Why Management & Engineering Education in India Stinks – Part II – Archie D’Souza

I had on Saturday, October 14, 2012 posted an article entitled “Why Management & Engineering Education in India Stinks” and suggested my list of remedies.  This was before the publication of this report.  Now that the National Employability Report for 2012 is out, it only corroborates my views.  Here are some of the highlights of the report:

·         Only a minuscule percentage of this year’s MBAs across India are employable.  Here is an interesting break-up:

o    2.5% are employable in business consulting

o    7.9% as analysts

o    6.9% in marketing related jobs

·         Surprisingly, for me at least,   it is higher for HR positions, the figure being 9,6%

·         For the banking and finance sector the figure is 7.6%

·         An organization called Aspiring Minds (see www.myamcat.com ) conducted a voluntary test called Aspiring Minds Computer Adaptive Test between April and September this year at tier-I and tier-II business schools.  The employability test comprised of a combination of the following:

o    English

o    Quantitative skills

o    Analytical abilities and

o    Domain-specific knowledge

32,000 students from the MBA class of 2011 in more than 22 business schools across the country took the test which is voluntary.

This is what Varun Aggarwal, chief operating officer and chief technology officer, Aspiring Minds, quoted in the Economic Times has to say: "The low employability figures show that management students and colleges need personalised employability feedback and guidance to take the right corrective steps.  This shall not only lead to more students getting jobs, but also addressing the large talent needs of our growing industry.”   Why do people enroll in an MBA?  From my experience it is to specialize in a particular domain.  However, how many people even know that domain?  This indeed is a cause for concern. 

What came as a surprise to me is that, according to the report, the employability of male and female candidates who took the test was approximately the same.  My personal experience both in the corporate as well as academic fields has been the opposite.  I’ve always found women much more competent and knowledgeable than their male counterparts with the same qualifications.  According to the report though, women did considerably better in HR – only 11.3% of the women surveyed and 8.3% of the men surveyed were found to be employable in HR roles.

I have suggested in my earlier article that MBA aspirants go through a mandatory 3-year industrial experience.  The fact is that while a student may be packed with a great deal of theory in the classroom, there just isn’t enough practical experience for them.  This is the situation even in the top business schools.  Students who’ve experienced a bit of corporate life will certainly make better managers.  It is my belief that management can never be learnt in the classroom.  The only way is baptism-by-fire.

I have also suggested that the level of instruction be raised.  For this one needs to attract the best to the field.  The best faculty member is one who has spent a good deal of time in industry.  I feel, minimum qualification requirements should be waived for corporate people, both current and retired, who wish to take up teaching assignments.  In fact, companies should encourage their managers to lecture in local management colleges.

For the rest of my recommendations please read my earlier article.

Click below to read:

http://sunriseacademyonline.blogspot.in/2012/10/why-management-engineering-education-in.html

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Why Management & Engineering Education in India Stinks Archie D’Souza | Sunday, 14 October 2012, 10:31 IST|

What do the letters MBA or M/B E/Tech. mean?  Are they passports to high paid jobs?  During my corporate life I must have interviewed over a thousand management and over two hundred engineering graduates from across the country.  I haven’t found even one percent of them employable.  And, that 1%, why do they have to apply for commercial jobs in the airline or freight forwarding industries?  India today has close to 4000 management colleges with over 3.5 lakh seats and an even higher number of engineering colleges offering 15 lakh seats.  We pride ourselves on having the greatest pool of technical personnel in the world.  What exactly do these so-called engineers and managers amount to?

An MBA graduate I interviewed recently wasn’t able to frame even a simple sentence at a written test I gave him.  When I queried him about how he passed his MBA, he said he never understood a word the teacher said in class.  All he did was learn certain answers by rote and reproduce them at the examination.  He could neither speak nor write in English.  He read with great difficulty a passage from a Std. VII text and wasn’t able to translate it into Malayalam.  Most of the peons I’d hired over the years could express themselves better than he in English.  Where does such a person get employed?

I have a group of engineering graduates in my logistics class.  I was trying to explain to the class how an injection-moulded product is made.  I asked the class a question about how poly-ethylene granules are made expecting the answer from the so called engineers.  I must say I was extremely disappointed.  Most of the class, including the BEs thought that plastic was mined from the ground like copper or iron ore.  A few who didn’t think didn’t even know what mining was.  I’m talking about a group of university graduates wishing to make a career in international logistics.

In India as elsewhere, students enrol in colleges hoping to acquire a good education and, after graduating, a good job, which offers handsome pays and perks.  Because of the demand for engineering and management graduates there are many aspirants and there has been a proliferation of institutions offering these streams.  In addition, there are institutions offering an integrated BE/Tech & MBA programme.  But, has this improved the educational levels?

The All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) chairman Mr. SS Mantha told the Times of India (see TOI AUG 13, 2012) that “Colleges in remote India and institutes of poor quality are not getting students. And for colleges, there is just one key to attracting students: institutes need to be top-of-the-line colleges. There is no payoff in running a bad college.”  There have been several studies on this subject and I’ve posted some of them in the blog. So what we see are MBAs and engineering graduates not fit to be clerks.

After all what does it take to become and engineering or management graduate?  Mug up answers to about a hundred questions.  There are question banks available for you.  Reproduce these and presto! You’ve can put a BTech or MBA after your name.  Lack of quality education has resulted in there being an army of unemployable youth.

So, what are the remedies?

·         Many would suggest that we limit the number of MBAs, but that would be a very politically unpopular decision.  But, raising the standard ought not to be.

·         I think the BBA programme should be abolished altogether.  It doesn’t make sense.  Management and Law should be PG disciplines

·         A person should have 3 years of mandatory industrial experience before s/he seeks a management degree

·         Every semester, for engineering and management, should a compulsory 2 month internship period

·         At least 50% (I would prefer 100%) of the faculty members in both engineering and management colleges should have a minimum of 10 years industrial experience

·         Raise the salary levels of instructors to industry standards to attract the best talent into teaching.  Several management colleges have started this practice and the results are very heartening

·         Consider a person’s industrial experience akin to qualifications.  E.g. a person who’s been in a management position for 10 years should be recognised as an MBA and allowed to teach in MBA programmes

·         Raise the level of teacher training