Management education in India is facing a crisis with an increasing number of industry participants complaining of an employability gap.

“The quality of management education offered by Indian B-schools is out of sync with the times and is not addressing the needs of industry,” R.C Bhargava, Chairman of Maruti Suzuki India, who also heads the Board of Governors of Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ranchi, said. He was unveiling the Third Indian Management Conclave 2012 here on Thursday

He blamed the declining quality of graduates on unhindered expansion of B-schools as well as low industry-academia interaction.

A report by testing and assessment company MeritTrac and MBAUniverse released recently said employability of MBAs had taken a dip to touch 21 per cent in 2011-12.

He said there was urgent need to fill this gap and called upon B-schools to change in order to cater to the evolving needs of their ultimate customers — the recruiters.

The report also found that the number of MBA seats had registered a 272.28 per cent increase in five years to touch 3,52,571 in 2011-12, from 94,704 in 2006-07.

“B-Schools must relook at their curriculum to suit the economic, social and developmental needs of the economy,” he said, adding that the colleges need to include hands-on work experience as part of the curriculum.

Bala Balachandran, Kellog professor of management and founder of Great Lakes Institute of Management in Chennai, stressed on the need to improve the delivery system.

Amit Agnihotri, Convenor of the Indian Management Conclave, said, “Majority of the over 3,500 B-schools are facing challenges both on admissions and placement front. They need to realise that the era of sub-standard academic delivery is over.”

H Chaturvedi, Alternate President, Educational Promotion Society for India, called for setting up of a Government body to set standards exclusively for management schools along the lines of the All India Council for Technical Education.

aesha.datta@thehindu.co.in

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