Building Student Career Beyond Placements

"Business Schools in India are actually not focussing only on placements. Placement is just a process. All the skills that we are building in a B School go much beyond placement in the corporate world, in business and in life in particular," said Prof Anil Somani, Chairman, FOSTIIMA Business School.

He was speaking at BW Education Future of Management Conclave 2023, hosted by BW Businessworld on Thursday in New Delhi.

Dr Asit K Barma, Director, Bharathidasan Institute of Management, Tiruchirappalli, opined that the business order around us is getting highly dynamic and we really can't predict that what mix of candidates will come onboard.

"The passing out batch that we have in our institution, 30 to 40 per cent of them have good work experience but the other batch that is passing out in 2024 comprises mostly of freshers. So the programme architecture is the key," suggested Barma.

Explaining important aspects of MBA, Dr Pawan Kumar Singh, Director, IIM Tiruchirappalli, stated that MBA is not meant for creating students to become eligible for becoming management trainees or just to get placed. "MBA is a very big thing, it is a life time qualification."

"Living may be covered by placement but life cannot be covered by placement. Transcending from managing living to managing life is significant," Singh further said in agreement to the views of fellow panellists.

Explaining the purpose of management education, Prof Praveen Gupta, Director, Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management, underlined that the aim of MBA should not be placement only. "We are trapped into this thought process to some extent but the students, the faculty, the administration, everybody including parents should look at management education as the vehicle to get prepared for all kinds of adversities," he stated.

"All of us as business schools are trying to ingrain a lot of important values, different kinds of skill sets, holistic learning as well but when placement season comes - everything goes out of the window and then we are all measured on that one metric. But at IMT, we are focussed at entrepreneurship and innovation," shared Dr Vishal Talwar, Director, IMT Ghaziabad.

Describing the essence of the whole discussion in a nutshell, the moderator for the panel discussion, Dr Bhimraya Metri, Director, IIM Nagpur said, "One third of the global busines schools are in India. The number is very high. If we look at the top 50 Indian B Schools, the fee is extremely high and this is the only area in PG Diploma where the fee is not controlled either by the state or the centre. Even though, some attempts have been made, it did not happen."

"Since the fee is very high, students go for loan and that's why they look for better placements," Metri added.