Rankings Are Not The Only Thing To Look At To Measure The Performance Of An Institution

Q. What is your long-term aim of FORE School of Management and what are the challenges that you need to overcome to compete with other established institutions? 

Our Vision is: To make this world a better place based on knowledge creation and sharing.

Foundation for Organizational Research and Education (FORE) is committed to the advancement of Management Education, Research, Training, and Consultancy. FORE has been working with industry and academia for developing new domains of managerial thought and education and contributing to building leaders in today's global business environment.

India’s latent entrepreneurship potential lies untapped because of life skills that aren’t taught and social expectations that aren’t set right. In this era of globalization, it’s very important for the business firms to cope up and work with the changing market forces to be ahead of their competitors. With this in mind, we want to be the most preferred Business School for potential students. 

Q. Tell us about Foreign collaborations and Student/Faculty Exchange Programmes that FORE offers? 

With the Indian markets getting globalized, there is an enormous need to modernize and customize ‘Business Education’ to match International Standards as well as the requirements of Indian company trends.  Business schools should provide an international perspective to its students because it’s an essential attribute that industry looks for while searching young talent.

FORE School of Management, New Delhi has emerged as a leading B-School of India in a short span of time. The institute collaborates with global universities in the academic programs and fosters multilateral exchanges to open vistas for creativity and innovation. FORE has an academic partnership with twelve International Institutes in South East Asia, Europe, and North America. 

The Student Exchange Program (SEP) at FORE with its’ partnering institutions/universities has been excellent as we have successfully coordinated the SEP in collaboration with Rennes School of Business, France and ESCE International Business School, Paris, France. 

FORE also conducts mandatory Annual International Immersion Program for all the students at Nanyang Business School, Singapore. This year, five highly specialized and cutting-edge courses were conducted by NBS, Singapore faculty for our students.  

Q. For those institutions who do not believe in rankings, how does one measure their performances as an Institution?

Rankings are not the only thing to look at to measure the performance of an Institution. This is not a secret that most of the private rankings are biased and to a large extent commercially linked. This is one of the reasons why we only participate in the NIRF Ranking which is an initiate of HRD Ministry.

When the courses offered by an Institution are accredited by NBA or any International accreditation, it is implicit that the Institution matches the required standard and the performance is above satisfactory. Therefore, Accreditation by reputed bodies also is a good measure of the Institute’s performance. 

Apart from this, the recruiters these days ask for details of courses (including electives) that are taught in an Institution, particularly in PGDM courses. It means they want to see whether the course contents that are taught are interfaced with the industry requirement or not. Therefore, Rankings can give you an idea but can’t measure the performance of an Institution.

Q. The Government plans to set up one IIM in every state. Will that affect FORE as a preferred Institution for PGDM/MBA?

FORE School of Management stands for academic excellence benchmarked to the best B-Schools in India. Backed by a strong value system, FORE nurtures educators and helps them provide cutting edge input to academics. The faculty is encouraged and supported in all their research and consultancy endeavors. The key element of our institutional success is transparent processes. The Board members of FORE are visionary social leaders who act as mentors who guide and support the institute through their wisdom and experience. Teaching at FORE is perceptive to changing demands of the corporate world and every year our students get excellent placements. 

FORE School of Management is proud to be ranked 16th for Teaching and Learning Resources (TLR) among all B-Schools in the NIRF Ranking 2018 which is considered as one of the most prestigious rankings as it is directly governed by Ministry of HRD.   Based on these parameters, FORE is above IIM-Indore, Raipur, Ranchi & Rohtak. Considering our current strength and future strategies, we will continue to flourish in the Management education in spite of one IIM will be set up in every state.

Q. What has been the reason for low research output in India and how to improve it in Indian institutions?

The Faculty of B-Schools must be known for their academic research, teaching quality, accessible to students or a combination. The faculty should always prefer to engage in high-quality research and consulting. The Indian Institutions where faculty are able to work hard to keep themselves at the cutting edge of the new developments will be ones whose students will come out more successful. For all these things to happen at one place, the Faculty members must be given their own space and time to work on their research areas apart from other essential support from the Institute (management). But in many cases the policy and guidelines followed in Indian Institutions does not provide much scope to the faculty members to achieve these objectives lowering their productivity resulting in low research output of the Indian Institutions. We need to create a conducive environment to ensure faculty is “pulled” into doing research as they cannot be “pushed” into it!