MARKET READY MANAGERS...

The ultimate objective of a management institution should be to provide market ready and employable business graduates who are able to deliver value to the organizations that they work in. This has however not been the case; with a majority of the B school graduates not being properly skilled. Industry experts often lament the lack of skills that some of these students display and often blame the faculty of such schools as being the cause for turning out under prepared managers. In the recent past there has been some talk of creating a skill based curriculum and the government is getting involved in this process. There have been some changes to the curriculum and I am happy to note that the government has taken some concrete steps in this direction. I wonder however if this is enough and if the government is serious in its commitment to make this situation better. 

For the situation to change, the first thing that will need to change is the old paradigm. What we need today is broad based learning that is not dependant on only one parameter or factor. The need of the hour is to enable the learning of skills and concepts that further the ability of an individual to solve problems for his organization. These skills and learning aren’t only limited to the classrooms that they are taught in; they encompass a whole range of activities and initiatives that go beyond the four walls of the classrooms. And these should also be scalable and be replicated by the entire system. At IIPM, we pay special attention to the development of such skills. We focus on ensuring that the students understand and appreciate these skills and their application in the corporate world. Right from ensuring that each student is trained in executive communication skills to developing complex skills such as project management, every minute detail is paid attention to while developing and upgrading the curriculum. All of this ensures that the students who pass out of the institute are not only ‘highly’ employable but also become ‘great’ assets for the organizations that they work for. 

To make sure that the quality of students who passout is high, the institute must also ensure that its faculty is updated on the happenings in the market. Assignments which hone the skills of the faculties and keep them abreast with the trends in the markets should be encouraged. Additionally institutes must pay attention to the research that faculties are undertaking and actively encourage and help faculty members find relevant scopes of study. This will not only help the faculties and the institutions but will largely help the management fraternity as newer thoughts and ideas would come into play. As it is, with the fear of another slowdown imminent in the market place, path breaking and out of the box strategies will help solve a lot of the problems of the future. It is therefore imperative that B-schools all over the country take note of this and commit to ensuring that their students who graduate are at least employable.