The Hindu has a wonderful magazine that comes out every sunday. Been a long time reader of that. This sunday’s issue had a very good piece on how the MBA, in an Indian context, has been diluted to such an extent that it has almost lost its relevance. The author comes up with a more than decent arguement in favor of reverting the path of the MBA as it is headed now. A few lines caught my attention…
The IIMs started by envisaging it as a mid-career, post-experience qualification, but chose to gradually ditch this one significant element critical to the success of the MBA as originally designed
What could be the reason for the IIMs to go this way…Is it because they fell for the invariable glamour that is associated with any program with miserably low admit ratios or is it, as the author pointed out, a logical adaptation of an academic program catering to a specific set of junta that puts academics before real life xp, atleast in the initial phases…
And he goes on to add, ironically funny,
The distance from the real world of business is further widened because business school teachers seldom have senior management experience. They have PhDs grounded in one of the disciplines such as economics, statistics, and accounting or operation research. With few exceptions, the average calibre of the student population in the top B schools of India would be far higher, by any objective test, than their teachers.
I just couldn’t control myself seeing this…I, for one, can vouch on the veracity of the statement in a few cases that i’ve seen 
Hell, i bet even if we were to generalize this across B-schools of all shapes and sizes, this statement would still hold true !!(Dont catch me on this :P) But then again, the test that the author is talking of is an objective test !! Objectivity be damned
Read the complete article here
And something for the new-age post-happy internet journos, The Govt. is actively considering accrediting dotcom scribes and bloggers…Anybody game for setting up a full-fledged dotcom news agency?? or better still, the PaGaLGuY News Network
May 18th, 2005 at 9:26 pm
Ya dude,I read the article this sunday… In fact, I had gone for the “Cat-MAY-Trix” workshop organized by IMS the same day and thought it might be a good plcae to discuss it… in the end they were in too much of a hurry and obviously not interested in answering such questions publicly!
I can’t support all the reasons, simply cause I am not in a B-School yet, but I don’t think that an MBA without Work Ex has anything much beyond CV value. If one actually wants to get something besides intersting peers for two years(PG is proof of that!) and India’s best brand name (after Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, ie!), I would advice him/her to definately work first!
Vaibhav. (HitchHiker@PG)
May 23rd, 2005 at 12:52 pm
PG news network sounds great! Count me in :mg:
May 23rd, 2005 at 9:15 pm
@Vaibhav….Hmm..Not really…I dont think one can completely discount the value of an mba for a fresher too.
@ranjHitha…Cool…Let’s start work on an entry strategy
May 25th, 2005 at 3:11 pm
Hi Subbu,
Missed this article in this magazine.. thanks for the link. And yeah, I’d vouch for that magicaal statement… IQ of students is far better than some, well, many of the professors. Cool thinking that. But, what can we do abt it as long as teaching is considered as the ‘last’ profession an MBA student thinks of?