This story is from February 4, 2019

Short term post-experience management courses enhance peer-to-peer learning

Besides being at third position in FT Rankings, ISB boasts of 34% women students' intake and 187% hike in salaries.
Short term post-experience management courses enhance peer-to-peer learning
Rajendra Srivastava, dean, ISB.
Besides being at third position in FT Rankings, ISB boasts of 34% women students' intake and 187% hike in salaries
The Indian School of Business (ISB) has outperformed all the B-schools in the country to rank at 24 in the recent Financial Times Global MBA Rankings of 2019 for its one-year Post-Graduate Programme in Management (PGP). PGP, says Rajendra Srivastava, dean, ISB, is a well-performing course that gives importance to past work-experience of a candidate and helps in enhancing the past profession.
Presence of experienced professionals makes the classroom diverse and promotes peer-to-peer learning, he says.
"Minimum work experience required is five years and every candidate brings with him a different perspective towards the management course, which helps in peer-to-peer learning. For the same reason, many schools in Europe are moving towards post-work based short term courses as the candidates have already received a lot of learning. Also, during admission we look at the communication skills of the candidate, leadership qualities and attitude towards social responsibility," he says.
The institute has global accreditations from AACSB and EQUIS. Talking about recognition from Indian bodies such as the AICTE, the dean says that the body only recognises a master's course if its duration is two years. However, because the candidates come after a lot of their respective industry exposure, a year is sufficient to provide them with all the coursework. Several reputed international institutes offer very successful one-year management programmes.
Candidates with hands-on industry exposure can become better managers. However, integrated management programmes like five-year Integrated Programme in Management (IPM) offered by IIM-Indore, can serve the purpose if a lot of experiential learning is included, says Srivastava. The institute now plans to focus on enhancing multidisciplinary research and increase foreign student enrolment to further improve the rankings year-on-year.

"Investing in research is important for institutes to become Institutions of Eminence in the real sense. More than 90% of our faculty members hold PhD degrees from abroad and thus, bring with them their global exposure and best teaching practices. We already have a healthy student-teacher ratio and are trying to make faculty clusters that are diverse and international," says Srivastava.
As all disciplines are being transformed in the backdrop of the digital revolution and information services, thus, the institute will focus on faculty that is not conversant with data analytics, fintech and IT and other relevant skills.
"We already have 10 research centres across our two campuses in Hyderabad and Mohali that focus on different areas including social science or healthcare, public policy, etc. We need to ramp up our international student enrolment which presently stands at 3% in our Post Graduate Programme (PGP). This is because international students are not yet seeing India as a study destination," adds Srivastava.
To position India as a top global destination for quality management education, collective success of Indian B-schools is important. With 'Study in India' campaign gaining traction and IIMs rankings going up, there will be greater interest among students who are keen to look at India for business management education.
The school has improved by four positions from its 2018 rankings. ISB is ranked at the top spot in India and is the only B-school to figure in the Top 25. The institute also intends to participate in the Executive MBA and Executive Education rankings in 2019. At 33rd position, IIM Bangalore's one-year Executive Post Graduate Programme in Management (EPGP) takes the highest spot amongst all IIMs in the FT Global MBA Ranking 2019. IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Calcutta have been ranked at 47 and 49 respectively.
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