National Management B School Chennai, India

Foreign Universities have to enter India with the help of the Chinese!!

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 14:33:00 +0000

The Ministry of HRD which regulates Universities through the University Grants Commission is now proposing to pass a set of regulations called the UGC (Establishment and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Educational Institutions) Rules to allow foreign Universities to set up campuses in India.

The twist in these rules comes in the stipulation that only the top 400 (why 400 and why not 100 or 350 or 500?) Universities as ranked by the Chinese body would be allowed in!! I can understand the fascination that Indian have toward anything American and so it comes to me as a big surprise that these rules now stipulate the Chinese ranking. So, any American University which wants to come into India should now be ranked by the Chinese before they can apply. While the American themselves have embraced "Made in China" wholeheartedly, I wonder how these American Universities will react to the Indian dictat!!

Of course, the European ranking by Times and a for-profit entity called QS would also be considered. But then, what happens if a University is ranked 400 by the Chinese and 401 by the Europeans!!

I believe that the Indian MHRD and the UGC have foregone a wonderful opportunity to set up their own ranking system to rank the world's Universities and then take the top 300 or 400 of them to allow them into India. Once again the Indians have succumbed to the line of control drawn by the Chinese.

While the rules stipulate that foreign Universities should be in existence for at least 20 years before they can enter India, they have not specified how long they should have been ranked in the top 400 by the Chinese. I wonder what will happen to the 400th University that is allowed into India after which it loses that ranking; will it be sent out of India?

In the meanwhile, the waiting continues ...

Sankaran Raghunathan
Dean

Foreign Universities in India: Indian Ministry of HRD tries to govern through regulations what it cannot do by law

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 14:20:00 +0000

In a very interesting move, the Ministry of HRD which regulates Universities through the University Grants Commission is now proposing to pass a set of regulations called the UGC (Establishment and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Educational Institutions) Rules to allow foreign Universities to set up campuses in India.

See the news release at http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=99225 with its grammatical and spelling mistakes!!

Mr. Kapil Sibal, a lawyer and the former Minister tried to get the same thing done through an Act of law to be passed through the Parliament which is yet to take it up. What the lawyer could not do, the current Minister, an MBA from Temple University USA, may succeed by a clever play of governing through rules and regulations. This is how bureaucrats have always been governing the country through extra-legal means.

This set of rules comes on the heels of the Supreme Court decision that struck down the rules framed by the AICTE, another body of the MHRD, through which the AICTE has been claiming to regulate all the MBA programs in the country.

The new rules that the MHRD is framing through which it seeks to allow foreign Universities to set up campuses in India and award degrees specifies that the foreign Universities can set up a legal entity under The Companies Act under Section 25 which would make it a non-profit entity and thus no distribution of surplus funds is possible. It also stipulates a deposit of US$ 4 million (Rs.25 crores; thanks to the Rupee depreciation) which may be forfeited if the foreign University does "anything" that violates the rules.

The degrees that these foreign Universities are allowed to issue would be considered foreign degrees!! Therefore, there is still the need for these degrees to be equated to the Indian ones through an application to the Association of Indian Universities (AIU). I do not understand why these new UGC rules that allow the Universities to award the degrees cannot stipulate the equivalencies instead of making these foreign Universities to run around the AIU. This is like telling the Hyundai car company that their car completely made in Chennai would be treated like a foreign car and therefore has to undergo all the "import" formalities!!

I wonder why the MHRD is going around doing this. There is nothing in the law currently that states that a foreign University cannot set up its campus in India. Any body, can apply to UGC and set up a University under the existing laws.

I am reminded of a situation where my friend's car was towed away by the cops from its parking spot when he was visiting me at my office. When he called the cops to recover his car, he asked them why they towed his car and they said that it was parked illegally. He said that there were no NO-PARKING signs, for which the cops asked him if there were any PARKING signs. In India, it seems that what is not specifically provided for, is taken to be prohibited!!

My question is all this is simple: How many Foreign Universities are lining up outside the MHRD doors in Delhi wanting to set up their campus in India?

- Sankaran Raghunathan

Internships in India for international students - study abroad in India

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Sat, 24 Aug 2013 04:54:00 +0000

Internships Globally - Searching through the maze

Here is some information on how to find internships in India, especially for international students. Several of these internships are part of a study abroad program.

Here are some portals that list several global internships that are available in India for international students:
www.goabroad.com
www.studyabroad.com
www.gooverseas.comwww.iiepassport.org

www.goabroad.com lists about 205 internship programs in India from 73 organizations. In this site, search is possible only by country and subject area. For example, there are 17 internship programs in Information Systems in India offered by 12 organizations. Cost or fees for the program is not a search criteria. Similarly, there is no search criteria for Paid or unpaid internships or for scholarships. These additional search criteria would make the site more friendly for students.

www.studyabroad.com lists 56 internship programs in India. Out of these, only 4 are internships in Information Systems. Here again, you cannot search by additional criteria such as whether they are paid/unpaid internships and by the fee/cost or scholarships.

www.gooverseas.com has 43 internship listings for India. This site is driven by reviews submitted by those who have attended these programs. This site also does not provide for narrowing down the search by cost or stipend.

www.iiepassport.org is a site maintained for The Institute for International Education (IIE). This site lists 35 internship programs in India. Out of these 35 programs, 11 of them offer scholarships. Of these, only 2 programs are semester length programs and that cost less than $15,000 for the entire semester costs. Only one of the programs is in the Informations Systems field. Clearly, this level of search granularity helps study abroad advisors and students to identify programs that are suited to them. IIEPASSPORT.ORG site can be searched by Country, Term, Format, Language, Subject, Level, Cost and Scholarship.

www.goabroad.com has the largest number of listings - 3668 internships from 814 organizations worldwide. Out of these 3,668 internships, only 205 are in India. www.iiepassport.org has 1,067 internships worldwide. www.studyabroad.com and www.gooverseas.com do not provide a feature to search by internships worldwide; you can only search by a country or region.

Several providers/programs are listed in all these 4 portals and so there is considerable overlap. However, the sheer number of listings over 3,600 in goabroad.com demonstrates the growing interest in internships among students. But, if we search for business oriented internships, there are only less than 1,000 programs. This could be due to the fact that most business schools do not offer internships for credit.

Most of these internships are stand alone programs offering only internship experience. These are offered by commercial companies who are in the placement service and they do not necessarily offer internship for academic credit. For the typical student, however, what matters is the combination of academic course work and an academic internship for credit over the summer or a semester. Quite a few programs offer such an academic semester program with credits for internship.

We, at the National Management School, offer an internship program for business school students who major in Management Information Systems. This is a 15-credit Semester Abroad program in which 6 credits are toward a 300 hour paid internship at Capgemini and 9 credits are from 3 courses. Not only is this a paid internship, the total cost for the student including international air fare, visa, academic tuition fee, housing, meals, travel, etc. comes to less than $12,500. A matching scholarship offered by our partners brings the cost down to about $10,500. The whole idea is to make the cost of this program almost the same as the in-state cost so that for the student there is tremendous value. The University at Albany is the partner who awards the credits and transcripts to the students.

We hope to expand this program to other majors in business schools in the near future.

Paid International Internship in India as part of a Study Abroad program for a semester

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Fri, 23 Aug 2013 17:52:00 +0000

We have partnered with University at Albany and Capgemini, world's fourth largest software company to bring an exciting program for American undergraduate students to study abroad. Beginning with Spring 2014, The National Management School will host a cohort of American students from various US universities. These students who decide to study abroad in India for a semester will get to do 6 credits of Internship at Capgemini's Mumbai offices for 8 weeks and also study 3 courses at NMS as part of the 15-credit program.

Interested students can read about this on Capgemini's website at http://bit.ly/cgintern.

University at Albany (SUNY) will award the credits and transcripts for these students. Students may apply online at University at Albany site at http://bit.ly/uacgnms

This internship is open to American citizens or permanent residents who are rising juniors or seniors in the Business School with a major in Management Information Systems.

Come; learn how to win in India. If you can succeed in India, you can be a success anywhere in the world!!

Solving Detroit's Problems

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Sun, 28 Jul 2013 10:08:00 +0000

America has several things going for it. However, I am going to focus on just two things that foreigners salivate about – American education and H-1B visas to work in America. This will make my job easier in recommending solutions to the Detroit problem.

Let me first handle American education. Chinese and Indians are the two largest foreign groups of students making a beeline to US universities in spite of high tuition fees. So, let me suggest that the Michigan Government decide to offer admission to the first 100,000 undergraduate international student applicants at a tuition fee of not more than $10,000 per year. At this tuition rate, getting 100,000 foreign students to the state university of Michigan is not at all a problem. Every foreign student coming to any of the State Universities of Michigan will spend another $10,000 on living expenses and that is $1 billion of spending that will galvanize the Michigan economy. Take a surcharge from that to pay Detroit.

The second suggestion is to issue 200,000 H1B visas to foreign employees of IT companies as a one-time emergency measure with 2 conditions – (1) the companies need to pay a surcharge of $10 per hour of work to the Michigan State Government for the first 5 years, and (2) the IT companies should employ these foreign H1B workers only in the state of Michigan for 5 years. IT companies such as IBM, Accenture, CSC, Capgemini, TCS, Infosys, Cognizant, and, Wipro will gladly grab these H1B visas. This will fetch $4 billion in such surcharge per year. The state taxes from the employee income is another $500 million. These employees will spend on housing and other assets in the state that will also enrich the state economy. Use a surcharge from this to pay for Detroit.

My job as an academician is to offer suggestions; I have done it now. Do not ask me how to implement these suggestions. It is for the Michigan Governor and the Detroit Mayor to figure out; they are the ones who have the mess to clean up.

- Sankaran Raghunathan

Dean, The National Management School

Making an American Undergraduate (bachelor’s) education come true – Part 2

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 11:06:00 +0000

The American Undergraduate Degrees and how they are different from the Indian Bachelor’s Degree

In India, a student usually enters a college or university after Plus Two, enrolling into a specific degree with a major, selected at the time of applying to the school. In the three or four years of the bachelor’s degree program, the student takes a predetermined series of courses in a predetermined order. In other words, the student’s college coursework and route to graduation is charted out very clearly at the time of entering the program. At the end of three or four years, the student gets a B.A., B.Sc., B.E., B.Tech., or B.Arch degree.

The American undergraduate program on the other hand is extremely flexible, and can be completed in three to seven years (or more), with the student taking as many courses as they can afford to pay for, in the areas that interest them. Students do not have to declare a major until they have completed two years of college, or some level of basic coursework. The average American undergraduate degree program takes four years, and the student completes around 120 credits of study in subjects that include General Education, Core Requirements, and Free Electives.

Interestingly, a lot of American students do not complete all of their undergraduate coursework at the same institution. They do the courses in multiple institutions. The choice of these institutions is determined by factors like cost, proximity to home town, choice of courses offered, and the ease of getting into the institution. The varieties of institutions that offer college level courses are community colleges, four-year colleges, private and public universities. Community colleges are two year public institutions that offer Associate Degrees. Four year colleges give the two year Associate and the four year Bachelor’s Degrees. Universities can offer the Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral programs and degrees.

This movement from institution to institution is possible because of a concept called “College Credit Transfer”. Any student who applies to a US university will see the following options listed in the choice of programs – First Year student, Transfer Student. This is because a lot of students find it more convenient to study closer to home at a Community College or a 4-year College, and then transfer for the final two years to a four-year College or to a university.

(See this section on Wikipedia for a concise description of how college transfers work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_transfer).

Two year degrees come in a variety of flavors: Associate of Arts, Associate of Science, Associate of Applied Sciences, and very specific two year degrees that train for a specific career or vocation. The two-year Associate of Arts degree is awarded after two years and sixty credits of course work. The course work can be targeted towards a specific major such as sociology or economics, or it can be in General Studies. The course work can be transferred to another institution for a higher level degree, if that institution accepts the level of the coursework.

So while getting an Associate degree, a student who aims for higher education should be smart enough to target the requirements of the next level of study while choosing the coursework for the Associate degree. The structure of the Associate degree starts with the next degree, the Bachelor’s degree, and the major that the student is interested in. This will help the student work backwards and structure the Associate degree to fulfill the requirements of the bachelor’s degree. Knowing which university the student wants to go to makes this process easier, as the student can then tailor the associate degree according to the university’s requirements.

Making an American Undergraduate (bachelor’s) education come true – Part1

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Fri, 11 May 2012 09:40:00 +0000

An American four-year Bachelor’s degree (undergraduate degree as it is called) is a great educational experience. It combines unique campus experience and quality of teaching found only in US universities. It has content and style.

Indian parents recognize the American bachelor’s degree to have value, but not many families send their children to the USA for a bachelor’s degree. The reasons for this are many:
- A bachelor’s degree in the USA is quite expensive, and not many can afford four years of tuition and hostel expenses
- Parents are not comfortable sending eighteen year old students just out of high school so far away
- Parents may not feel that children are mature enough to handle the transition
- Children may not feel capable of going away from familiar surroundings just yet
- Children may feel doubts about their ability to handle American style teaching, and cope with the cultural changes at the same time

Recognizing these misgivings, many American universities are now entering into collaborations with Indian institutions where students can do two years in India, and then complete the remaining two years in the USA. This collaboration comes mainly in two flavors:
- the 2+2 program where the student gets an Associate degree at the end of the first two years, and then transfers to ANY American university of choice
- the twinning program where the student completes two years in India, and transfers to the specific university with which their institution has a collaboration

The primary differences between these two types of collaborations are:
- at the end of the 2+2 program the student gets a Associate degree; at the end of two years of the twinning program, there is no degree awarded. The degree is awarded only after four years.
- in the 2+2 program, the student can transfer to any American university for which they fulfill the transfer criteria; in the twinning program, the American university is pre-determined

This 2+2 structure is possible because of the nature of the American bachelor’s degree program. Every undergraduate program in the USA requires the student to complete a given number of credits in General Education which covers English Language, Humanities, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences and Quantitative techniques. This is regardless of whether the major is arts, science, business or engineering.

The split program described above allows the student to complete the General Education requirements in India, in a homely atmosphere, with the support of family, and at less expense, and then transfer to an American university for their education in America to complete the major requirements. It allows the student to get familiar with American style curriculum and teaching. It helps the student to do independent research and team collaborations, which are important in an American curriculum. It helps the student handle any weaknesses the student might have in math or sciences or any other subject, here in India, before moving to the USA.

Doing part of the degree in India reduces the cost for families and makes it possible for more students to get an American bachelor’s degree. The tuition cost in the 2+2 program can get reduced by 50% depending on the program and facilities offered.

The 2+2 program enables the students to get American style education, here in India, and facilitates a transfer in the third year, when the student is older, and presumably more mature and capable of being away from home. This program helps students realize their dream of an undergraduate American education

How to save a sinking ship

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 03:21:00 +0000

I was seeing the news about the sinking cruise ship off the shores of Italy and it suddently struck me that this whole episode can teach us lessons on how to handle the sinking European economy.

When the ship got hit on one side and water entered, the ship tipped to that side and started sinking. The other side of the ship lifted up because that side became lighter. There was not enough weight on the other side to lift up the side which had the hole.

Currently with the European countries hit by heavy debt, it is like the side of the ship that has the hole. If we are to prevent the global crisis, then we need to put enough weight on the Asian side of the globe so that we lift up the European side of the ship that is sinking. However, what is happening is that, in fear, investors are pulling out of Asia; this is equivalent to what happened to the ship - the other side lifts up and gets dragged down.

Asian Government have a responsibility not only to their countries but to save the global ship that is sinking. They need to invest heavily in their countries - Government spending has to go up, consumption should be encouraged, and private investment should be encouraged and made easier not only for local investors but also for foreign investors. They should do so by closing the shutters on that side of the ship that has the potential to drag the good side of the ship. This means that Asian Governments should ensure that the contagion that is sinking the European side does not spread to Asia.

India has a tremendous opportunity now to show economic leadership.

Sankaran Raghunathan
Dean of
National Management B School, India

How to Control Black Money

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 15:25:00 +0000

Prof. P.V. Indiresan, our Chairman, has written a wonderful article on how to control black money. The article appeared in The Hindu BusinessLine in October 2011; the link is here:
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/columns/p-v-indiresan/article2559544.ece?homepage=true

I think that it is a great idea to issue a high value currency note, say Rs.500 and Rs.1000 notes, with a time limit. After the expiry, the expired notes have to be deposited in a bank account to gain value. This way, black money in the form of cash stashed away needs to come out in the open through bank accounts.

comments are welcome.

National Management B School in India

Reserve Bank of India raises rates

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 08:23:00 +0000

The Reserve Bank of India has raised the rates once again by 0.5% in the belief that this will curb inflation. This seems to me like the behavior of a student in Economics 101 class who simply and blindly believes that the relationship between interest rate and inflation is so straightforward that he uses interest rate as the only answer to handle inflation. I wish our RBI Governor and the mandarins of our macro economic policy are more creative.

National Management B School, Chennai

India-US Joint Statement - Hillary Clinton and SM Krishna

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 08:10:00 +0000

I post below portions of the statement issued by the Indian External Affairs Minister Mr. Krishna and the US Secretary of State Ms. Hillary Rodham Clinton during her visit to India in July 2011, that are relevant to education:

Education, Innovation, Science and Technology
• The United States and India plan to host a Higher Education Summit in Washington DC on October 13 to highlight and emphasize the many avenues through which the higher education communities in the United States and India collaborate.
• The United States and India plan to expand its higher education dialogue, to be co-chaired by the US Secretary of State and Indian Minister of Human Resource Development to convene annually, incorporating the private/non-governmental sectors and higher education communities to inform government-to-government discussions.
• As part of the Obama-Singh 21st Century Knowledge Initiative (OSI), the two governments announced the publication of their requests for proposals from post-secondary educational institutions that support OSI’s goals of strengthening teaching, research, and administration of both US and Indian institutions through university linkages and junior faculty development.
• The United States created the Passport to India initiative to encourage an increase in the number of American students studying and interning in India. The leaders recognized the great bridge of mutual understanding resulting from the more than 100,000 Indian students studying and interning in the United States.
• The United States’ Department of Energy and India’s Department of Atomic Energy signed an Implementing Agreement on Discovery Science that provide provides the framework for cooperation in accelerator and particle detector research and development at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, and Brookhaven National Laboratory.
• The India-US S&T Endowment Board, established by Secretary Clinton and Minister Krishna in 2009, plans to award nearly $3 million annually to entrepreneurial projects that commercialize technologies to improve health and empower citizens. The two sides are strongly encouraged by the response to this initiative, which attracted over 380 joint India-US proposals. The Endowment plans to announce the first set of grantees by September 2011.
• The India-US S&T Forum, now in its tenth year, has convened activities that have led to the interaction of nearly 10,000 Indian and US scientists and technologists.
• As a follow up to the successful India-US Innovation Roundtable held in September 2010 in New Delhi, the two sides agreed to hold another Innovation Roundtable in early 2012.
• India and the United States plan to host their third annual Women in Science workshop in September 2011.

National Management B School, Chennai

For-profit legal structure for higher education in India

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 09:54:00 +0000

The 1986 Indian National Policy Statement on Education states as follows: "In the interests of maintaining standards and for several other valid reasons, the commercialisation of technical and professional education will be curbed. An alternative system will be devised to involve private and voluntary effort in this sector of education, in conformity with accepted norms and goals". The Indian Government and the policy makers are wrongly interpreting the Indian Constitution in stating this policy. The Indian Constitution states that the State shall, within the limits of its economic capacity and development, make effective provision for securing the right to education. This duty does not extend to the State preventing any private entity from delivering education, in any format, especially when the State's economic capacity is exhausted.

In implementing this policy for "non-commercialisation", the policy makers are opposed to the setting up of higher educational institutions as a for-profit entity adopting the Limited Joint-Stock Company format under the Indian Companies Act. Commercialisation of education can happen even in the non-profit format as has been happening now by educational bodies set up as a Society or a Trust. The Government and the task force that has been set up is confusing "commercialisation" with the "for-profit" legal structure of an organisation to deliver education. More importantly, the policy does not define "commercialisation". If the Government means "profiteering" as a definition of commercialisation, then the current system of education under non-profit societies and trusts are profiteering blatantly.

Commerce happens once there is a buyer and a seller irrespective of their legal form. In higher education, the student pays money to buy education from the institution that sells or delivers education; so commerce happens here, even in Government Institutions such as the IIT or the IIMs.

A main reason given by the policy statement to avoid "commercialisation" is to maintain standards. This assumes that commercial organisations cannot maintain standards and that only non-commercial organisations can deliver quality. Again, something that has been proved very wrong, going by the quality of higher education delivered by scores of government or government-approved private institutions that are run by Societies or Trusts.

The policy statement also states that "an alternative system will be devised to involve private .. effort in this sector of education". However, this alternative system has not been discussed nor proposed so far.

The Supreme Court of India has established very clearly that the private sector and any individual has the fundamental right to set up educational institutions. The Constitution does not deny the private sector from setting up a for-profit educational institution. It only makes it a duty of the government to provide education. It does not make the Government the sole provider.

The task force that is examining and proposing the current legislations in the education sector should bear this in mind. Any proposal to deny any segment of the society the right to offer education in any format will be subject to protracted legal action.

It may actually be better for the Government to allow the for-profit format in higher education and derive revenues from service tax on tuition incomes and income tax on surpluses made by the institutions. Currently, the Government is foregoing that share of the revenue from these society or trust run institutions who anyway profiteer. In the present set up, the AICTE restricts the number of students that an approved educational institution can admit and thus creates an artificial shortage of seats, enabling these so called non-profit educational institutions to charge enormous fees, that put higher education out of bounds. Instead, if the Government recognizes the right of the private sector to provide education under the for-profit format, then the fees will automatically be market determined and become affordable. The income that the Government makes from these for-profit entities can then be reploughed into education at the primary and secondary levels, which is where the Constitution makes it a duty of the State to provide free education.

National Management B School, India

Integrative Learning At NMS: A Multi-Layered Approach To Education

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 05:52:00 +0000

The latent knowledge in any learning program is made potent only through a pedagogy that can bring this power of knowledge out. NMS’s Integrative Learning program follows a unique teaching methodology that helps convert latent knowledge into potent power and empowers our students.

NMS B School has a three-dimensional curriculum in place as part of which the students study one functional discipline, three industry verticals and also included are two country studies. This ensures that students have a holistic curriculum that covers the key aspects of business in today’s world.

The three-dimensional curriculum is supported by 20 hours of understudy, about 80 hours of a Business Plan Preparation course and about 80 hours of a Consulting Practicum. The focus of all such programs and studies is on specific, real-time and outcome-based projects.

The students are also involved in a 6-week internship at the end of the first year and that gets them out on the field to learn hands-on what they have been preparing themselves for. It gives them a first-hand experience of playing the roles that they are expected to play in the future and maximize their learning.

Not just this, students at NMS take part in additional activities like Golf, Organic Farming, Sailing etc since NMS believes that these activities teach lessons as fundamental as the ones learnt in classrooms. With this multi-layered approach to teaching, NMS aims to turn out well-rounded business leaders who understand businesses on a deeper and broader level.

With that we hope that this series on taking a closer look at the Integrative Learning Program of NMS helped you gain an insight into our approach to education. Stay tuned to hear more from us

Integrative Learning At NMS: Nurturing Better Managers

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:42:00 +0000

In our series about Integrative Learning at NMS, today we look at how the Integrative Learning program inculcates basic managerial skills among its students.

NMS School organizes a Basic Managerial Skills programs for its students in every batch. This program aims at enhancing students’ existing managerial skills and preparing them for sustainable and scalable career. The program is conducted primarily through classroom sessions. Supplementing the classroom teaching are a host of case studies and group discussions that help students analyze real-life business situations and derive learning from them. In addition there are individual and group exercises designed to give the students different people situations to work with. All this is topped with video recordings that simulate contexts for the students to work with.

Fitted into this program structure are topics that cover various aspects that form the flesh of a managerial role: communication, leadership and people dynamics. Topics like communications skills, presentation skills and the basics of writing hone the existing communication faculty of the students. Leadership skills are covered as a separate module in this program. People skills are sharpened by way of sessions on conducting group discussions and interviews as well as on goal setting and motivation.

The Basic Managerial Skills program is a key component of the Integrative Learning at NMS. The program aims at nurturing better managers who can lead their teams from the front in the corporate world and thus giving the world better business leaders.

Integrative Learning At NMS: Outbound Program

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:52:00 +0000

Last week we saw how NMS B School provides its students the advantage of Integrative Learning that combines Functional Discipline, Industry Analysis and Country Study to offer participants the kind of exposure that is not otherwise possible in a typical management program. Integrative Learning at NMS follows a comprehensive approach to ensure that the students constantly learn, both in and outside the classroom. This week we take a look at some of the components that go into nurturing corporate-ready students through Integrative Learning.

The courses at NMS begin with a one-week Orientation session that attempts to bring all students on the same page and homogenize a class consisting of students from diverse backgrounds.

What NMS students attend additionally is an Outbound Program that aims at cultivating an atmosphere of trust among the students, exposing and alleviating any fears or inhibitions they may be harbouring, helping the students understand themselves better and bond with peers while experiencing a sense of adventure.

NMS achieves these in two ways.

The first is by involving students in a Group Sharing exercise where students share something personal about themselves in a moderated environment with the help of an experienced facilitator. Given that the students are to embark on an educational journey together, this exercise helps them to know others in the group and also discover themselves, an essential exercise for a group that will be exchanging cultures and contexts over the span of their course.

The second is by engaging the students in group activities and exercises like a night drive in the forest, trekking, rappelling, rock climbing, kayaking etc. These activities help the students bond better and prepare to work in a team not only for the forthcoming educational journey but also through life.

Students who were part of the Outbound Program last year enjoyed the challenges that the planned activities presented and how they made the students face their fears. Not to mention, all of them came back enriched with each other’s stories and more emotionally bonded than before the program.

India As The Global Destination For Education

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:36:00 +0000

As early as 500 years Before Christ, India had become an International Centre of Learning for students from South East Asia. Scholars from China, Japan, Korea, Indonesia and the likes were drinking from the fountains of knowledge that were the universities of Taxila (Takshashila) and Nalanda. Two universities that had a formidable reputation, when it came to both the extent and depths of knowledge that was available to be absorbed by a willing student, were the pride of place in ancient India. And from then on, India has carved its own niche in the field of education, building on its heritage.

Modern day amenities, the ease of travel and globalization have ensured that more and more students have access to the repositories of knowledge across the world. And that has truly made knowledge borderless and added more dimensions to existing know-how by allowing global experiences to enhance existing knowledge. In this context, let us take a moment to see where India stands in the global education scenario at present and what the world can look forward to.

If we embark on a cost-benefit analysis at the outset, the cost of education in India set against the standards it is offered at makes it an immediate cost-effective proposition for obtaining world-class education. And this fact applies to education across streams right from technical education to education in arts and culture, enabling students with varied set of interests to access India’s knowledge at very reasonable costs. And this is the primary reason for International students to come to India and seek education.

Couple that advantage with the unique cultural fabric that India is, with roots from thousands of years ago and branches growing constantly into the new skies. India is a strange mix of tradition and progressive environments that lets students experience a very different cultural context in education. When it comes to International students, this increases their gamut of educational contexts to include both Western and Eastern philosophies as well as multifarious approaches to every aspect of education and becomes another reason why students seek India as a preferred educational destination.

To top that, India’s colonial heritage includes English as one of the official languages of the country and that makes it multiple times easier for International students to learn as well as adjust socially in the country. English being the medium of instruction in most educational institutions gives students a good reason to consider studying in India and it remains India’s edge in the world.

These advantages are supplemented sufficiently by the pioneering work that Indians have and are doing in various fields ranging from science and technology to literature and the arts. Indians continue to constitute a significant percentage of the student community internationally and act as brand ambassadors for brand India. Their work speaks volumes for the research and development environment in India and the technological development taking place in the country. International students prefer this dynamic environment and look forward to the opportunity of learning from all the work being done here. Right from biopharmaceutical companies like Biocon that are setting new milestones in research, world-class research institutes like IISc and TIFR, professional institutions like the various Indian Institutes and the groundbreaking work being done in music, literature and the arts India attracts International students with a thirst to learn for the innumerable learning opportunities it offers.

Be it the ancient cultural roots, a search for new and exciting grounds to explore, the opportunity to explore and learn its art, a chance to make a change at grass-root levels, the easy access, the quality on offer, the exposure or the cost, the truth is that more and more International students are choosing India as their educational destination. In any institution and university across the geography of the country, a significant presence from around the globe is being felt and there is a huge potential for knowledge and cultural exchange in the offing. These are Easterlies and Westerlies of a new kind and the winds of change are beginning to blow. It is for us to ensure more and more knowledge flies through across the borders and makes the globe a richer place.

The NMS Advantage: Integrative Learning And Thought Leadership

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 11:37:00 +0000

Having taken a look at the advantages that NMS’s model of education coupled with industry exposure and cultural/business contexts lends to the students, we now look at the approach that NMS has adopted towards learning and how it is looking at nurturing Thought Leadership among business leaders.

NMS believes in Integrative Learning that combines Functional Discipline, Industry Analysis and Country Study to offer participants the kind of exposure that is not otherwise possible in a typical management program. And that is exactly what we are trying to achieve through the design of the program at NMS.

NMS is also positioning itself as a Thought Leader by launching the WHITESPACE Executive Session Series for Senior and Middle management. This series includes seminars on a wide range of topics conducted by the NMS faculty. It is here that NMS leverages its intellectual capital and makes a perceivable difference to issues that are high on priority when it comes to the corporate agenda.

The whole idea at NMS is to let students Discover as much as they can during their association with NMS. And to leverage that learning innovate in business contexts in the future.

With International Collaboration, International Faculty, International Curriculum, and even International students in the classroom, NMS offers students truly global exposure and a global network; enabling them to add value in the global corporate context. NMS’s commitment to excellence in management education and to borderless knowledge ensures that International students have the dual advantage of feeling at home with the delivery model and yet being exposed to a strongly different cultural, economic and business scenario so as to maximize their learning. By inviting International students to be part of the NMS experience we extend that commitment to students across the globe and enable them to be part of a dynamic and diverse student community that will define the future of business.

The NMS Advantage: Learning Across Contexts And Cultures

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:46:00 +0000

Continuing our series where we take a look at the NMS advantage and the NMS edge for students entering the world of management education, today we focus on the differentiating factor that NMS provides by combining global education with an Indian context.

At present, 8 Indian companies figure in the Fortune 500 list and many more are seen as global players when it comes to their respective areas of expertise. While they are in a position to compete with the best in the world, the cultural and people context with which they were built is starkly different from a lot of companies in the West. And that difference is seen at the level of daily operations as well. Owing to NMS’s collaboration with many of these Indian companies, International students have a chance to observe the Indian approach to business and learn from these contexts. This knowledge, coupled with the exposure they receive back home, gives them a wide platform of business development contexts to work with.

NMS is located in the heart of the IT corridor in Chennai. It takes students right where the action is. And the student housing, which matches up to any international student housing facility, allows students to interact outside the classroom with their peers from across cultures.

With access to world-class education improving drastically over the years, the differentiator in the wake of globalization is created by how well future leaders understand and work with cultural contexts. And at NMS, students stand to gain exactly that by learning across contexts and cultures – diverse outlooks that make great leaders.

The NMS Advantage: A Truly Global Outlook

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:05:00 +0000

With an increasing influx of International Students in India for its cost-effective quality educational options, NMS is looking at supporting more and more International Students with their educational pursuits so they derive maximum value out of their experience. Over the next few days, let us look at the NMS advantage and the NMS edge for students entering the world of management education.

NMS offers American Education at Indian costs. What that translates to for our students is global exposure with faculty visiting from the US – almost all of them with a PhD from the US - at very reasonable costs. The program itself is designed after the MBA program in the J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University. It conforms to the standards of the AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) standards - the highest accrediting body for management education in the world, ensuring absolute credibility and quality in the fundamental structure and design of each course. And the degree awarded at the end of the program, equivalent to that awarded by any university in the US, is co-signed by Deans of The National Management School and Georgia State University.

In addition, NMS offers the advantage of practical implementation of this acquired world-class knowledge to the Indian Business Context. At NMS, students are given the opportunity to interact with business leaders and be mentored by them. The CXO Panel at NMS comprises of senior executives from the industry, the government and NGOs. These CXOs spend ONE full day with these students during these 2 years. This way, students get a chance to work with leaders from a diverse set of businesses at various stages of evolution. And this combination lets students take their management education experience to a new level of synthesis.

Offered in two modes - a two-year full-time MBA and a two-year Professional MBA (on weekends for working executives), the program lends students a truly global outlook in their education.

A Nobel Laureate's Vision Revisited At NMS

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:29:00 +0000

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action--

Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake.

- Rabindranath Tagore

Gitanjali

Almost a century ago, Gurudev dedicated this beautiful verse to this country, his dream and his hope for this nation encompassed into lyrical magic. His work placed the erstwhile colony of India at the top in the world of literature by winning the Nobel Prize. And just as he had wished, the country did awake into a heaven of freedom three decades after.

It is such vision of a few great men that has made India what it is and all that it represents to the world. In every age, India has been blessed with visionaries who have single-handedly changed the face of this nation. And the 63rd Indian Independence Day is an apt occasion to take a moment and revisit NMS’s vision for itself.

At its core, NMS’s vision can be likened to what Gurudev envisioned for India, in entirety.

Where the mind is without fear and the head held high…

By adopting an innovative model of education that gives both the classroom and the industry equal time and importance, NMS aims at becoming that place where the mind is without fear and the head held high. NMS wants to empower our students to become generators of sustainable value for business and society at large and to work for an inclusive and sustainable global economy. We want our students to become global leaders who can lead from the front.

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by domestic walls…

With its collaboration with the Georgia and Temple Universities and its global faculty, NMS believes in breaking all walls and making management education truly global. NMS offers American education in India at Indian education costs and in doing so it makes global education easily accessible for Indians. Knowledge and know-how from across the world is now available for the brightest Indian minds to lap up. NMS will continue its endeavour in the coming years with an increasing spread across the globe and bringing that knowledge back home.

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

The faculty at NMS comprises of experts from the top US Universities. This ensures that the students get to absorb only knowledge that comes from the depths of experience. NMS also has access to numerous CXOs from diverse business backgrounds who are at the helm of their organizations and have the best feel for the industry trends. This combination of faculty and industry mentors enables the students to get the true picture of the trends and issues in their fields, and NMS will continue to offer this differentiating factor to its students in the years to come.

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action…

NMS’s model of education ensures that enough rigour is built into the course and the students have to go that extra mile when it comes to any aspect of their education. A schedule that seamlessly integrates classroom hours and industry time leading to simultaneous learning and application of concepts brings in a need for the students to keep their axes sharpened at all points in time. And NMS will continue to inculcate this edge in its students in the coming years and develop them into sharp business leaders.

With all of the above, NMS’s students will undoubtedly awaken in that heaven of freedom and confidence that will allow them to take on the world of business with the backing of a global education in the years to come. Here’s wishing them the best and wishing fellow countrymen on the occasion of Independence Day.

Foreign Educational Institutions Bill – Misplaced Priorities

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 02:58:00 +0000

If we are to go by the noise created in the media about the bill for foreign educational Institutions, one would tend to believe that the bill has been passed and that we would be deluged by the entry of foreign Universities. Let me state here that both these are not true.

Only the cabinet has approved this bill so that it can be placed before the Parliament. Even if it is passed by the Parliament and becomes an Act, it is definitely not going to result in any decent number of foreign universities coming into India in the near future. This bill was earlier proposed during Arjun Singh’s tenure in 2007, a copy of which I have, and it is now being pushed through after 3 years with modifications. At this time, no one seems to have a copy of the bill and it is definitely not available on the MHRD website. So, I doubt whether any of the reporters in the media who have written about this bill has read it and I am sure that authors who have written editorials in various papers have not read the bill in its entirety and have only gone by the various news media reports.

The current MHRD minister Kapil Sibal has already got one bill ready—the National Commission for Higher Education and Research Bill of 2010 – which seeks to coordinate all forms of higher education including University education, technical and professional education other than agricultural and medical education. As part of this bill, the existing regulatory bodies and their respective Acts such as the UGC, AICTE and the NCTE are sought to be repealed. Therefore, while the status of local educational Institutions is unclear (especially with the void in the leadership of the AICTE), and while the Ministry is seeking to regulate all forms of higher education, the question arises as to why the Foreign University bill is being pushed through before the NCHER bill.

Why should there be a separate bill for Foreign Universities instead of handling them under the NCHER bill itself? More importantly, the FEI bill states that foreign educational institutions will have to eventually register themselves under the NCHER bill. So, without the NCHER bill being passed into an Act, the FEI bill, even if passed as an Act will not result in foreign universities entering India.

Now, let us focus on other aspects of the FEI bill. The FEI bill stipulates that a Foreign Education Provider shall ensure that it takes into account the cultural and linguistic sensitivities of the people of India; it appears from this that the Government fears that foreign education providers may “adversely affect the integrity of India”. Then the question arises as to how the Government has thus far allowed colleges to be set up by the Society of Jesus (or the Jesuit Society) which is an institution of foreign origin that sets up higher educational institutions all over the world. The Jesuit Society has set up the Xavier colleges, the XLRI and some of the best colleges in India; in fact, I myself am an alumnus of XLRI. So, if the Government has already allowed such a foreign institution without any fear, then why fear foreign Universities now? More importantly, if our Government fears that a particular foreign University will adversely affect our integrity, how would the Government prevent some of our students from going abroad and studying in those very same Universities.

Let us be clear: educational institutions will influence the way students think about issues. The current macro economic policies around the world are a result of the thinking that the University of Chicago or the MIT fostered very deliberately over the last century. Such Universities are in the midst of the “battle of the minds”. Our current crop of senior political leaders are also products of such Universities.

The bill states that at least 51% of the investment needed should be brought in by the foreign university. By stipulating that the foreign university should compulsorily bring in financial resources and being silent about the intellectual resources that are needed to be brought by them, our Government has placed more importance on the financial investment. This is the bane of our educational system which does not focus on the quality of intellectual resources.

Reinforcing this argument, the bill also stipulates that the foreign university should deposit Rs.50 crores (US$10million) in a fund. Instead the Government can insist on these foreign Universities bringing their non-Indian professors to the Indian branch, thereby improving the quality of faculty. We can insist that these foreign providers have 1 foreign faculty for every 10 local faculty; each tenured professor is worth about $1 million. We can insist that for every 10 local students, they bring in 1 foreign student so that our student environment can be more diverse, and enable a global learning environment. We can insist that these foreign universities offer programs at the bachelors, masters and doctoral levels rather than just one level that is financially lucrative. We can insist that these FEIs create a comprehensive University rather than start a single school, such as business management, which may be lucrative. Instead, this bill makes the process an FDI in education rather than a means to enhance the quality of education.

Some of our more liberal social policy influencers also have been proposing ideas that are detrimental to our educational system. One author in an editorial piece has written that an “important weakness of the Bill lies in the fact that it does not in any way restrict our students going abroad” to study, since now with foreign educational institutions being allowed to set up in India, we can save on foreign exchange. If the bill indeed provides for this, it will be the biggest blunder that we could make.

Our legislators can take a close look at how large reputed universities fund their operations. A typical large US university with about 40,000 students has an annual budget of about $4 billion, out of which only about one-third comes from tuition fee revenue and another one-third comes from the state funding and federal government grants. The balance one-third comes from endowments (what we call donations) from private individuals. Even, the so called private universities get state funding. If such is the profile of university funding in the US, and if we want such universities to come to India, is our Government willing to fund them? More importantly, where are our philanthropists who are willing to give such funds to an entity that they do not control?

There is a worry among existing local institutions that once foreign universities are allowed to operate in India, many good professors will desert our local institutions and be lured by the higher income that these foreign universities may offer. Therefore I feel that the time has come for our regulators to stop stifling our institutions with restrictions on the number of students that they can admit or the fees that they can charge. AICTE actually charges a huge fee for approving an increase in the number of seats for every unit of 60 seats!! By restricting scale or limiting fees arbitrarily with no concern for the costs of delivering good education, we have made our institutions unviable and hence the lower salary levels for our professors locally. In the process, we have made teaching an unattractive profession.

So, two things need to happen: one, we must stop restricting the foreign universities with such stipulations on scale or arbitrarily fixed low fees. Two, we must free our local institutions from such scale and fee restrictions as well.

The other worry is that our good students will desert our local institutions such as IITs or IIMs and join these FEIs. If we gave our country the choice of telecom providers (remember the days of DOT monopoly) or the choice of TV channels including HBO or the CNN (remember the days of Doordarshan monopoly), or the choice of Kinley or Aquafina (remember the days of municipal water supply) then why shouldn’t our students have similar choices in education?

Before we worry about the entry of foreign institutions, let us focus on getting our act together first. Once the NCHER Bill is passed with liberalized regulations, then we can apply the same to the foreign universities. Let us not discriminate. There is no need for a separate bill for FEIs.

However, before we provide for the entry of FEIs, our Government should clearly state what their objectives are for allowing FEIs into India and also ascertain what these FEIs intend achieving by entering India.

Finally, let me pose a challenge to the MHRD Minister. Show us at least half-a-dozen reputed foreign universities who are willing to enter India under the conditions that are proposed in the bill and then let us pass the Act. Otherwise, let us not waste the nation’s time.

TURN THE CATs INTO A TIGER

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 03:33:00 +0000

The Common Admission Test (CAT) conducted by the IIMs as an entry criteria for management education in India, has over the last 8 years grown from a test used by the 6 IIMs to one that has about 150 Institutes affiliated to it. Over 240,000 candidates take the CAT. There are other such common tests-at least seven common tests - that are conducted by other Institutes which also have affiliates, some overlapping multiple common tests.

Let me make a proposal that will bring relief to the candidates and also enlarge the market for these test agencies. Imagine a situation where instead of 7 different “common” admission tests, we have one truly common test that is offered 7 different times in the year! If these 7 testing agencies cooperate, we can convert these 7 CATs into one big TIGER – The Integrated Graduate Entrance Rating.

This TIGER test can be under the purview of one professionally managed organization that can be co-owned by these 7 agencies. Actually, it can be owned by all the Institutes that contribute to it in terms of candidates; thus the revenues and surplus can be apportioned in the ratio of candidate applicants to those Institutes.

The Other CATs
The XAT exam conducted by XLRI has about 150,000 candidates taking the test for consideration by about 40 affiliated Institutes. The SNAP exam conducted by the Symbiosis Society has about 120,000 candidates who may apply to the 17 affiliated Symbiosis Institutes. Then, you have the MAT which has about 100 affiliated Institutes through whom about 100,000 candidates apply.

The ATMA exam conducted by the Association of Indian Management Schools has about 20,000 candidates. The JMET conducted by the IIT for the 7 affiliated schools has about 50,000 candidates. The NMET conducted by the Narsee Monjee NMIMS University draws about 60,000 candidates. There are also the Common Entrance Tests – CETs- that are conducted by different state government agencies, and these scores are accepted by various third tier schools.

A typical management school applicant ends up appearing for at least 3 of these 7 national common admission tests which are conducted from November through March, the normal admission season. There are conflicting schedules which prevent the students from appearing for all these 7 tests; more over the costs are high.

These tests are invariably held only in about 30 cities and towns; thus the candidates have to spend time and money travelling from their hometown to appear for these tests. A candidate, on an average, spends about Rs.4,000 as the fee for these exams in addition to the amount spent on coaching classes and travel/stay for the test. Each of these tests allows only one appearance in the year (except MAT which has 4 seasons) and hence if that date is not convenient for the candidate, he loses one full year.

These testing agencies charge anywhere between Rs.800 to about Rs.1800 for the test; thus the CAT gets a revenue of Rs.45 crores; the XAT makes Rs. 12 crores; Symbiosis makes about Rs.12 crores; MAT about Rs.10 crores; ATMA about Rs.2 crores; JMET about Rs.5 crores and the NMET about Rs.6 crores.

The total revenue for these 7 agencies is estimated to be about Rs.90 crores with a total candidate strength of about 300,000 unique test takers and a total of about 7.4 lakh tests being delivered. At these levels, India is the largest market in the world for management education entrance exams.

The GMAT pales in comparison with just 265,000 total tests delivered in 2009. The GMAT however is the one and only common exam that is accepted by about 2,000 Universities in North America and around the world. At a fee of $250, the total revenue is $66 million or 300 crores.

While the Indian market size is almost 3 times that of the GMAT worldwide in terms of tests, in revenue terms India is only one-third of the GMAT. I will argue that it is not just because of the higher fee or the $ effect. It may also have something to do with the fact that our testing agencies are probably less customer centric in their approach.

The 7 different testing agencies have effectively fragmented the market with the possibility of cannibalization ; as a result, test takers face challenges and take these exams in a less than ideal environment.

Here are some of the challenges in the current system:
a. Each of these tests is offered only once in the year (except for MAT). Therefore a candidate who misses that one date is out of the race for one full year. GMAT is offered on demand.
b. Since these tests are offered only in about 30 cities in India, candidates spend a lot more resources to take the test. GMAT, a foreign test catering to far fewer candidates, is offered in 15 cities in India!
c. These tests are not standardized, and not very scientifically designed. Candidates spend on an average about Rs.20,000 in preparing for these tests with coaching Institutes claiming to have mastered these tests. The MBA coaching industry is a Rs.400 crore market. GMAT is a standardized aptitude test.
d. The scores of the Indian tests are not, therefore, valid for use across different batches of students. The IIM-CAT has recently said that their scores are valid for 2 years. So, candidates appear in subsequent years to get recent scores that are accepted by Institutes. GMAT scores are valid for 5 years since it is a standardized test whose reliability and validity has been proved.

The TIGER can Roar:
Once this is done, the TIGER test can be offered at least 7 times in the year thus making it easier for candidates to take or retake the test. Thus, the pool of 3 lakh unique candidates this year will result in about 9 lakh tests being delivered in the year.

The test fee can be easily raised to Rs.2000; this will actually be less than what the candidates pay now for the 3 tests that they take spending about Rs.4000. Thus, the total revenue for the TIGER test agency will be about Rs.180 crores; double the current levels.

This is easily borne by facts. Before the SNAP common test was designed by the Symbiosis Society, each of the then existing 11 institutes had their own entrance test and candidates had to make a choice; these 11 exams were cannibalizing themselves. On my suggestion, the common SNAP exam was devised. The number of applications went higher and the total revenue to the Society increased multifold. What’s more, candidates benefitted immensely in the process!

The TIGER test can also then be offered in more cities and towns in India. About 50 cities account for about 85% of the test candidates. Since candidates will save on the travel costs, they will not mind paying Rs. 2000 for the test which is marginally higher than the current fee.

The TIGER test agency, with revenues of about Rs.180 crores, can then afford to spend on making this test a very strong standardized, scientific, and valid test. Once the test is made standardized, it can effectively compete with the GMAT worldwide. The Chinese form the third largest group, after the Americans and Indians, of GMAT test takers.

Given the revenue levels, the TIGER organization can establish its own permanent testing centers across these 50 cities with its own WAN, thus bringing centralized control of online test delivery on a private dedicated network which will be secure. The cost of setting up this infrastructure will not be more than Rs.200 crores. This infrastructure can then be used by other tests – either educational such as the AIEEE, JEE, GATE, or for recruitment such as the DRDO, Railways, or the Banking tests. This will result in additional revenues for the TIGER setup.

The obvious question is whether these CATs will voluntarily see merit in converting themselves into a TIGER. I would argue that if they do not come together into an industry self-regulated institution, the Government will step in. We saw such attempts earlier during the BJP regime when the then HRD Minister Dr. Joshi came very close to establishing one under the Ministry. While Mr. Sibal may assert that the IIMs are autonomous and may leave the CAT alone, perhaps because under the current problematic situation everyone wants to pass the buck, it is very likely that the same Government may step in later to control the affairs of the educational institutions. So, it is in the interests of these Institutions to strengthen themselves by coming together. It will also establish the superiority of India in the international market place.

The author, Dr. Sankaran Raghunathan, is the Dean of the National Management School. This article appeared in the Hindu BusinessLine on Monday Dec. 14, 2009 at
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/mentor/2009/12/14/stories/2009121450871100.htm

Crash Proof CAT

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 03:41:00 +0000

This is the article that I wrote and which was published in The Hindu BusinessLine on Monday November 30, 2009. Comments are most welcome.
Link: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/mentor/2009/11/30/stories/2009113050380700.htm
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I followed the TV news yesterday and read the newspapers this morning about the problems in the online delivery of the CAT exam; the indictment is very clear. Technology is to be blamed. Here is a wonderful example of a great idea that has failed to see the light of day and everyone has found a convenient scapegoat – technology!! I am reminded of the justifications provided by the Charlton Heston types in the gun lobby who said, “guns do not kill people – people do”.

Technology does not kill ideas, managers do!! As someone who pioneered the online entrance exam in this country about a decade ago, who initially failed to successfully conduct the XLRI exam online but then succeeded in delivering similar exams for several educational institutions, I can humbly say that there was nothing wrong with the technology then and nothing wrong with it now. I successfully delivered online admission applications and online tests for institutions when technology was less advanced and the internet infrastructure fragile. Today, the technology has advanced, the internet is more robust and available, and software architecture for concurrent use of many thousands of users is well known. Therefore, I am sorry to see that technology is being blamed for the issues faced by the CAT exam. I can emphatically say that it is the ambitious expectations of people who switch over to technology; it is the decision making and implementation approach of managers; it is the process of outsourcing, where we need to look for answers.

Delivering an online test for about 300,000 candidates (and even that, across multiple days and sessions) is not rocket science these days. The Directors of the top management schools should be aware of this. But then the CAT committee is made up of academicians from across 7 different institutes who have least interest in these kinds of implementation issues. The first thing to focus on is the structure of the CAT as an institution. It should be run by professional managers who are held accountable for an activity that generates upto Rs.50 crores annually on an annuity basis with very little marketing. All that they need to do is implement the project right and this revenue can multiply many times over.

The second issue is the technology adoption process. CAT went overboard with their demands on how the online CAT should be delivered with biometric identity systems, online video and audio screening, etc. which have loaded the system with unnecessary frills that take the attention away from the task of secure, online delivery of exams where the candidates have a pleasant experience. In the traditional paper-and pencil test, there is no such video/audio screening; there is no such biometric identity capture, so why demand that in an online exam? Why can’t we build the process of online exams step by step and increase the technology component gradually? By adopting an all-or-none attitude, we have not gradually matured in technology adoption and assimilation.

The third issue is the award of the contract of the online test delivery to an agency which has limited experience in India with such large scale exam delivery – either manual or online. But then I cannot blame the CAT committee members for being representative of most government agencies who wholesale buy anything that is foreign, especially American. When there are multiple local Indian companies which have successfully conducted online tests in the last decade in India, and who have the technology and the necessary infrastructure, it was a serious mistake on the part of the CAT to select an agency that does not have its own infrastructure in India that it can control.

Finally, I would argue that the successful delivery of a test of this magnitude requires infrastructure that is under a unitary command rather than the current approach of commissioning several independent centers whose infrastructure is not meant for such test delivery purposes.

Trouble started brewing as early as August when the online application system did not work as it should have. Early warning signs were not heeded. During the last few years, the CAT results which were delivered online invariably had problems. Clearly, the CAT committee has not taken these issues seriously.

Having said all this, it would be inappropriate if I did not propose some thoughts for how the CAT test can be successfully delivered online, and, at a much lower cost than the whopping $40 million reported in the media.
1. CAT has the opportunity to be much bigger than the GMAT and thus has the opportunity to become an international test and earn foreign exchange and make the country proud. So, given this prospect, the CAT organization should be made a permanent institution with full time professional managers who are held accountable to the community of more than 150 business schools; not just the 7 IIMs. The leaders of the affiliated schools should demand this of the CAT.

2. The CAT Institution should be made an independent organization, independent of the IIMs, and one in which all the affiliated business schools should all have a stake. This also means that they are involved in the governance and the sharing of the surplus revenues.

3. Once the CAT committee decided to deliver the test on multiple days, why was it not offered over 30 days instead of just the 10 days? This would put less pressure on the infrastructure and field managers and enable buffers to set right things. For a test with about 300,000 test takers, with 30 days and 2 sessions a day, the CAT can be delivered in 60 sessions with not more than 5,000 computers across the country.

4. The CAT exam could be delivered around the year rather than just once a year. Since the CAT exam score is now valid for 2 years, there is no reason why the exam should not be offered round the year just like the GMAT. It will not only benefit the students but also the Institution since now a test taker may take the CAT exam multiple times in a year, and this can possibly raise the revenues. My estimate is that the CAT revenue can easily, and at the very least, be in the range of Rs.60 crores annually.

5. The CAT online delivery infrastructure should NOT be an outsourced resource and more so, to the myriad engineering colleges around the country. It should be a dedicated uniform infrastructure controlled by a single entity. This is not impossible. For a capacity of 3 lakh tests to be delivered in a 30-day period, the total investment needed will be to the tune of Rs.50 crores. This can be shared among the 150+ business schools. The annual running cost will be less than Rs.30 crores, thus netting a good surplus that can be used for the improvement of the test content so that the CAT exam can become a standardized test.

6. This dedicated infrastructure can then be used for similar online tests that are conducted by XAT (XLRI), SNAP (Symbiosis), NMET (Narsee Monjee), IIT-JEE and GATE among others. These agencies can contribute about Rs.30 crores annually in revenues to the CAT organisation.

7. Once the CAT exam is delivered online across 60 sessions, with just 5,000 computers, the number of computers per center will be just 50 across 100 centers. Managing a center with 50 computers is much less taxing. Managing the entire dedicated network of 5,000 computers on a uniform infrastructure is much easier than managing a disparate outsourced network.

8. Once the infrastructure is dedicated, then all these 100 centers can be networked into a dedicated wide area network that can be better and more securely managed.

9. These 100+ centers can be spread across about 50 cities and towns around the country. The top 7 cities that typically have about 50% of the candidates are Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkatta, Pune, Hyderabad, and Bangalore. Delhi, accounting for about 20% of the demand, would need about 1000 computers spread around 20 centers across the national capital region. These 50 cities cover about 85% of the candidates who apply for CAT. Once the tests are delivered across 50 cities, the test goes closer to where the candidates live. This way, technology delivers clear benefits. Candidates save time, money and effort; more importantly, there is no fatigue factor when a test is given.

10. The current CAT is actually a computer based test rather than an Online Test where the test is delivered over the net. While this CBT worked earlier, given the new technologies and the bandwidth speed available at a much lower cost, the fully online test is a better architecture to adopt. This is also much more secure especially in a dedicated WAN.

11. The software needed for the online application, online test and the online result delivery can be sourced from existing Indian vendors who have proven technology in the local environment. The architecture has to be critically examined for the scale needed. Every year a parallel review of the architecture based on new information can be conducted and new features added incrementally.

12. Finally, an event of this scale needs to be insured such that, if a disruption were to happen, candidates who have spent the money and become disappointed, can at least be reimbursed for their expenses.

The Dean of Sastra University suggested that the CAT exam should be nationalized. I believe that instead of moving it from the frying pan into the fire, we should free the CAT and privatise it. More importantly, instead of nationalizing it, I argue that we should internationalize the CAT.

As the demand for management education grows in this country, going by the demographic trends, it is my estimate that about 10 lakh candidates will apply for the CAT exam by the year 2012. In addition, if CAT goes international, there is a huge market in China that can clearly make CAT humungous. Therefore, it is absolutely important that CAT gets its act together immediately. The business school community should demand that this be done.

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Sankaran Raghunathan
Dean

The first term is well on its way

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:39:00 +0000

The first batch of students started the program on Vijayadasami Day on Sept 28, 2009. After a week of orientation classes and activities, the first class started on October 5th. It is now more than a month and the batch has now gone through 3 courses - Legal Environment by Prof. Raman, Managerial Economics by Prof. Fritz and Management by Prof. White - and has had one Leadership Interaction visit to the campus by Justice Chandru of the Madras High Court and another one with a visit to Royal Sundaram Alliance Insurance to have an interactive session with their CFO Ramkumar.

Students stay at the School's student housing complex at Sholianganallur in fully furnished apartments. They commute to the School campus at the STPI complex daily while we wait to occupy our own campus in Navallur by the end of November.

It is not all work and no play!! The students had their first shot at golf at the AKDR Golf Village last week. While some used the club to drive the ball; some drove the club itself!!

Overall, the group is cohesive. The students are working hard and hopefully playing right.
Dean's office

Making NMS affordable

dean@nms.edu.in (National Management School) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:03:00 +0000

I am glad to announce that it is very affordable to go to NMS for world class management education. We have finalized an arrangement with a financial institution that would enable our students to pay only Rs.15,000 per month for the kind of education that elsewhere would cost a whole lot. Instead of paying our regular fee of Rs.9.6 lakhs directly to the School, students can apply to this financial institution for an education loan. This company would approve the candidate for the loan which would involve
a. students making amonthly payment of only Rs.15,000 for 72 months.
b. students should show a family income of Rs.30,000 per month net
c. the collateral security for the loan is only Rs.4 lakhs
The company would then make the payment to the School directly.
Thus, with a family income of just about Rs.4 lakhs, students can now have the opportunity of getting a great management education taught by American professors. Even the IIMs charge more than Rs.10 lakhs for their MBA program. The ISB charges more than Rs.17 lakhs. Students at NMS can enjoy the same or better quality of education at a fee level that is much less than what these institutes charge.
For more details, contact the Admissions office at 91-44-4269-5714.

Admissions Office