A freelance article on “Management Education – with special reference to the faculty related issues”
1. Introduction:
Management education has come a long way in India since its introduction in 60, with the starting of IIM-A. Today, around 1400+ B-Schools exist in India. They may be university departments, self-financed affiliated colleges, private colleges which are not government/AICTE approved and so on. Even foreign universities have been opening their campuses at metros like Bangalore.
Any educational institute, may of any given discipline, cannot exist without good faculty members. Although, good infrastructure, good PR, good management etc. play a very important role, if the institute does not have good faculty members, then it cannot generate sustainable growth and in some cases, it may not even survive.
Now a days, we find many well designed B-Schools, with very good building, library, computer labs and all the other abilities. But, when you check the availability of the faculty, not all of them have competent ones.
What is the reason for this? Why do the premier institutes like IIM even find it difficult to find the faculty members? Like the recent statistics in one of the magazines indicated that right now IIM-A needs around 100 faculties and it has only been able to find 84!
So, what I intend to discuss here why is management education feeling such a shortage. The point to remember is that enough number of people are ready to join the academics, but not enough number of “talented” one are ready to join academics!
Let us try to explore some points in this regard:
Are fresh and talented MBAs ready to join academics?
Retention problems in academics
Development, training, R&D for faculty members
Differences amongst the faculty members of Government v/s Private / Self-financed Colleges
Working environment of academics
Are the academics jobs lucrative enough?
Is education an industry? Or can it be an industry?
Are our faculty members good enough according to global standards?
1. Are fresh and talented MBAs ready to join academics?:
Although, I have no official data to prove my point, but I am sure, in case if a survey is carried out, the answer shall definitely be NO, with most of the top level students not wanting to join the teaching. Ideally, what should happen is that the best students need to become the faculty members but exactly reverse is happening.
The image of teaching field still remains to be “bogus” amongst the people in India. General impression is that the one, who cannot get job anywhere, will join teaching. So, largely due to this notion, very few competent students prefer to join this field.
Thought of as the job with full of rest [vacation, holidays], many of them don’t find these jobs “challenging” at all.
Some state that first one should go for industry job, earn money, develop a group and it is only in the later stages of life, when one should join academics!
2. Retention problems in academics:
It is a cruel reality that retention is never easy in any given industry in the current times. Same is the fact with this field. Retention is a burning issue especially for self-financed colleges. Some of the reasons for it are:
Opening up of many self financed institutions, resulting in more options.
When the other college offers even the smallest advantage, one would leave the current organization. Like, if one secures a job in a college nearby home etc…
For early promotions, like colleges operating in remote areas do not get senior faculties easily like the professors and readers. So, in such cases, young people may wish to switchover to such places for promotions.
Another serious issue is that many of the B-School faculty change or switchover to the corporate world due to lack of motivation. We shall further discuss the issue in point number 6.
3. Development, training, R&D for faculty members:
Management is a dynamic subject. It is the field which keeps changing with time. So, it becomes pretty essential for the faculty members of the Management to keep updating themselves.
But, not all the institutes offer freedom to their faculty members to update themselves. One needs to read a lot, attend seminars, write papers, do consultancy and so forth for the real development. But, many institutes are not open enough to accept this fact. The underlying philosophy of such institutes is that a teacher’s basic duty is teaching and he/she should not “waste” time in such activities at the cost of students’ studies.
Now, what happens as a result of such closed environment is that, there is no motivation for the faculty members to work hard. They simply teach the courseware from the text books and thus, ultimately the students bear the cost of it.
At times, the cost of training is so high that they cannot afford it at personal level and the institutes deny to pay fees and in many cases, even deny to permit them to go for such training, even if the candidate is willing to undergo such training at his/her own cost!
Thus, developing one’s self becomes very tough when working with such closed institutes.
4. Differences amongst the faculty members of Government v/s Private / Self-financed Colleges:
It is interesting to note that while the faculty members of government funded colleges are generally satisfied with the job, while it is not always true when we talk of people working in private colleges. The reasons for it could be:
While there is enough scope of development in the government run colleges [departments], same is not true with the private colleges, where it is quite tough to manage approvals for attending seminars, workshops and so on.
There is a central authority at times, who takes all the decision, but he/she may not be fully qualified to understand the issues of the faculty members in private colleges. While in government colleges, the central authority is generally well learned and understands the situation better.
Government college faculties enjoy better overall freedom as compared to private ones.
5. Working environment of academics:
Traditionally, the working environment of academics is not challenging, rewarding, fast and glamorous as compared to the corporate world. The outcome of this is that young people generally avoid this particular field. It works more on seniority than on talent [in case of promotion specifically]. Due to this reasons, many youngsters even leave this field after joining it in the initial career.
6. Are the academics jobs lucrative enough?:
The answer is simply no. The academics are not lucrative according to the general belief. The fact is, one has to wait for longer period of time to achieve the higher returns. Like, in selling, one may start earning Rs. 30000 or more at the age of 25 to 27, given the ability is there while in academics, one requires to wait for 10 more years to achieve this height.
Then, there are no target based incentives in academics, which also make it look dull and dry.
7. Is education an industry? Or can it be an industry?:
The way some of the premier private institutes of management are changing, it looks like that the medium level institutes will also have to follow the suit. But, right now, the education is not an industry in terms of professionalism. The educational institutes are not competitive and professional enough.
Another aspect, to be considered over here is that once the foreign colleges/universities of management will enter into the smaller towns of India, they will give tough competition to the local institutes, forcing them to be more proactive, more professional and more open to the competition.
In short, right now, education is not an industry, but it going to be one very soon.
8 Are our faculty members good enough according to global standards?:
Very few of the faculty members are there who have got the international exposure of any kind, may be academic of may be industrial. Although, the faculty members of premier institutes may be having this sort of exposure, what about those institutes of where a large number of medium-level students study?
In short, very few faculty members are globally competent.
---CONCLUSION---
The standard of average B-Schools is not up to the mark in India in terms of faculty members and there is a gap between demand of good faculties v/s supply of good faculties. If we want to solve this gap, we need to address the above noted issues seriously.
Management education has come a long way in India since its introduction in 60, with the starting of IIM-A. Today, around 1400+ B-Schools exist in India. They may be university departments, self-financed affiliated colleges, private colleges which are not government/AICTE approved and so on. Even foreign universities have been opening their campuses at metros like Bangalore.
Any educational institute, may of any given discipline, cannot exist without good faculty members. Although, good infrastructure, good PR, good management etc. play a very important role, if the institute does not have good faculty members, then it cannot generate sustainable growth and in some cases, it may not even survive.
Now a days, we find many well designed B-Schools, with very good building, library, computer labs and all the other abilities. But, when you check the availability of the faculty, not all of them have competent ones.
What is the reason for this? Why do the premier institutes like IIM even find it difficult to find the faculty members? Like the recent statistics in one of the magazines indicated that right now IIM-A needs around 100 faculties and it has only been able to find 84!
So, what I intend to discuss here why is management education feeling such a shortage. The point to remember is that enough number of people are ready to join the academics, but not enough number of “talented” one are ready to join academics!
Let us try to explore some points in this regard:
Are fresh and talented MBAs ready to join academics?
Retention problems in academics
Development, training, R&D for faculty members
Differences amongst the faculty members of Government v/s Private / Self-financed Colleges
Working environment of academics
Are the academics jobs lucrative enough?
Is education an industry? Or can it be an industry?
Are our faculty members good enough according to global standards?
1. Are fresh and talented MBAs ready to join academics?:
Although, I have no official data to prove my point, but I am sure, in case if a survey is carried out, the answer shall definitely be NO, with most of the top level students not wanting to join the teaching. Ideally, what should happen is that the best students need to become the faculty members but exactly reverse is happening.
The image of teaching field still remains to be “bogus” amongst the people in India. General impression is that the one, who cannot get job anywhere, will join teaching. So, largely due to this notion, very few competent students prefer to join this field.
Thought of as the job with full of rest [vacation, holidays], many of them don’t find these jobs “challenging” at all.
Some state that first one should go for industry job, earn money, develop a group and it is only in the later stages of life, when one should join academics!
2. Retention problems in academics:
It is a cruel reality that retention is never easy in any given industry in the current times. Same is the fact with this field. Retention is a burning issue especially for self-financed colleges. Some of the reasons for it are:
Opening up of many self financed institutions, resulting in more options.
When the other college offers even the smallest advantage, one would leave the current organization. Like, if one secures a job in a college nearby home etc…
For early promotions, like colleges operating in remote areas do not get senior faculties easily like the professors and readers. So, in such cases, young people may wish to switchover to such places for promotions.
Another serious issue is that many of the B-School faculty change or switchover to the corporate world due to lack of motivation. We shall further discuss the issue in point number 6.
3. Development, training, R&D for faculty members:
Management is a dynamic subject. It is the field which keeps changing with time. So, it becomes pretty essential for the faculty members of the Management to keep updating themselves.
But, not all the institutes offer freedom to their faculty members to update themselves. One needs to read a lot, attend seminars, write papers, do consultancy and so forth for the real development. But, many institutes are not open enough to accept this fact. The underlying philosophy of such institutes is that a teacher’s basic duty is teaching and he/she should not “waste” time in such activities at the cost of students’ studies.
Now, what happens as a result of such closed environment is that, there is no motivation for the faculty members to work hard. They simply teach the courseware from the text books and thus, ultimately the students bear the cost of it.
At times, the cost of training is so high that they cannot afford it at personal level and the institutes deny to pay fees and in many cases, even deny to permit them to go for such training, even if the candidate is willing to undergo such training at his/her own cost!
Thus, developing one’s self becomes very tough when working with such closed institutes.
4. Differences amongst the faculty members of Government v/s Private / Self-financed Colleges:
It is interesting to note that while the faculty members of government funded colleges are generally satisfied with the job, while it is not always true when we talk of people working in private colleges. The reasons for it could be:
While there is enough scope of development in the government run colleges [departments], same is not true with the private colleges, where it is quite tough to manage approvals for attending seminars, workshops and so on.
There is a central authority at times, who takes all the decision, but he/she may not be fully qualified to understand the issues of the faculty members in private colleges. While in government colleges, the central authority is generally well learned and understands the situation better.
Government college faculties enjoy better overall freedom as compared to private ones.
5. Working environment of academics:
Traditionally, the working environment of academics is not challenging, rewarding, fast and glamorous as compared to the corporate world. The outcome of this is that young people generally avoid this particular field. It works more on seniority than on talent [in case of promotion specifically]. Due to this reasons, many youngsters even leave this field after joining it in the initial career.
6. Are the academics jobs lucrative enough?:
The answer is simply no. The academics are not lucrative according to the general belief. The fact is, one has to wait for longer period of time to achieve the higher returns. Like, in selling, one may start earning Rs. 30000 or more at the age of 25 to 27, given the ability is there while in academics, one requires to wait for 10 more years to achieve this height.
Then, there are no target based incentives in academics, which also make it look dull and dry.
7. Is education an industry? Or can it be an industry?:
The way some of the premier private institutes of management are changing, it looks like that the medium level institutes will also have to follow the suit. But, right now, the education is not an industry in terms of professionalism. The educational institutes are not competitive and professional enough.
Another aspect, to be considered over here is that once the foreign colleges/universities of management will enter into the smaller towns of India, they will give tough competition to the local institutes, forcing them to be more proactive, more professional and more open to the competition.
In short, right now, education is not an industry, but it going to be one very soon.
8 Are our faculty members good enough according to global standards?:
Very few of the faculty members are there who have got the international exposure of any kind, may be academic of may be industrial. Although, the faculty members of premier institutes may be having this sort of exposure, what about those institutes of where a large number of medium-level students study?
In short, very few faculty members are globally competent.
---CONCLUSION---
The standard of average B-Schools is not up to the mark in India in terms of faculty members and there is a gap between demand of good faculties v/s supply of good faculties. If we want to solve this gap, we need to address the above noted issues seriously.
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