Survival Of The Fittest Will Completely Play Out: Prof. Himadri Das, Director General, International Management Institute (IMI)

The COVID-19 pandemic has majorly hit the educational industry and has had its impact on the functioning of B-School starting from entrance examination, to the admission. Educational institutions are opting for blended classrooms as a result of the pandemic and extending deadlines for the admissions process.

The key speakers for today’s episode were: Prof. B. S. Sahay, Founder Director, IIM Jammu, Prof. Himadri Das, Director General, International Management Institute (IMI), Prof. Bharat Bhasker, Director, IIM Raipur, Dr. Jitendra K Das, Director, FORE School of Management, Prof Shailendra Singh, Director, IIM Ranchi, Dr. Harivansh Chaturvedi, Director, BIMTECH, Greater Noida and Dr. Annurag Batra, Chairman, Prof. (Dr.) Atmanand, Director of MDI Murshidabad & Editor-in-Chief, BW Businessworld & exchange4media Group (Chair).

On what the B-Schools of future will be, Prof. B.S.Sahay said, “Earlier it was said that training is only possible face-to-face, and not using technology, but 20 years down the line, things have changed. We have to adapt to blended learning, and the faculty members need to be trained as well.” He further underlined some of the challenges that the B-Schools are facing, especially considering the latest announcement of UGC on the conduction of examinations by the end of September.

“A new thinking has to emerge where we have to take care of issues and topics and study it in a larger way.” was Dr. Harivansh Chaturvedi, Director, BIMTECH, Greater Noida’s opening comments. “A global society will emerge”, he stated.

“This is going to be a classic case of 'survival of the fittest'. Students will be given pre-reputed content and the professors will help them with projects.” Stated Prof. Himadri Das, Director General, International Management Institute (IMI). He further added, “Now business school has to move from imparting knowledge to imparting competencies because companies will want the students to work from day one. Business schools who will act accordingly will thrive”.

According to Prof. Bharat Bhasker, Director, IIM Raipur, “Education was adapting to technologies at a much slower pace, but this event has accelerated the same.” He highlighted the positive impact of the pandemic in B-Schools and also spoke about the democratization of education.

Dr. Jitendra K Das, Director, FORE School of Management highlighted the three categories of imparting education. He said, “One is curriculum-based learning, second is co-curriculum based learning, and the third part is extra-curriculum.” He further focussed on imparting education during the Covid and stated, “Under covid the industry is undergoing a change and we need to understand that because the goal of MBA School is recruiters. If you look at the changes, you can very easily see how these are making an impact.”

Expressing his thoughts on the steps that B-school needs to take up in the Covid scenario, Prof. (Dr.) Atmanand, Director of MDI Murshidabad stated, “We need to go for constraint maximization technique to maximize our output. In B-school the end-result is placement. We develop our business models and we have to think of four things together; excellence in teaching, research, connect with the corporate sector, and develop social entrepreneurial projects”. He concluded saying that physical distance doesn’t matter.

On being asked where Prof Shailendra Singh, Director, IIM Ranchi would invest if he had extra 20 crores of fund, he stated, “I will invest it in research projects and invest the rest on placement because B-Schools are meant to provide good placements”.