Dr. C. Joe Arun, Director
Goa Institute of Management
Management Education faces now many serious challenges. The craze for MBA degree is gradually going out of fashion. Many begin to say that MBA degree does not add any special value and there are many who do not hold MBA degree yet they have demonstrated great skills by becoming entrepreneurs.
We spoke with Dr. C. Joe Arun, Director, Goa Institute of Management, on what he thinks are the 7 things B-school aspirants should look for in selecting a B-school. Here are the key take-aways from the interview:
But doing MBA gives added values for anyone who aims at having a successful career. The exposure she gets, the skills she learns, and the competencies she develops during her studies would definitely make her stand above the rest.
If anyone who has completed B.E, has work experience and wants to do MBA must look for B-Schools, which would add unique values that would make them successful in their lives.
Any B-School that has the following should be the choice of students for pursuing their studies for MBA degree:
- Management education should look at MBA degree as the time in which a student is exposed to an ecosystem where she forms her character to become a responsive and responsible leader. Before specialisation every student should look at MBA education as integral formation of personality, well-being of the person, first.
- While doing MBA, B-School should help students connect with the people and social reality. Students should be exposed to lives of people by which their courses in MBA curriculum become relevant. If MBA studies is not related to what issues people face in the country and how her studies does not aim at solving their problems, then the degree would become useless and irrelevant.
- Many students want to become entrepreneurs instead of becoming employees of a company. They have great ideas but they do not know how to commercialise the ideas by which they solve social issues, at the end of the day, it contributes to the development of the nation. B- School must connect the students with investors and venture capitalists. Each B-School should have an incubator for developing entrepreneurs. B-schools should produce more entrepreneurs who would start business enterprises after their studies than get them employment in companies.
- B-Schools should a strong and organic connect between industry. The reality is that MBA institutes produce graduates who have no grasp of what really happens in industry. Even after two years of studies, many companies spend enormous money and resources to train them to become company-smart. For example, HR head of a company should be asked to teach a course on human resources management. A minimum of forty per cent of courses must be taught by people who work in industry.
- B-Schools are reforming their perspectives to form and train leaders who develop sustainable global thinking. Sustainability should become the key factor in every discourse of management education that would help MBA graduates to start sustainable businesses, suitable to environment and people.
- Management education should focus on helping students developing practical wisdom. This practical wisdom helps me to make decisions based on deep notions of what is good, not only for me and my growth but goo for the globe community of which my business remains a part.
- Very few B-Schools offer scholarships and collateral free students loans. But GIM has arranged with Bank Of India (BOI) and State Bank of India (SBI) to offer a loan of ten lakh rupees without security or collateral. This actually eases burden of the students and their parents in financing the management education. In addition, GIM offers fifty scholarship to the tune of 2.2 crores to meritorious students who join GIM.
If a B-School follows these seven principles in its curriculum, pedagogies and environment, that school must the choice of any student who wants to do MBA.
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