An often used and quoted phrase from Heraclitus is “Nothing is constant but change”, I wonder how one man could have so plainly and accurately conveyed the one and only absolute truth that governs us all. If we look around us also, the rate at which the world is changing is mind numbing. Here today, changed tomorrow is real and it is the only paradigm that leaders of the world live by.
I have often heard teachers and educationists commenting on the fact that how the student population is changing. Comparisons are drawn of how students were more sincere and committed earlier than now. I feel, in the light of all that is changing, why shouldn’t the students change. Being a part of the change themselves, they learn and grow as they see the change shaping up around them. It would be unwise to assume anything but otherwise.
In these changing and dynamic times, education as a concept and an industry needs to change too. Only those institutions that are in touch with the changing times will survive and consequently grow. Today the rate of the change is such that content and pedagogy designed even one year ago becomes irrelevant in the face of the changing times. The economic slowdown of 2008 also brought into focus the relevance and criticality of these issues. When business managers didn’t know how to react, they took decisions that in their limited vision helped their organisations whereas infact, these very decisions proved detrimental to the interest of the organisations that they served.
Many business managers feel that B-schools need to partner corporations in such situations and help them recover from the abyss that they have slipped into. IIPM has been one such front runner which has constantly innovated and enhanced it curriculum based on the ever changing demands of the corporate world. We have also partnered organisations and developed industry relevant curriculum so that these organisations can reap the benefits of these partnerships in terms of trained manpower, brand building in the campus etc. We have been encouraging our faculty and researchers to take on corporate consulting assignments, so that they bring these learning into the classrooms as they take classes. It is due to such initiatives and many more such wonderful programs that we deliver world class education to our students and help them stay relevant in the corporate world. And at the end of the day that is what counts. With changing times, students have also become more aware of what they want for themselves and have also become more assertive of their rights . Today information is available at the touch of a button and with every window, a whole new world of opportunity opens up. The information age has truly brought about an abundant availablity of information and choices. In the real sense of it, the only option is either adapt and change or don’t adapt and perish.