How efficient is Indian education?

There is a need for measuring the ability of educational systems across states to convert inputs to outputs

The Right to Education (RTE) Act has been a cornerstone in changing the education landscape in India. With the introduction of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the goal of ensuring universal primary education was aggressively pursued, and a significant quantitative impact in terms of the enrolment ratio has been seen. For the past six years now, enrolment in the country has been around 96%, which may seem a great feat. However, an assessment of the actual learning levels reveals the flip side of the coin. It is almost as if the common ‘volume versus quality’ trade-off has played its part in this scenario too, like any other.

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2014 indicates how this linear approach hasn’t reaped the benefits it should have; learning levels of students are still a huge concern. According to the survey, almost 50% of Class V students were not able to read basic sentences, and more than 70% were unable to perform simple division.

Thus, it is important for state administrations to realize that improving infrastructure and resources should be accompanied by commensurate learning levels of students. Thus, the need for a measure of efficiency emerges in order to assess education systems in their ability to convert educational inputs to outputs. This can help provide an objective way for states to get feedback on their education delivery process and do away with the practice of judging the performance of states based solely on their inputs, or outputs.

The objective of this work, therefore, is to develop a methodology to measure the relative efficiency of the education delivery process and provide insights on what states can learn from peer-to-peer exchanges. Since there are multiple inputs and outputs, the conventional notion of efficiency defined as the ratio of output to input would not work here. The field of Operations Research provides a suitable methodology in the form of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), which has been used extensively in several investigations and researches across countries and sectors for efficiency analyses. DEA compares each entity (states in this case) with its peers in the set, and assigns a relative efficiency to it. For states that are marked efficient, it does not imply that there isn’t room for improvement; it simply means that in ‘relative’ terms, there is no other state performing better than the given one.

The first step in efficiency measurement using DEA is to identify relevant inputs and outputs for the educational process. The learning outcomes reported by ASER are used as outputs, namely reading levels in local language, basic arithmetic ability and learning levels in English. Similarly, the resources and infrastructure provided by state authorities to facilitate education are the quantifiable inputs.

The RTE lays down certain minimum requirements, and the percentage of schools adhering to those norms serve as input values in this method. The seven factors, as mandated by RTE, considered in this analysis are pupil-teacher ratio, classroom-teacher ratio, availability of drinking water, availability of usable toilets, availability of buildings and playgrounds, availability of library with books and mid-day meals being served. Two additional inputs to represent the socioeconomic background of students as well as the local village infrastructure are also used. These account for the specific conditions within a state. The data is obtained from ASER reports of 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.

The findings presented here are based on research conducted by our team at IIT Delhi, and a detailed research paper elaborating a part of this research is under consideration for publication. Interesting insights about the standing of various states with respect to each other emerge from the analysis. While there are 12 inefficient states from the 2014 data, an extension of the same to previous years (2011-13) yields a few patterns. Gujarat, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu have consistently been performing poorly, and are inefficient across all four years. Punjab had been performing efficiently until 2014, when it slipped slightly. On the contrary, Uttar Pradesh used to be inefficient in 201112, but has remained in the efficient group since 2013, indicating improvement in its education delivery.

Since DEA compares each state to all others while computing efficiency, some states act as the superior efficient peers, whose better performance results in inefficiency of others. Himachal Pradesh and Manipur are two states that have consistently been the efficient peers for the most number of inefficient states.

For each of the inefficient states, it is also possible to highlight the output attribute that needs particular attention, improvement in which will lead to the maximum rise in efficiency. The importance of comparing performance on grounds of efficiency as opposed to merely outcomes is reinforced by the fact that while outcome-oriented rankings would classify Punjab and Sikkim as high-performers, the analysis shows that they are not performing to their fullest potential. Similarly, from an inputoriented perspective, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu are seemingly providing good resources, but are not able to translate them to equally good learning achievements.

Hence, in order to not trade off quality against volume, as recently emphasized by the prime minister, a careful inclusion of inputs as well as outputs is needed in assessment of the status quo, and data-driven insights need to be drawn to identify the right focus areas for improvement. DEA fulfils all such requirements, and can aid in the policymaking process in other sectors too. A sound elementary education system is essential for our country to tap the potential of its vast human resource, and the importance of data-driven policy in this context can never be overemphasized.

Source: Mintepaper, 6-05-2016

The Indian is no longer alone

If grief and anger unite us, so does, when such occasion arises, relief 

Why did Mahatma Gandhi make non-violence a non-negotiable requirement of the mass movement that won us our freedom? You don’t demand non-violence from non-violent people; there is no need to. Did he see behind the seeming docility of the “meek Indian” caricature and much-derided stupor a streak of latent violence that would rip Indians apart along the fissures of caste, creed and gender long before it became a threat to any empire? He witnessed the lava that blew up when chaos erupted; he became a martyr to violence.

No saint can eliminate crime from human behaviour; that is the original sin of existence. But how does one explain the unthinkable, unspeakable and unbelievable depths of depravity that accompany the rape of a Dalit woman in Kerala by “normal” men who have led “normal” lives? How many psychopaths lurk beneath the banal? Why does an instrument of state, the police force, refuse to register an FIR for five days? Can a crime be more brutal, more heinous? Such questions leave me helpless.

Our nation remains a vast collage swirling through a restless kaleidoscope. Blood in one corner, dust and drought in another, elections in a third, corruption in a fourth, and always a sense that more storms are waiting to break any moment. But below this trembling surface is a powerful new fact: The Indian is no longer alone. Anger against barbaric rape-murder spreads from mother to neighbour, neighbour to state, state to country. Indians rise against injustice from every point. If grief unites Indians, so does, when such occasion arrives, relief. I was in Ranchi last weekend when early clouds, always ready to flatter only to deceive, nevertheless broke the morbid, dry grip of an oven-hot summer. A wind from heaven whipped through the city. As I stepped out of the hotel to enjoy the weather, a beaming doorman told me with festive sparkle, “There has been rain. In Latur.”

I have had the curious experience of reading the censored sections of a book long before the authorised version. Hector Bolitho’s Jinnah: Creator of Pakistan first appeared in 1954, commissioned by the Pakistan government. As history, the book is nonsense; as biography it is warped. But as an anthology of anecdotes picked up from about 50 people who knew Muhammad Ali Jinnah it makes for good entertainment. The trouble was that the real Jinnah had eating and drinking habits that were not quite Islamic; and political views that did not suit the new narrative being developed by the Pakistan state. So all such bits were censored by a certain Majid Malik, Principal Information Officer, Government of Pakistan. Bolitho, of course, was not allowed to mention that the book had been sanitised but an enterprising Pakistani publisher five decades later managed to filch these bits from the archives and put them into print. Obviously, the censored bits are far more interesting, evidence as they are of a life replete with contradictions.

Bolitho records this image of Jinnah as a young barrister in Mumbai: “…an El Greco look, with grey, cold depths — lean, pale hands, which he washed almost every hour…” Bolitho is not sharp enough to pause and ask why he washed his hands every hour. There can be only two reasons, vanity or guilt. Pride in one’s hands is a bit odd; but what on earth could Jinnah feel guilty about? One can only conjecture: Was he too cold to the teenage-wife he was forced to marry as per custom before he left for England? She died before he returned.

Jinnah’s winter-summer romance and elopement-marriage with the vivacious Parsi beauty of her time, Ruttie, has been well documented. Ruttie was half his age, and for a while he was completely entranced. Perhaps inevitably, it was all too good to last; they quarrelled, they drifted and began to live apart. Ruttie fell seriously ill, and went to Paris for treatment. Jinnah rushed to her bedside, and for a brief while friends thought their relationship had revived. It did not. Jinnah was not at her side when Ruttie relapsed. Her last epistle to Jinnah is one of the most moving love letters I have read (it is not in Bolitho’s book). Jinnah, famously, broke down and wept when she was buried, at just 29, in Mumbai. And yet when he returned to the home they had shared, Jinnah removed every photograph, every souvenir, every art object associated with her. What manner of man was this?

Source: Indian Express, 6-05-2016

Practise Forgiveness Instead Of Revenge

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan





Almost every day of our lives, we face some kind of bad experience, big or small, which is inescapable. One has two options: either ignore it or try to take some counter measure. The first option is a form of forgiveness, while the other amounts to seeking revenge. Which is the better option? We must decide by looking at the outcome, for that will be the determining factor.Forgiveness is the better option, for it is based on a proven formula for saving yourself from even worse experiences. For example, forgiveness saves you from unworthy distractions, saves your precious time, and saves you from creating even more problems. It is an instant solution to any problem. On the contrary , taking revenge is bound to complicate the problem, for that means making everything go from bad to worse. Where forgiveness can buy time, taking revenge just wastes time without any benefit.
In such a situation, people are generally prone to place the onus for the predicament entirely upon others. But this is an unwise reaction. The better plan is to examine one's own role in the affair. In other words, if you are having some sad experience, don't focus on the other party . Think about your own self and adopt a course of action better for you. At many times in our lives we are faced with two kinds of choices ­ anti-other thinking and pro-self thinking.Anti-other thinking makes you descend to the brute level, whereas pro-self thinking elevates you to a higher plane of human behaviour.
If forgiveness is a full stop, revenge is punctuated by commas. Forgiveness means ending an unwanted situation, w ending an unwanted situation, while taking revenge means endlessly extending it. Forgiveness maintains your positive thinking uninterruptedly, while revenge fosters negativity . And negative thinking can lead to all kinds of evil actions.
Some would argue that forgiveness does not always work, and that it is better to adopt the tit-for-tat policy . But tit-for-tat is not a real solution; it does not end the problem, it only leads to a chain of action-reaction. Forgiveness puts an end to the problem once and for all, while a tit-for-tat policy only aggravates and prolongs it. Some might argue that the policy of forgiveness will only encourage others to indulge in further wrongdoing against us. But this runs counter to the law of nature.
Psychological studies show that every human being is born with an ego and a conscience. If you follow the tit-for-tat policy, es the ego of the other party , it arouses the ego of the other party , whereas if you follow the policy of forgiveness, it will activate the other person's conscience. And it is a fact that, in controversial matters, the conscience always plays a positive role.
Forgiveness and revenge are two different moral cultures. The culture of forgiveness helps in the building of a better society where positive values flourish, the spirit of cooperation prevails, where disparate groups join together and turn themselves into a peaceful society . The outcome of vengefulness is quite the reverse. A revenge culture creates an environment of mistrust, in which everyone takes others to be his rivals. This rules out the growth of a healthy society .
Sooner or later, everyone is bound to do something wrong. Then the saying `To err is human' should be borne in mind. This being so, taking revenge means making not just one mistake, but making mistake after mistake. On the contrary , forgiveness means undoing wrongs with rights. If to err is human, to forgive is even more human.

Volume: 39.3 Jul-Sep-2014

Perspectives

Corporate Governance: Changing Trends in Interpreting Fiduciary Duty

Anurag K Agarwal

One of the foremost requirements of corporate governance is transparency in the system. It is the crux of fiduciary duty - the duty of loyalty and care towards the employer - that personal interest ...Read More

Research

Establishing A Framework of Transformational Grassroots Military Leadership: Lessons from High-Intensity, High-Risk Operational Environments

Ravindra Singh Bangari

This empirical study which draws upon operational military environments, offers prescriptive guidelines for leaders required to operate in similar domains of extreme contexts and dynamic institution...Read More

Indication of Overreaction with or without Stock Specific Public Announcements in Indian Stock market

Sitangshu Khatua, H K Pradhan

The present study examines how stocks overreact in the case of unspecified events in comparison to specified events. Specified events can be monitored up to a certain extent because of their known a...Read More

The Impact of Derivative Trading on the Liquidity of Stocks

M S Narasimham, Shalu Kalra

This paper examines the impact of introduction of derivative trading on the price-impact measure of liquidity of underlying stocks in the cash market. The liquidity of stocks ii in the cash market ...Read More

Fraud Risk Prediction in Merchant-Bank Relationship using Regression Modeling

Nishant Agarwal, Meghna Sharma

Banks in the credit card business face financial risk which can be caused by either the card holders or the merchants. This paper focuses on a very specific aspect of financial risk, known as the fr...Read More

Impact of Organizational Culture on Commitment of Employees: An Empirical Study of BPO Sector in India

Sulakshna Dwivedi, Sanjay Kaushik, Luxmi

The present study investigates the impact of organizational culture on commitment of employees of BPO sector in India. The study has been conducted in three strata comprised of 15 BPO units in and a...Read More

Notes and Commentaries

Tweet Your Tune - Social Media, the New Pied Piper in Talent Acquisition

Debolina Dutta

Social networking is today a popular recruitment tool. With the current generation being active on social media sites, organizations are waking up to the potential of leveraging these channels to bu...Read More

Management Case

Transforming a State-Owned Utility: The Role of Technology and Leadership

Meeta Dasgupta, A Sahay, R K Gupta

The case tries to bring together different aspects of technological innovation and technology strategy at AB Power Ltd. to turnaround the dilapidated power distribution industry in India. It details...Read More

Diagnoses

Transforming a State-Owned Utility: The Role of Technology and Leadership

Mita Brahma

The case tries to bring together different aspects of technological innovation and technology strategy at AB Power Ltd. to turnaround the dilapidated power distribution industry in India. It details...Read More

Transforming a State-Owned Utility: The Role of Technology and Leadership

Shiv S Tripathi

The case tries to bring together different aspects of technological innovation and technology strategy at AB Power Ltd. to turnaround the dilapidated power distribution industry in India. It details...Read More

Book Review

At the Helm: A Memoir

N Ravichandran

The book by V Krishnamurthy (VK) is a professional biography of an outstand ing public sector CEO. The book captures the efforts made by VK in transforming three large public sector organizations (o...Read More

Agribusiness Supply Chain Management

Kushankur Dey

This book is a timely production in the specialized domain of agribusiness. Since authors of the book, Chandrasekaran and Raghuram, have attempted to marry agribusiness with supply chain, this rece...Read More

The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business

Rajesh Sharma

This is a book by two authors of impeccable credentials who are perhaps the most qualified for penning it — Eric Schmidt is the Executive Chairman of Google while Jared Cohen is the Director of Goo...Read More

The pulse of India’s agrarian economy

Pulses use less water per unit crop and also address hidden hunger

The severe drought across India should hopefully help focus attention on the overuse of water in agriculture. A data analysis by Roshan Kishore in this newspaper last week (http://goo.gl/P3lCLK) showed that the average water footprint for five major crops— rice, wheat, maize, sugarcane and cotton—is far higher than global averages.

At the root of the problem is a policy framework that is dominated by concerns about food security rather than water usage. The dominant role given to water-intensive cereals is a hangover from the harsh lessons of the 1960s, when a shortage of rice and wheat not only forced millions to go to bed hungry but also compromised India’s strategic autonomy, thanks to the dependence on US emergency imports under the PL 480 programme.

It is time India switched its policy focus to the efficiency of water use rather than adding to the food mountain. One key element of this switch should be greater incentives for the cultivation of pulses as well as millets—not just because they use less water for every unit of output but also as a weapon in the fight against hidden hunger. It is in this context that recent policy moves by Maharashtra deserve more attention.

The Devendra Fadnavis government has taken a few baby steps to help farmers move away from crops that use water intensively. It will make it more attractive for farmers to grow pulses by offering to pay a guaranteed price that is 5-10% higher than the central minimum support prices (MSPs) for pulses, as well as provide free seeds and fertilizers to farmers who grow pulses. This is a welcome beginning in a state that is dominated by the sugar lobby, and an experiment that other state governments should keep a keen eye on.

Domestic demand for pulses has anyway shot up in tandem with growing incomes. It is no secret that the rising prices of these pulses are not only a big contributor to high food inflation but also a political hot potato. Farmers in countries as distant as Canada have begun to grow pulses to feed growing demand in India.

India has to focus on increasing the area under pulses as well as its productivity. It also needs a more transparent system of price discovery through unified agricultural markets and revival of systems such as forward and futures markets with adequate risk management provisions.

The MSPs for pulses have often been lower than wholesale prices. Procurement levels are often low or nil. The central government had revised support prices of certain pulse groups last year as an incentive to farmers, but the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices’ report on kharif crops submitted last week has said that a more substantial hike in MSPs of pulses will be needed to reduce shortages and keep inflation under control. In addition, to minimize the wedge between domestic prices and zero-tariff import prices, the government should also consider doing away with export duties on pulses. This will prompt farmers to produce more for both the domestic and foreign markets.

This year, the centre has issued an early directive to the states—to project pulses demand and keep hoarding in check. A caveat is in order here. Imposing unrealistic limits on stocking will aggravate hoarding instead of curbing it, severely disincentivizing storage firms from storing pulses in the first place. The move by Maharashtra to impose price controls on pulses will also lead to more hoarding.

To prevent another fullfledged pulse crisis, a sum of

` 500 crore was allotted to pulses under the National Food Security Act, and a Price Stabilisation Fund with a corpus of ` 900 crore was made in this year’s budget exclusively for pulses. Three agencies—Food Corporation of India, Small Farmers Agri-Business Consortium and National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd—purchased more than 50,000 tonnes of pulses from farmers as buffer stocks during the fiscal year.

The centre and states would also do well to simultaneously focus on insuring farmers, raising yields within water constraints, enhancing food processing and storage facilities and abandoning export controls. A shift in the highly skewed cropping pattern of the country is the need of the hour.

Will the higher MSPs incentivize farmers to cultivate more pulses? Tell us at views@livemint.com

Source: Mintepaper, 5-05-2016

Unseeing the drought

The suffering of millions does not create public outrage, much less government 

The people of India’s villages carry collective memories of centuries of calamitous losses of sometimes millions of lives in famines. Famines have been pushed into history, unarguably one of free India’s greatest accomplishments. But the same can’t be said about droughts, which continue to extract an enormous toll on human suffering.

At least a third of the residents in India’s countryside are battling drought — many for the third consecutive year. Near-zero yields, sinking groundwater levels, drying streams and reservoirs have resulted in a massive slowdown in agricultural growth — it grew by minus 0.2 per cent in 2014-15, with no imminent signs of recovery. For millions of farmers, especially the small and marginal ones who are most dependent on rains, there is little food and almost no work alternative. The rural reality is stark: Around 55 per cent of households have no land at all, and are entirely dependent on manual labour to provide food to their families. But outside farming, there is little work available in the countryside.

The human consequences of this massive distress movement of people are inestimable. This should be intolerable in a country that boasts of being the fastest growing major economy in the world, with stocks of foodgrains in government warehouses ranging from 50 to 80 million tonnes. But the avoidable suffering of millions of children, women and men in today’s India, because they lack food, work and water, still does not create public outrage, much less elementary accountability from governments.

Even colonial governments were guided in times of scarcity by famine codes, which contained detailed guidelines to employ all persons who seek work in low-paid public works, to enable survival. These were combined with programmes of distress-feeding of children, the old and sick, and starving; fodder camps for cattle; and the transportation of water. In the decades I worked in the civil service, we still regarded the preservation of human and animal life during scarcities, along with protection of persons from caste and communal violence, to be among the highest duties of public service. The times today are dramatically different. In the glitter of contemporary India, the distress of city car drivers in the country’s capital, who have to find other modes of transport on alternate days, occupies far more public and media attention than the agony of daily survival of millions of people in rural India.

The highest priority of the Central government in times of scarcity should be to ensure the creation of millions of additional person-days of work in all affected villages. Instead, we find that it continues a policy of false claims, low-resourcing and poor management of highly delayed financial flows.

Colonial famine codes and scarcity codes of post-colonial India were not legally binding, but they spurred local administrations to create millions of person-days of wage employment in a vast battery of village public works. Today, the duties of governments are written into a law, the historic Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which creates legal obligations on governments to create at least 100 days of work in a year for all rural households that seek wage work in rural public works close to their homes. Given the scale of distress of landless workers, small and marginal farmers and livestock rearing communities in times of recurring scarcity, it can reasonably be expected that there would be a huge spurt of demand for employment in these times.

The finance minister claimed he had allocated the highest ever resources to MGNREGA in the 2016 budget. However, allocations have actually fallen significantly in real terms from the peak of 0.6 per cent of GDP in 2010-11 to 0.26 per cent of GDP in 2016-17. Also, if the 2010-11 allocations are adjusted for inflation, allocations in 2016-17 should be higher than Rs 66,000 crore to actually qualify as the highest ever. The allocations made in the current budget is Rs 38,500 crore. Of this, as much as Rs 12,590 crore is required to meet the record high of pending liabilities at the end of the last financial year (2015-16). Therefore, the amount of resources required to meet wage demands in the current year is only Rs 25,910 crore.

What does this huge bill of pending liabilities represent? It simply means that workers have not been paid wages, often for several months, for work done in the past. If wages are delayed so extensively even during times of acute distress then a precariously surviving impoverished person cannot rely on MGNREGA to extend wage and social protection in normally lean times. In effect, by deliberately delaying fund releases to states, the Central government ensures that fewer and fewer workers actually demand work under the programme. This is, under the law, a demand-led programme, in which the Central government is legally bound to provide all the resources needed to meet the demands for work up to 100 days per rural household. Chronically delayed payments kill the demand for work and thereby subvert the central purpose of the law.

Drought has been declared in 10 states. The Union government made a grand announcement of 50 days additional work in drought affected areas, but it did not back it with the allocation of a single additional rupee. We estimate that an additional 50 days of work just for drought affected job-card holders would require an additional allocation of Rs 15,000 crore — that’s over and above the normal requirements of the programme, which have not been made to begin with. And the sad reality is that all 10 states ended the year with a negative balance of pending liabilities because of long-delayed releases from the Centre, and as a result, a mere 7 per cent of households in these states crossed 100 days of work.

It has become customary for the present government to make tall claims whenever it is confronted with criticism of neglect of the social and farm sectors, and of people battling drought. A simple reference to actual facts reveals the hollowness of its claims each time. Yet each time it seems to hope that people may not notice.

Source: Indian Express, 5-05-2016

Being student-centric is the key

How can business schools fulfil the needs of different stakeholders and enhance the teaching-learning process?

A recent newspaper article indicated that several business schools in the country are closing down. Detailed discussions with the various stakeholders of the B-schools indicate that some of the reasons are lack of students, no placements, inadequate industry faculties, and so on.

A close analysis of the reasons cited by different stakeholders of an education institute indicated that their needs differ.

The top management desires that the institute should be filled with quality students, or, at least, there should be more than breakeven number of students. The parents desire that the institute should provide quality education and help students as and when required. They also expect it to take care of students’ holistic development and be a “parent” to them.

The government and the statutory authorities desire that all the rules and regulations are met by institutes, such as the number of computers, faculty, classrooms, and so on.

The students desire that the faculty provide them “something more” than what is available in the books, websites and so on. Many of the students are not interested in attending classes because they feel that all the information provided by the faculty is available on the Internet. There is no real value addition. Additionally, as far as the students are concerned, good job opportunities and placements are their priority.

Discussions with several industry and corporate personnel indicate that while interviewing students, corporate recruiters look at the following characteristics in students:

• Fundamental knowledge of the subject (approximately 20 per cent weightage)
• Application knowledge of the subject (approximately 40 per cent weightage)
• Holistic development of the student (approximately 40 per cent weightage)

This indicates that for the success of any B-school, the school has to orient itself to being ‘student-centric.’

Student-centric can be defined as the process which ensures that students become the centre of all activities of the B-school or any institution of higher learning. Essentially, it begins with the very raison d’etre for the school, that is, the teaching-learning process.

This aspect can be improved through some of the following activities:

Reverse teaching: In this process, the student either individually, or in a group, makes a presentation on some relevant topics. The student or student group is encouraged to make the presentations based on a field work, including interviews with notable persons and so on.

Case study: The students are encouraged to study a given case, analyse the same and discuss it in class. The faculty acts as a facilitator during the case study analysis.

Virtual enlightenment: Leaders from the industry are invited to share their thoughts with the students. Consequently, sessions are arranged so that the students can benefit from the knowledge of thought leaders, management gurus and industry experts. The school could also arrange such sessions in the areas of wellness, women empowerment, technical issues, and so on.

Simulation exercises: Business plans are prepared and implemented in a small way. Simulation exercises are held in the areas of entrepreneurship management, financial management, marketing and marketing research management, and so on.

Learning Management Systems (LMS): The LMS system provides the students with access to the lectures conducted in the class at any time and at place. Assignments and discussions, among other resources, can be obtained from home or any place. The only limitation would be the availability of the Internet.

Online courses: Students are encouraged to undertake online courses which are in their area of interest and credit is given for successful completion of these courses.

National and international conferences: The students, through the help of the faculty (who acts as a facilitator), plan, organise and implement national and international conferences. This helps in the holistic development of the student.

Live projects: Students are encouraged to work in organisations while they learn the theoretical and practical aspects of management in the classroom. These students are encouraged to work in organisations for a period of three to four months or one semester. The students are encouraged to interact with the industry at least once or twice a week.

Student participation in committees: In one of the B-schools, activities similar to the ones in the corporate world are organised. Several committees are formed and students are encouraged to take part in each of them. For example, students are actively encouraged to participate in committees such as academic committee, non-academic committee, institutional social responsibility committee, industry-institute interaction cell, and so on.

Institute Social Responsibility (ISR): The objective is to sensitise the students to the real world. One of the B-schools in Mumbai had adopted a village on the outskirts of the city and helped the women in setting up their own Soya Ladhu Project. Another group helped the women to manufacture TASSAR silk products. Other projects undertaken in the area included blood donation camps, organising cleanliness drive, and so on.

Placement activities: Students are encouraged to become members of the placement committee. With the help of the placement committee, corporates are encouraged to visit the school. Weak students are given remedial coaching including training on how to handle interviews, answer questions such as “What do you want to be in the next 10 years?”, “What do you intend to do to achieve the above?” and so on.

Thus, becoming student-centric is essential for any B-school to succeed. It is important that the institutes transform themselves from schools imparting “some knowledge” to centres that are student-centric.

The writer is director and head of department, School of Management, D.Y. Patil University, Navi Mumbai.

Keywords: business schools, how to improve business schools, student-centric approach, student participation in B-schools

Source: The Hindu, 5-05-2016