Time for IIMs to assert themselves

The Environment Minister, Mr Jairam Ramesh's statement on the IITs and IIMs being less than world class has triggered a debate on the quality of faculty and students in these ‘institutes of excellence'.

STUDENTS A MIXED BAG

Are we getting the best students, or are we getting the best-coached students? While it is easy to point fingers at the poor quality of teachers, there is no running away from the fact that the students' quality too could be suspect.

Today, coaching institutes make more money than the IITs and IIMs. They thrive on the demand-supply gap for quality education in this country. Students are ready to pay any amount to get coached for entry into these prestigious institutions. They, in turn, teach short-cuts and quick-fix methods to crack the entrance examinations. A person of above-average intelligence can be coached for 95+ percentile score, if he/she takes the entrance test many times. While it is a fact that we have students that do not deserve a seat, we also miss out on a number of bright ones who should have made it to the IIMs.

Students who make it to the IIMs are aggressive and better motivated. At the same time, they look for short-cuts and easy methods to obtain laurels, thanks to the hangover of coaching institutions. The amount of money spent by these prestigious institutions on checking plagiarism, copying in exams, and controlling proxy attendance is on the rise. The erosion of morals and values among the youth could also be a reason for this malaise.

The 80-20 rule applies in every walk of life, and the IIMs are no exception. Maybe, 20 per cent of the students account for all the successes we see around the world. We need a serious study on the remaining 80 per cent of the students. Is it wrong selection or wrong training at the institute that is responsible for their poor performance?

QUALITY OF FACULTY

When it comes to teachers, the ratio gets reversed, with 80 per cent of the IIM faculty being world-class. The students cannot become world-class, unless the faculty imparts world-class education. We Indians are generally good in knowledge dissemination. The IIM faculty tend to read the latest case studies from Harvard and impart excellent American education that helps the students find jobs in MNCs around the world. If a faculty can get a good rating from IIM students, he/she can teach anywhere in the world. It is not that the students are so demanding, but the fact is that they are exposed to better teachers and the benchmarks set are very high.

Since the IIMs place considerable emphasis on student ratings, the teaching quality has gone up. For example, IIMA has a tradition of publishing faculty ratings on the hostel notice boards. In every IIM, the senior students pass on information about faculty quality to the junior students, which has a direct bearing on enrolment in the elective courses offered by faculty members. This has led to the creation of a large pool of excellent teachers in IIMs.

FIXATED ON PUBLICATIONS

In the Western context, a faculty member who fails to publish (however good a teacher he/she may be) is considered a brain-dead person. Western institutions operate in a ‘publish or perish' environment. Institutes of higher learning in India have failed to place that kind of emphasis on research and publications. Unfortunately, the global rankings are based on the net knowledge created by the institutions.

No weightage seems to be accorded to student feedback on teachers in any of the ranking surveys. It is no wonder that we have been gradually sliding in the global rankings, and China, Singapore and Hong Kong have been steadily climbing up the ladder. There is a fundamental flaw in the metrics used to measure the performance of faculty in India.

Despite all these limitations, our faculty have been doing research and publishing in journals in India and abroad. But the number of such active researchers is far too few.

The IIMs have started incentivising research by announcing cash awards for publications in reputed journals. Not many have taken advantage of the same. But there has been a gradual increase in the number of papers published by IIM faculty.

OPPORTUNITY FOR INDIA

Unlike IITs, IIMs have a choice; while engineering and scientific research has to be aligned with global research trends, management research has the option to move in very different directions, primarily because management education is at the crossroads even in the West. The recent global financial crisis has exposed the short-sighted and greedy approach of management graduates.

Western authors have been criticising management education for its excessive focus on competition and profit-orientation.

There is, therefore, a great opportunity opening up for the IIMs in India. We can work on an alternative management curriculum that the West can adopt.

In sum, Mr Ramesh's comment is a wake-up call to all institutions in India. It is time we become net knowledge exporters. Currently, our textbooks are from the West, our concepts are western, and our study methods are also borrowed from the West. We should instead produce Harvards and Stanfords (or recreate Nalandas and Thakshilas) in India.

(The author is Director, IIM, Ranchi.)