technical education which is nodal agency is not able to regulate in manner that is required for providing quality education with the result the employability of the management students is not encouraging. The political interference and control is a problem to impose the quality parameters on colleges and institutions. The challenges of the todays management institutes are to train their students as per the demand of the corporate world. The quality bench marks are not implemented by the colleges and management institutes due to several constrains which they are not able to overcome. The challenges they face is political interference, financial and academic constrains. Therefore some amount of Autonomy is required to face these challenges and employ the requisite faculties and is allowed by these institutions in the interest of quality education. Thus stringent and regulating these institutions are a must otherwise these become like any other degree programmes of university and college at state and central level.

8. Reference
1. 2. 3. A seminar on Challenges of new Age Competition and Business Schools strategies, 15the Oct 2007, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad A.P. A seminar on Business Schools in South Asia challenges and strategies on 28th, Nov 2007, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, AP. Conference of Directors of Business Schools Quality of Management Education, A Review- All India Management Association, Hyderabad, AP 7th Oct, 2007. 1709