The origin of management education dates back to ancient times. It is a unique art developed by mankind along its evolution journey. Greeks, Chinese and Indian thinkers contributed to this art of getting things done by others. Strategic decisions and art of administration were adopted during the times of Koutilya. Management education is an offshoot of the industrial revolution which created the factory system, thereby providing a ledge to the art of management. In the Indian subcontinent, management education has come over a period of past 50 years, whereas Europeans are teaching this education since the last 400 years.

Management education in India has come a long way. The history of management education in India goes back to the pre-Independence era. The first college level business school in the country was founded in 1913 in Mumbai and was soon followed by another in Delhi in 1920. These business colleges imparted basic skills about the principles of trade and commerce to clerks and supervisors from fields as diverse as banking, transport, and accounting. (Indian Management, Sept 2004).

The first Business School in India was Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management, Kolkata, which was established in 1953. The All India Institute of Management and Labour welfare and the department of management, Delhi University followed suit in 1968. A number of universities set up their MBA programme in 1960s. The IIMs were patterned on the recommendation of Dean Robbins of the University of California, which was invited by the planning commission. The first IIM was set up in 1961 at Kolkata followed by IIMs at Ahmadabad in 1961, Bangalore in 1971 and Lucknow in 1974 and in the late 1990s at Indore and Calicut. The flagship management education programme, MBA, is widely popular as it offers quick gateway to the riches and to the top echelon of corporate world.

The early 90's saw the boom of founding new management schools, most of them in private sector. In the last three years alone 400 Business Schools came into existence. Few Business Schools have also established collaboration with some western Universities. India management institutions produce over 30,000 full-time MBAs and 10,000 part-time MBAs every year. Many business schools are also running MBA equivalent program such as Distance Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM), Masters in International business (MIB) etc. Even some of the leading business houses are establishing their own business schools like Infosys, Birlas etc. Management education gives a holistic picture to the students about how to manage the four ‘M’s of any organization i.e. money, material, man and machine.

OBJECTIVE OF STUDY:

There are various challenges that are faced by Management Education, specially in India. This paper is an attempt to discuss those problems and try to find out what could be the possible way out. At length it tries to discuss the various reasons that contributed to the present state of affairs.

1. MANAGEMENT EDUCATION WORLD WIDE, AND INDIAN SCENARIO

1.1 A Glimpse of Top B Schools of the World

Rank	School	Location
1	Stanford	Stanford, CA
2	Chicago (Booth)	Chicago, IL
3	Harvard	Cambridge, MA
4	Pennsylvania (Wharton)	Philadelphia, PA
5	Northwestern (Kellogg)	Evanston, IL
6	Dartmouth (Tuck)	Hanover, NH
7	Columbia	New York, NY
8	Duke (Fuqua)	Durham, NC
9	Cornell (Johnson)	Ithaca, NY
10	Michigan (Ross)	Ann Arbor, MI

Source: BT-MDRA India’s Best B-School Survey 2013

1.2 Indian Scenario of Top B Schools

Rank	School	Location
1	Indian Institute of Management	Ahmadabad
2	Indian Institute of Management	Calcutta
3	XLRI	Jamshedpur
4	Faculty of Management Studies	Delhi
5	Indian Institute of Management	Kozhikode
6	Indian Institute of Management	Indore
7	S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research	Mumbai
8	Management Development Institute	Gurgaon
9	Indian Institute of Foreign Trade	Delhi
10	International Management Institute	Delhi

Source: BT-MDRA India’s Best B-School Survey 2013

1.3 Gender Gap in Top B-Schools

The below table shows the average number of men for every woman in the top B-Schools

B-School	Male to Female Ratio
	2010-2011	2011-2012	2012-2013
Top 1 to 25	3.7	3.6	3.2
Top 26 to 50	1.5	1.6	1.6
Top 51 to 75	1.7	1.9	1.7
Top 76 to 100	1.9	1.9	1.8

Source: BT-MDRA India’s Best B-School Survey 2013

1.4 Role of B-Schools

Mushrooming business schools is a cause for concern both for students and parents. It indicates that there is huge potential in management education and also there is a possibility for unauthorized and illegal institutions. The students should take all precautionary measure before joining business schools as selection of the right business school is the first step towards achieving right management education. They should look for accredited business schools. Few business schools promise moon to students such as free international tours with laptops. What is needed is to provide relevant course content, case study discussion, industry interaction and proper placements. There is strong need to make them as competent mangers and successful leaders rather than believing in freebies.The course curriculum should be designed to suit new perspectives for building managerial and leadership skills. The responsibility lies with business schools to do the needful in this regard. It is not the students or the faculties to be blamed for poor performance at business schools but the management involved in running business school for the drawbacks in the present management education. It is not the gun that should be blamed but the person who pulls the trigger. B-schools hit the newspaper headlines by stating that their students getting highest pay in campus placements. Is it the yardstick to rush to conclusion that the specific B-school is bigger and better than other schools? As parents provide right character and base to their children, similarly business schools should filter out and select the students not only with right aptitude but also with right attitude with a special emphasis on ethical and moral values. In the long run, it helps in shaping, training and grooming them as successful managers and leaders. Of course, it is easier said than done.

1.5 Role of Faculties

The faculties should be from excellent academic background with an industry exposure. They should be a special breed of people driven by passion rather money. They need to inspire and motivate the students through right communication skills. They should preferably have industry experience in a reputed organization. It is desirable to have research experience in management along with consultancy and teaching experience. The combination of the four areas of expertise such as consultancy, teaching, research and industry would make faculties outstanding. Above all, the faculties should be strong scholars with an exposure to multiple audiences

Role of Top Industrialists in India

The top Indian industrialists should set up business schools the way they set up their business enterprises not with the sole intention of making money rather adding value to management education. It would revolutionize the Indian management education the day top brass is involved in this. The successful students should be encouraged to work in the companies of their choice without any strings attached. The motto must be to produce the world class managers and leaders. It should be treated as an investment rather than expense. They can charge the students with nominal fee. They should see management education as a kind of a corporate social responsibility so that the fruits of management education would reach the students of lower middle class as well.

CHALLENGES FACING MANAGEMENT EDUCATION IN INDIA

Is ‘management education' in India in crisis? Will the mushrooming of management institutions help the stream tide over the crisis? And, how sensitive are these institutions and authorities concerned to the problems and challenges that have already started bothering it? The challenges before management education, or rather managing management education vis-a-vis the demands posed by the industry and other socio-economic and cultural factors, need to be properly analysed and understood from an altogether fresh approach, opine experts. With the concept with which management education was introduced in the country more than 25 years old, experts have opined that it is time to respond to the changes that have not only brought developments and progress in various fields, but also changed old notions. Management education is passing through a critical phase. There is a crisis of identity, character and quality. This is the apt time to discuss and deliberate the matter by taking stock of the situation.

Management education has grown quantitatively, but not qualitatively, and contributed too little to the labour-rich but skill-poor economy. Too many attractive, lucrative and competent jobs are chasing very few individuals, who are highly talented, skilled and dynamic. An average student finds it difficult to sail through the acid tests of the corporate sector. The element of professionalism, an important ingredient towards building managers, is not taught by institutions imparting management education. Communications skill for students from rural areas is like climbing the Himalayas. In life, perhaps we are learning through tough means is, that the only thing certain in this world is “Uncertainty”. The current curriculum in management education does not teach students in facing the challenges in business environment. How to manage uncertainty and complexity are not taught in business schools. It merely teaches the concepts with case studies. It does not focus on the challenges arising out of rapid growing technology and the challenges involved in running an enterprise.Case studies all said and done is a postmortem of a situation that has already existed. It teaches of how the past situation was handled. Considering that history does repeat itself, but even when the similar or near similar situation arise, the environment and other socio economic dimensions would have changed to such an extent, that the learning of case study become redundant. To make things tough, unfortunately, the best talent is going to industry where salaries are lucrative. Those who come to academic area are the ones who could not be absorbed in the industry or those who come to this profession by chance or those who chose this career out of passion. However, we can count very few professors joining out of passion towards teaching profession. The inability of AICTE to act tough with unauthorized business schools is a cause for concern. The management of business schools looks for loopholes in the existing laws and exploits the same. They believe in growing their budget rather improving the quality of business education which is very sad to note. Most of the students pass out successfully from business schools due to their self-preparation. Students fear to give negative feedback to their teaching faculties as they fear for their internal marks which are in the hands of faculties. Everyone knows the problems but nobody is ready to address the same.

Role of AICTE

The Union Government, during its winter session of 1987, accorded permission to establish the AICTE, which is a body for professional education in this subcontinent. According to AICTE data the number of institutions imparting management education mushroomed in just five years. The intriguing question confronting all the stakeholders is: “Why was permission given to so many institutions?” In the last five years, the AICTE, by granting permission to more institutions, also allowed increase in the intake of students by more than 300 per cent. Thus, these figures reveal that the AICTE adopted a quantitative expansion strategy but paid inadequate attention to quality of management education. Further, among 4,000 plus institutions sanctioned by AICTE, Andhra Pradesh has 945, Uttar Pradesh 459, Maharashtra 419, Tamil Nadu 389, Madhya Pradesh 215 and Karnataka 209. Experts feel that AICTE's policy is liberal in according permission to start institutions and increase intake. Secondly, institutions enter the management education scenario with the intention of making quick profits as against contributing their bit to the field with some genuine concern. Thirdly, institutions imparting management education negated quality and concentrated on quantity. In the recent judgment, judges B S Chauhan and V Gopala Gowda ruled that though MCA was a technical course, the AICTE couldn’t lay down the standards. The court order said, “An MBA course is not a technical course within the definition of the AICTE Act”, and "an approval from the AICTE is not required for obtaining permission and running an MBA course by the appellant colleges." The judges said the role of AICTE is advisory, which means it can prescribe uniform standards of education in affiliated members of a university by sending a note to the University Grants Commission. However, AICTE Chairman Shri. Shankar S Mantha said, “We will file a review petition on this. After all these years, something that is being done cannot suddenly become wrong. We do not want damage to the students. There could be tremendous amount of exploitation and unstructured growth. We do not want that to happen.”

Lapses

Fourthly, lapses in curriculum upgradation and banking on some core subjects and niche electives added to the problems. The element of ‘skill quotient' is not appropriately addressed to add value to the education. Faculty members with industrial experience are less in numbers to share their expertise.

HOW TO OVERCOME CHALLENGES IN MANAGEMENT EDUCATION (MBA) IN INDIA?

The present economic meltdown has thrown several challenges to business managers and leaders across the world. Everyone started blaming business schools for the present mess. Is it justified to blame them? If not, then who is responsible for the current global mess? Is it the business schools or faculties or students or parents or all to be blamed?

How to Improve Management Education (MBA) in India?

Provide decent salaries and professional ambience to faculties. Send the faculties regularly for training programs to update their skills and abilities. Develop right mindset and attitude. Focus on quality of education not quantity. There has to be interactive sessions for the students rather than mere preaching what is mentioned in the books. You cannot become a crack shot unless you lose some ammunition. The students have to be exposed to the industry through interface so that they understand the practical problems in corporate world. This boosts more confidence among the students. It is essential to have more visiting faculties with diversified and rich industry experience. It is like having diversified menu on a platter. It should be made mandatory for every business school to have a fulltime faculty for each functional specialization like Human Resources, Marketing, Finance, Production, etc., Besides, they can have visiting faculties who are passionate towards teaching for every specialized functional skill. Look for the professors who are passionate in teaching rather than who pass their time in classrooms. The passionate professors would love to share their knowledge, experience, expertise with students to take on the real corporate battles. Take the professors with research, consultancy, and industry and also with teaching experience as it enriches the teaching process. Blending all these ingredients would make a faculty as outstanding. You cannot make a successful manager in classrooms. What is needed is the industry interface which builds confidence among the students. Whatever the doubts the students posses can be clarified and verified with their exposure to corporate world. The theoretical background in the classrooms along with practical exposure in the corporate world can make successful professionals. The project work should be contextual, relevant and should focus on the current scenarios. MBA is a professional degree and it should train and groom the students to be true professionals to take on the challenges being faced in the business environment. Make accreditation mandatory to ensure quality of education. Take stringent action against the illegal and unauthorized MBA colleges.

What Should an Ideal B-School Student Possess?

With the current global meltdown, many doubts have been raised about the falling ethical and moral standards within the management educational system. We cannot claim that the business schools and the students alone are responsible for the present economic crisis. However, we need to set certain standards and benchmarks for the students so that they could become role models for others and also they can avert such economic crises in future. Management students should be equipped with knowledge about management in general with special emphasis on a particular functional skill. It is vital to know the basic jargon about management, how a company is run and what it takes a company successful. They should know about various skills such as soft skills apart from hard skills. They should learn to live with uncertainty and complexity which are the hallmarks in this century. An ideal B-school student should possess several skills such as hard skills, soft skills like communication skills, interpersonal skills, entrepreneurial skills, leadership skills, team building skills, presentation skills, conceptual, critical and analytical thinking skills, business skills, conflict management skills, decision making skills, visioning skills, risk taking skills, right attitude and aptitude, ethical and moral values, and learn to live with uncertainty and complexity.

How Should The Teaching Process Be?

Explain the concept clearly from book as knowledge about the managerial jargon is necessary. Follow the concept with a relevant case study based on real life events and experiences. Ask the students how can they handle such problems through interactions? Generate multiple ideas and insights though interaction and participation and select the best and justify the same by focusing the pros and cons. Then take the students to the corporate houses and encourage them to apply what was learnt in the class to build confidence. Brainstorming sessions among students and also between faculties and students excites the teaching process resulting into generation multiples ideas and insights. The gap between the faculties and students should be minimized to make the learning process more comfortable and meaningful. Assimilation of others’ approaches makes the teaching more meaningful and effective. Faculties should come out with their own philosophies and principles besides the established and proven ones. They should equip their students with tools and techniques so that they could employ the same in their organizations. The curriculum should help in thinking differently. It should encourage to think globally but to act locally. There should be right mechanism and quality controls in the method of teaching.

Evaluating Students

The present examination system is outdated and needs to be reviewed and changed with the changing times. Give practical problems to students and encourage them to think and come out with their solutions. Students should be encouraged to prepare their own case studies based on their imagination after referring several books and industry interface. This method unlocks their creativity and originality which in turn helps them when they face the real challenges.

What B-Schools Don’t Teach?

There is vast gap between the campus and the industry. The business schools don’t teach skills like risk taking, entrepreneurial skills, facing failures, managing uncertainty and complexity. There are number of areas where the business schools should focus and teach to students. The main challenge for business schools is to teach how to cope up with failures and how to pick up threads again and bounce back from failures.

CONCLUSION:

There is failure in management education which is evident with the current economic downturn. The educational system failed to forecast the recession and failed to check the overheated economy. The four pillars for effective management education are industry experience, consultancy experience, research experience and teaching experience. When faculties possess these four areas of experience and expertise, then it ensures qualitative management education. The problem with us is to imitate the western management education blindly. By the time we take best out of them, the content and curriculum gets outdated thus resulting into obsolescence. Let us be creative and innovative in preparation of curriculum and methodology of teaching. Educational qualification is the brick and mortar of a specific career path. Let us make Indian management education qualitative and affordable to all. It is unfortunate that India with a billion plus population could not produce global leaders like Jack Welch, Peter F Drucker, Bill Gates, Michel Dell; It is time India took a relook at the methodology of management education. It is also the time Indian B-schools took stock of the situation and set their houses in order. The silver lining in the dark cloud of management education in India is the Indian School of Business (ISB) which is ranked as the 15th best Business School in the world surpassing other premier management institutions like IIMs. There is a strong need to focus management education globally (i.e. think globally but act locally). When the course content is customized based on the market needs then students will not face unemployability problem. Let us make Indian MBA on par with global standards. We need to get out of the mindset of being copycats. We need to reinvent ourselves as leaders from being followers. To sum up, it is vital to have holistic and integrated approach towards improving management education in India. An ideal B-school student should be jack of all trades and master of a specific specialization. Mere having domain expertise is not adequate. There has to be focus on ethical and moral values to be inculcated among the students to eliminate white collar crimes. S/he should be person with impeccable character and integrity so that the subordinates can take as a role model. S/he should not sell soul for the sake of money.

REFERENCES:

Indian Express News Article of 22^nd April 2013

Journal of Information, Knowledge and Research In Business Management : Volume 2, Issue 1.

VSRD International Journal Journal of Business and Management Research : Volume 1

Business Today – Marketing and Development Research Association : Oct 2013

Forbes Magazine

Received on 30.01.2014 Modified on 10.02.2014

Asian J. Management 5(2): April-June, 2014 page 235-239