Mostly Bad Apples December 9, 2005

Most of what goes by the term MBA in India is a racket. It is time we admitted that. We all live with the hope that the institutions having mushroomed everywhere are an inevitable step towards a market-driven system in which the customer will ultimately weed out the bad ones. There is also the feeling that if there is a sucker born every second, why grudge the guy who is making a little money? Some hope that the situation will one day self-correct the problem. Unfortunately for the majority of students and parents who are victims, it will take more than just hope to get the situation fixed. It will take serious action not by the regulators, but by prospective students and their guardians themselves. At times they are as much to blame.Consider this: Neel is a plain graduate in humanities. He admits that he does not have strong number skills. He has come to the city of Bangalore, egged on by relatives who wanted him to do his MBA. He has not qualified for the tier 1 or tier 2 or even the tier 3 colleges. However, he could secure admission in an MBA course run by, of all things, a cultural foundation! It hooks prospective students with the catch that it has a “tie-up’’ with a US MBA programme. I for one know that the so-called US institute is not even known in the US, and that no one quite cares about it. The place in Bangalore has no classrooms of its own and operates as part of the cultural foundation. There are no hostels. The students who come from a distance stay in a mess run by a local in Rajajinagar. The so-called MBA school has two choices for “specialisation’’—marketing and finance. In neither of the two areas does the faculty have any practical experience or any academic credentials of significance. Neel is studying finance, but he does not have any grounding in basic mathematics. He does not know much about the potential careers he could have. Only one batch of students before him has graduated from this institute.The ones who have graduated have not been placed yet, and no one knows what will ever happen to them. The tragedy is that Neel and his parents knew all these facts before jumping in. Yet they pretended that with time, all problems would get solved. The place would receive recognition. The courses would get accredited. Campus placements would happen and mathematically-challenged Neel, who has low communication skills, would get picked up by some company. After that, fate would take over.Unfortunately, none of these may happen and chances are, Neel will be a sad person after two years, not knowing why things did not quite work out. At the same time, he will have problems admitting to himself that he could have avoided the inevitable. Barring probably 10% of the management schools in India, the vast majority of them do only one thing well. They keep the kids off the streets. The question therefore becomes, why parents must push their wards to such places, which will not bring any professional value to the young boys and girls? Why should everyone be an MBA? Just so people know, I am not an MBA. Only 13% of my company’s 3200 people are MBAs.Barring probably 10% of the management schools in India, the vast majority of them do only one thing well. They keep the kids off the streets. The question therefore becomes, why parents must push their wards to such places, which will not bring any professional value to the young boys and girls? Why should everyone be an MBA? Just so people know, I am not an MBA. Only 13% of my company’s 3200 people are MBAs.So a young man or woman can build a satisfying and successful career choosing from many other options that are better aligned to the aptitude of the person. We must first ask ourselves what we are good at and then build our options around that. A second rate MBA does not in any way make up for a persons weaknesses. So, if you are considering a “me-too’’ MBA school and are planning to put your parent’s hard-earned money into it, think again. It may be a much better idea to start a neighbourhood store with that money and work towards an MBA that only real-life experience can provide. In the longer run, that could be far more valuable.Parents, please do not get carried away with “foreign affiliation.’’ This is the last vestige of our colonial mindset. If something is not inherently good, a so-called foreign affiliation does not purify it with pigmentation. The best way for you to determine if an institute could add value to your ward is to find out what jobs some of the students of the previous three graduating classes have landed. Meet some of these people and ask them probing questions about the faculty and what value the institute added in helping them to get their jobs. If the answers are not forthcoming and yet you want to admit your ward to the MBA course, know that you are buying just deferred disappointment. Source : http://digvijayankoti.blogspot.in/2009/04/subroto-bagchi-speaks-all-articles-by.html