Australian Universities Accord

 

Jason Clare MP, Australia’s Minister for Education has recently released the Australian Universities Accord Final Report. The report, touted as the “blueprint” for higher education in the country, aims to create a long-term reform plan for the higher education sector to meet Australia’s future skills needs. The final report includes 47 recommendations and proposes big changes that Australia should meet head on.

 

What does it mean for International Students?

 

According to the report, education makes an enormous contribution to Australian tertiary education by enabling Australian learning and teaching to have wider impact, helping universities to invest in important research, adding to diversity, and being an important avenue for soft diplomacy and international linkages. 

 

In 2022, Australian higher education providers enrolled almost 450,000 international fee-paying students (more than a quarter of total enrolments), with around 120,000 of these studying Australian higher education courses from outside Australia. International student fees contributed more thana fifth of overall university funding. Now Australia’s fourth largest export, international education is a fixture of the economy.

 

A strong and sustainable footing is important. On the demand side, fluctuations in enrolments risk the stability
and viability of institutions. On the supply side, there have been failures in quality and integrity in some parts of the market, and these must be addressed. 

 

The report recommends managing volatility in demand where possible, including by diversifying markets to avoid overreliance on a small number of countries. 

 

Some international students seek a migration pathway. In line with the Australian Government’s Migration Strategy goal for a better targeted system, the report recommends that the tertiary education sector should encourage these students to study courses linked to Australian skill shortages and to study in regional locations. 

 

The sector should protect its reputation and ranking as a study destination by lifting course quality and improving the overall student experience. TEQSA should take an evidence-based approach to ensure that providers have appropriate risk management strategies for international education to issues including managing demand volatility, course concentrations and the quality of the student experience, and access and availability of affordable housing. The financial stability and integrity of Australia’s international education system should be addressed. 

 

This is the first broad review of the sector since 2008. “The Australian Universities Accord has recommended how to reform higher education over the next decade and beyond,” notes Jason Clare MP, Australia’s Minister for Education.

 

You can access the report here: Australian Universities Accord.

US-India task force set up for expanding research & higher education partnerships

Courtesy: Association of American Universities

A new task force consisting of university research and higher education leaders from the United States and India has been set up to make recommendations for expanding US-India research and higher education partnerships.

The co-chairs of the AAU Task Force on Expanding United States-India University Partnerships include The Pennsylvania State University President Neeli Bendapudi, University of Illinois Urbana-Campaign Chancellor Robert J. Jones, University of California San Diego Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla, University at Buffalo President Satish K. Tripathi, and current Johns Hopkins University Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Sunil Kumar (who is set to become president of Tufts University on July 1).

AAU has created this task force in coordination with the Biden administration’s US-India initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET), which seeks to grow technological and industrial collaboration between the two nations. The task force will meet monthly to determine key focus areas for bilateral research and education cooperation, to identify existing programmes that could provide blueprints for future partnerships, and to formulate strategies on how best to move forward.

“It is nearly impossible in today’s world to make advancements in scientific research and technology without international collaboration and cooperation,” said AAU President Barbara R. Snyder. “This is why the Association of American Universities is proud to lead this effort to strengthen relationships between leading US and Indian research universities and to lay the groundwork for shared future scientific and economic success.”

India, Singapore may join hands to prepare future-ready workforce

Courtesy: @SGinIndia on Twitter

India and Singapore are exploring the possibility of joining hands to prepare a future-ready workforce. According to Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, “skill development and knowledge collaboration are an important element of the strategic partnership.” Pradhan was addressing a G20 workshop on “Skill Architecture and Governance Models of India and Singapore.”

“Skilling is lifelong. In the next quarter century, 25 % of the global working population will come from India. Until and unless we skill, re-skill and up-skill our young demography and prepare them for the Future of Work, we cannot fulfil global responsibilities.”

Singapore’s High Commissioner to India, Simon Wong said that Singapore was honoured to be part of India’s education and skilling journey. The G20 workshop was attended by representatives from schools, government, industry and other stakeholders.

At a time when India’s “worthless degrees” have come under flak, a strategic partnership and exchange of best practices could help India revamp its model with focus on skill development as laid out in the National Education Policy 2020.

NIRF Rankings: Comparing Apples and Oranges?

 

Courtesy: Pixabay

University and college rankings have always been a controversial topic in the higher education space. There is definitely a strong case for collecting data relating to performance, teaching, research, graduation outcomes and holding institutions accountable to certain standards of excellence. But the quest to ace the rankings game often pits institutions against one another in an unhealthy bidding war to increase enrolments. Often the data collected does not reflect the reality on the ground and students are left feeling deceived about their academic choices.
 
The seventh edition of India’s Ministry of Education-driven National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) rankings 2022 has thrown up the same questions. With the usual suspects – IITs, IISc Bangalore, IIMs bagging top spots with scores similar to last year, there seem to be few surprises. Comparing smaller, better-funded institutes with larger, diverse state universities may not be the best way to judge performance. “Putting JNU and IISc together is comparing apples with oranges,” Jawaharlal Nehru University Vice Chancellor Santishree Dhulipudi remarked after JNU lost the number one position to IISc.
 
The NIRF rankings are prepared based on parameters such as teaching, learning, resource quality, research, professional practice, graduation outcomes, outreach, inclusivity and perception. However, given the sheer numbers of HEIs, creating one solid framework to assess and rank institutes will have weak links to begin with. According to the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE), there are 1043 universities, 39931 colleges and 10725 independent institutions. 
 
Union Minister Education, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Dharmendra Pradhan said that India’s “HEIs are working towards making our education ecosystem more vibrant and making our youth future ready. A robust and objective framework for assessment, accreditation and ranking will play a major role in enhancing quality in the higher education ecosystem.”
 
This is not the first time higher education institutes are being ranked in India. The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC – for colleges and universities) and the National Board of Accreditation (NBA – for technical and professional institutions) was the first government initiative to rank institutions in 1994. Publications such as India Today and The Week also publish their own ranking of colleges and universities. But the NIRF has taken things to a different level.
 
It makes sense for public higher education institutes to participate in this exercise to improve their chances of better funding. Plus the NIRF is being touted as transparent and a good way for institutes to showcase themselves and drive enrolments. However, there needs to be a connect between the data collected via the questionnaire and on-ground realities for the exercise to yield positive outcomes. Otherwise it will remain a hollow attempt without any real value delivered to either institutions or students.

However, there needs to be a link between the data collected via the questionnaire and on-ground realities for it to accurately reveal the performance and increase student satisfaction. Otherwise it will remain a hollow attempt without any real value delivered to either institutions or students.
 
Note: The list of top 100 ranking colleges and Universities in Engineering, Management, Medical, Dental, Law and Architecture fields is available on the official NIRF website.

India's EdTech Boom: Boon or Bane?

 

The pandemic has catapulted India’s EdTech industry into the big league. Even as I write this post, an EdTech startup is probably being birthed in some part of India. Currently, there are more than 4500 EdTech companies in the country and the industry, valued at US$ 750 million in 2020, is expected to reach US$ 4 billion by 2025 at a CAGR of 39.77%.

No small figure, this. In fact it was the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns that fuelled India’s EdTech boom. Schools and educational institutions had to switch to online learning with physical campuses being off limits. Tech-enabled learning became a winning proposition and more startups jumped onto the EdTech bandwagon. Right now, Byju’s is one of the leading companies followed by Unacademy, UpGrad, Toppr, Next Education, Meritnation among others.

I’d interviewed Byju Raveendran in 2016, a year after he had launched his company. He had explained that “online learning is not offline learning taken online by simply digitizing content. There is a lot of scope for technology to make learning better and more efficient.” Be that as it may, the real test of technology lies in whether it can improve the lives of people. And while urban India has clearly benefited from tech-enabled learning, have rural and underserved areas been able to make the switch smoothly?
 
A villager in Himachal Pradesh was forced to sell his cow as he didn’t have the money to afford a mobile phone for his children’s online lessons. His plight moved many to tears on social media and there was an outpouring of help to fund his children’s education.
 
Aishwarya Reddy, a mathematics student of Lady Shri Ram College for Women in Delhi was not so fortunate. She died by suicide recently as she couldn’t afford a laptop for her studies. The instalment of her scholarship that was due in March had been delayed and the student did not want to trouble her family for money. A resident of the Rangareddy district in Telangana, she was the state class 12 examination topper and had mortgaged her house to fund her higher education.
 
Out of the 1.26 billion children worldwide out of school due to the pandemic, over 320 million are in India. With a population of over 1 billion, the government has a challenging task in ensuring universal elementary education. While there has been an increase in the number of educational institutes in the country, especially over the last few years, the problem of literacy in rural areas and among the female population still remains unsolved.
 
Even though the government’s National Education Policy 2020 stresses on the importance of leveraging technology in education solutions and supporting creation of content in regional languages, it remains to be seen whether these firms will help bridge the digital divide effectively. 

According to the IAMAI-Kantar ICUBE 2020 report, India had 622 million active internet users in 2020. This number is expected to increase by 45% to reach 900 million by 2025, due to higher adoption rates in rural India. Small towns in India account for two out of five active internet users in the country. Urban population comprises 67% of active internet users.

According to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2020, smartphone ownership among government school student families increased from 30% in 2018 to 56% in 2020, whereas smartphone ownership  among private school student families rose from 50% to 74%.
 
While these statistics present a hopeful picture, clearly a lot more ground needs to be covered to make sure access to education (and tech-enabled education) is equitable. Whether the EdTech phenomenon can deliver on its promises remains to be seen.

For now, firms such as Byju’s are weighed down by controversies regarding hard sells, prohibitive fees that only the upper crust can afford and toxic work culture. The need of the hour is effective regulation so that the benefits of this boom trickle down to the bottom where it is needed the most. 

India to become Washington Accord member

In a development that can only augur well for Indian engineers looking for employment overseas, India will become a full-fledged member of the Washington Accord by June this year. This will facilitate global recognition of Indian degrees and improve mobility of students and engineers.

The Washington Accord, signed in 1989, is an international agreement among bodies responsible for accrediting engineering degree programmes. It recognizes the substantial equivalency of programmes accredited by those bodies and recommends that graduates of programmes accredited by any of the signatory bodies be recognized by the other bodies as having met the academic requirements for entry to the practice of engineering.  Some 16 countries are signatories to it.

The Indian government plans to set up the National Accreditation Regulatory Authority (NARA) to improve quality and meet international standards. "After acquiring full status of the Washington Accord, employability of Indian engineers in other countries will go up substantially. This will help our students pursuing technical education," explained Ashok Thakur, Secretary Higher Education.

According to Thakur, India has been a provisional member of the Washington Accord since 2007 and is confident to get the full-fledged status by June when a meeting of the body is due to take place. Two members have been deputed by the Washington Accord to help India align its accreditation norms with the best international practices.

New research on Emerging Cities for Overseas Education Promotion

Our emerging cities reports analyses the demand for overseas education in smaller cities and towns such as Gurgaon, Pune, Kochi, Bhubaneshwar and Surat to name a few. The report provides a valuable insight into these promising student markets tracking areas such as economic development, demand for foreign qualification and purchasing power of residents.

Gain an edge in education promotion, get in touch with us to order a copy of the report.

Foreign students heading back to Australia says government report

Australia may soon be reclaiming its title as a popular education destination for foreign students, according to an article published in the The Australian newspaper. The article refers to a report released by the Australian government’s new International Education Advisory Council which says the country will host 520,000 international students by 2020, an increase from the current 402,000 in the country.

AUSTRALIA: BACK IN FAVOUR

About 80 per cent will be from Asia and they will bring in $19.1 billion into the economy.

Despite the upbeat projections, the numbers still won’t reach the ones the country achieved in 2009, when 630,700 foreign students reached campuses across Australia.

Tertiary Minister Chris Bowen said interest in studying here was already up, with an increase in higher education visas applicants in the last six months of 2012. Actual student numbers are predicted to rise next year.

Released by Bowen at a Universities Australia conference in Canberra, the report foresees a "new era of sustainable international education growth'' after the "unsustainable increases'' in the VET sector between 2006 and 2009.

Number of Indian students in UK drops

Britain's strict student visa regulations has resulted in a dip in the numbers of Indian students in higher education by nearly a quarter last year.

Students from India coming to study at UK schools and universities fell by 23.5% overall, including a 28% drop at the postgraduate level.

Figures released by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) on Friday show fewer than 30,000 students from India were studying at UK higher education institutions in 2011-12 , compared with around 40,000 in the previous year.

India, however, remains the second most common country of origin for foreign students in Britain after China, which sent 79,000 students last year.

Universities have been warning the UK government that recent changes to student visa rules mean they face losing bright foreign students to rival institutions in the United States, Canada and Australia.

Demand for Management Education Up From 2011: GMAC survey

Demand for graduate business and management education around the world shows signs of renewed growth, as 51 percent of programs surveyed by the Graduate Management Admission Council report more applications than last year.

Overall demand — as revealed in the 2012 Application Trends Survey — is spread among a greater variety of program types, including part-time self-paced, flexible, and online distance MBAs, as well as specialized master’s degrees in business, including information technology management. 

“As the global business space continues to become more complex, there is a greater demand that business schools today offer specialized and flexible programs to meet corporate and student needs,” said David Wilson, GMAC president and CEO. “Worldwide, these diverse graduate management programs are drawing different kinds of students.  Technology is a part of the solution to this challenge, but it is not the entire solution.  Flexibility in delivery mode, cadence of the program and the characteristics of the class cohort are now all variables in the graduate education solutions being offered.  The message students and companies are sending is clear; one size does not necessarily fit all.”

The annual survey, which charts year-to-year application changes at the program level, shows that specialized master’s programs in management, finance, and accounting continue to show robust growth, and applications to full-time two-year MBA programs appear to be stabilizing globally, with about half of all full-time two-year MBA programs showing increases or holding steady from last year.  

In open-ended comments, admissions professionals responding to the survey noted that economic conditions continued to play a role in student demand for programs. “[A student’s] reluctance to leave full-time position,” cited one admissions professional from a US full-time two-year MBA program. “The economy is picking up and students are finding full-time jobs or have received promotions and do not want to leave to go back to school for two years,” said another. 

A record 744 programs from 359 business schools in 46 countries participated in the survey this year. They include 527 MBA programs, 24 business doctoral programs (PhD/DBA) and 193 specialized masters programs. This year’s survey report includes, for the first time, results for masters in information technology management and masters of marketing/communications.

Dual degrees with world's top 500 varsities

In a move to regulate the country's higher education sector,  the University Grants Commission has approved new regulations governing foreign university partnerships, barring entry to all but the top 500 globally-ranked universities. In order to be eligible to offer joint degrees or other twinning programmes, foreign universities must be listed among the top 500 in the Times Higher Education or Shanghai Jiaotong University world rankings, while Indian universities must have received the highest grade from the National Assessmentand Accreditation Council or the National Board of Accreditation. Universities with existing partnerships will be allowed six months to comply with the new regulations, or face penalties.

While the government’s move to regulate partnerships by allowing access to elite institutions should be lauded, there are many non-elite institutions worldwide that offer a diverse range of high-quality programmes. The new regulations would deprive Indian students from accessing those programmes.

Microsoft bags cloud order from AICTE

The governing body for technical education in India, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has adopted cloud computing to improve technical education and prepare Indian students for the workforce. Microsoft’s Live@edu service will be deployed in more than 10,000 technical colleges and institutes throughout India over the next three months.

Live@edu is a hosted communication and collaboration service that offers email, Microsoft Office Web Apps, instant messaging and storage to AICTE’s more than 7 million students and nearly 500,000 faculty members, for a total reach of 7.5 million users — roughly double the size of the Los Angeles population — making AICTE Microsoft’s largest cloud customer ever.

AICTE: Technical education in-the-cloud

“Microsoft’s cloud platform will make for a truly progressive ecosystem and contribute to the country’s technical education by providing a better communication and collaboration platform for institutes and students,” explains Dr S S Mantha, chairman of AICTE.

According to Anthony Salcito, vice president of Worldwide Education, the country is witnessing rapid economic activity and growth. Developing India’s youth and their skills is going to play an important role globally in the country’s inclusive growth. “The union budget also laid emphasis on skill development and so does the proposed 12th Five Year Plan with a National Policy on Skill development. The PPP model (public-private partnership) is most essential in running and managing training institutions that provide every opportunity to address the skill gap most efficiently,” adds Salcito.

Sums up Sanket Akerkar, managing director, Microsoft India: “Microsoft has always seen education as a priority area and believes that technology offers possibilities that can help empower not just teachers and students but collectively India as a nation.”

Better-than-average cloud-related job growth in education: IDC white paper

Cloud computing is being touted as a significant transformation tool the world over.

In a white paper commissioned by Microsoft, IDC estimates that spending on public and private IT cloud services will generate nearly 14 million jobs worldwide by 2015. The paper also reveals that a majority of these jobs will be found in emerging markets because of their immense workforces — 1.2 billion workers in China and India alone.

Cloud Computing: transformation tool?

According to the paper, the education sector, a small vertical but with better-than-average cloud-related job growth, will see IT cloud services as an attractive way to deal with budget constraints. Many are worried about being locked into a single cloud vendor, but in many developed countries, they may find cloud computing is still a good way to face budget cuts. In less financially constrained geographies, IT cloud services will offer standardisation and lower capital costs of expansion.

Dr Elizabeth Sherly

Explains Dr Elizabeth Sherly, Director (In-Charge), Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management-Kerala (IIITM-K): “Kerala’s state education department, for instance, would gain significantly by switching to the cloud platform. There are a number of applications in the education department, handling functions such as common admission counselling and results. These applications register heavy traffic only at certain times, for instance during the time of admission or results. In other periods, the system remains idle.” 


By adopting cloud computing for this sector, the government can create a central pool of shared resources including software and infrastructure. Not to mention, setting off cloud-related job growth.

Irish universities in India: focus on internationalisation

Irish Universities Association, the representative body for Ireland’s universities, hosted an education fair for students at The Lalit in New Delhi on Saturday 11 February 2012. The fair, which featured a consortium of seven leading institutes --  University of Limerick; National University of Ireland, Galway; National University of Ireland, Maynooth; Dublin City University; University College Cork; University of Dublin Trinity College; and University College Dublin --  toured Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore before ending their promotional tour at Delhi.

I visited the fair and spoke to Sinead Lucey, International Marketing Manager, Irish Universities Association (IUA) on higher education in Ireland and the IUA’s blueprint for India:

Debeshi: Tell us about what Ireland has on offer in terms of higher education?

Sinead: Our focus is on high quality education, a commitment to excellence. The quest for excellence is the bedrock of the seven Irish universities. Irish universities are internationally recognized for quality in education, research and the overall student experience, a recognition they relentlessly strive to enhance. International students are fundamental to this objective.

Sinead Lucey

Debeshi: Can you elaborate on the programmes that these universities offer?

Sinead: Alongside the traditional postgraduate courses, there is a diverse range of postgraduate courses ranging from Meteorology, Creative Writing to Biomedical Engineering. Pharmaceuticals, Information Technology, Medical Devices, Biotechnology are some of the other popular disciplines. The Pharmaceutical and Information Technology industry in Ireland is doing well and there are job opportunities for students.

Debeshi: Tell us about scholarships available for higher studies in Ireland?

Sinead: Almost all the universities offer some form of financial aid to international students. In addition, the government is offering a fully-funded scholarship which includes full tuition fee waiver and a stipend of 10,000 euros.

Debeshi: Are students allowed to work in Ireland after their course is completed?

Sinead: Students are allowed to stay back for a year and gain work experience after their course is completed. Leading global companies are located in Ireland. Companies who require a skilled, educated and highly capable workforce to drive their success choose to locate in Ireland. Recently, Ireland has welcomed Google, Facebook, Pfizer, Apple, Intel to name just a few  - all of whom chose Ireland as their European base. Global work experience helps graduates find their feet easily enough when they return to India.

Students at the University of Dublin Trinity College

Debeshi: Given recent incidents, Indian students will want to make sure they are safe in a foreign environment. Tell us how Ireland scores on this front?

National University of Ireland, Maynooth

Sinead: Ireland is a friendly, safe country. And it is not just us saying it! Ireland was voted by Lonely Planet as the world’s friendliest country in 2008 and 2010 and was ranked 12th in the 2009 Global Peace Index. International students enrich campus communities countrywide and our hospitable nature coupled with an unrivalled sense of fun ensures living in Ireland is an unforgettable experience. The island’s varied environment is ideal for many outdoor pursuits such as climbing, water sports and all kinds of ball and team sports. It’s easy to explore Europe from an Irish base with low-cost, frequent flights making trips affordable

Debeshi: What are your plans for India?

Sinead: We are very happy with the response in the different cities. We have seen excellent students here. We will return in May 2012 and November 2012 with more fairs. We hope to be very active in the Indian market going forward.

A new bill in town

Another Bill. As if we did not have enough bills already!

The newest one – the Higher Education and Research Bill 2011 seeks to establish the National Commission on Higher Education and Research (NCHER), an overarching regulatory body for university education including vocational, technical, professional and medical education.

The Bill will promote autonomy of higher education and innovation and provide for comprehensive and integrated growth of higher education and research keeping in view the global standards of educational and research practices, for which it will establish the National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER).

The NCHER will facilitate determination, coordination, maintenance and continued enhancement of standards of higher education and research other than agricultural education and matters pertaining to minimum standard of medical education as are the subject of proposed National Commission on Human Resources in Health (NCHRH).

So far so good.

The existing regulatory bodies including the University Grants Commission and the All India Council for Technical Education will subsequently be scrapped.

All that’s left now is to wait for this and all the others (reportedly 11) to be cleared. Some backlog indeed!

Mumbai campus for Italian b-school

One of Italy’s top institutes, Università Bocconi, through SDA Bocconi School of Management, is setting up a campus in Mumbai. The MISB Bocconi or the Mumbai International School of Business Bocconi will offer postgraduate programmes in business for Indian students and managers. SDA Bocconi has been ranked as among the top 10 European business schools according to the Financial Times rankings.

“MISB Bocconi opens to our university a new path for our internationalisation strategy which has led us today to have over 200 partner schools in all five continents and to offer our students 16 double degree programmes, of which one with the Indian Institute of Management- Ahmedabad,” explains Guido Tabellini, rector of Università Bocconi.

“It is, in fact, the first initiative in which, together with entrepreneurial partners, we give birth to a postgraduate education programme aimed exclusively at Indian students and managers and not Italians. We have chosen India,” says Tabellini, “ to set up this new project because of both the strong request for managerial education which characterises the Indian market and the deep-rooted experience which Bocconi has in this country beginning back in 2000, when we signed our first agreement with a partner university.”

The first programme offered by MISB Bocconi will be the Post Graduate Programme in Business, which will start in July 2012, a high-level international programme in management and centered on the realities of the Indian market and business world. Lessons will be held by a mix of Indian, international and Bocconi faculty. The programme will be a combination of theory and real practice in close contact with the business world and will be articulated in 2 modules of 11 months each. 

The first module will cover disciplines such as marketing, economics, corporate strategy and finance, concluding with a summer project that foresees an internship, an entrepreneurial project or a research project. The second module will also include the option of a campus abroad in a Bocconi partner school or an exchange semester at Bocconi’s campus in Milan and a group consultancy project in close collaboration with a company.

Università Bocconi will guarantee the quality of the courses in accordance with international academic standards and also draw upon its network of collaborations with Indian corporate partners with which it already works to offer internships and work experience for its students.

The school is also looking at launching executive education programmes for Indian and multinational companies, operating on the Indian market, in fields such as finance, entrepreneurship and family business, and fashion/design management, drawing upon the experience of SDA Bocconi.

The rise of the one-year MBA in India

Tarun Mehra, an analyst at a Gurgaon-based knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) firm, wanted a management qualification that would add a competitive edge to his resume and help him move up the professional ladder. As his academic credentials were impressive, Mehra could easily have taken his pick from any of the top business schools within India. Instead he enrolled for a one-year MBA at local business school, SOIL (School of Inspired Leadership).

“I did not want to spend two years studying for an MBA so I chose a one-year program. This is value for money. I am not paying for that extra year, yet the course curriculum is the same.”

In the words of Bala V Balachandran, founder and dean of Great Lakes Institute of Management (GLIM) in Chennai, “the monetary value of time, or opportunity cost, is more important than the time value of money.”

In a bid to cater to professionals who do not want to devote two years of their work life to earn an MBA, an increasing number of business schools have started offering one-year accelerated, full-time courses. The one-year program, popularized by business schools in Europe as an alternative to the predominantly two-year US-style MBA.

Says Bani Wadhwa, an HR manager in Chennai, “I wanted to take up an MBA program but did not have the time or the inclination to do a two-year. So I opted for a shorter, one-year at GLIM. The course content was the same, only shorter. What’s more, my company sponsored me, so it all worked out well in the long term.”

Professor S Sriram, executive director, Great Lakes Institute of Management explains: “People increasingly feel pressured for time these days. For working people, taking two years out proves to be expensive and difficult. If one can get the same value in one year, why not?”

Management experience matters

Schools such as GLIM, the Indian School of Business, SOIL, SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR) among others offer the one-year program with a focus on applicants with at least a couple of years of work experience. In fact, it was the Indian School of Business that pioneered the one-year format in India, an experiment that turned out hugely successful for the business school.

One-year programs teach students to analyze situations quickly, think on their feet and apply their skills to real business situations. Students learn to combine their industry expertise with the fundamentals of management that are acquired over the year. Career interruptions are minimized for students while companies encourage promising employees to prepare for leadership roles. One-year programs have a great advantage over the two-year model because of the tremendous savings in opportunity costs.

It is an ideal platform to recharge before returning to the corporate world. Typically, a one-year MBA can cost anything between Rs 750,000 and Rs 1,700,000 (US$15,000 and $34,000) depending on the school.

“One year programs are fast track courses with shorter duration terms. You need to have students who have exposure to how things work in real life. So typically, one year MBAs admit students with work experience,” explains Sriram.

The average experience of the current batch at GLIM is around four years. According to Sriram, these students are also very clear about the kind of industry and job they look for post MBA, which is not usually the case for students with little or no work experience, who are more open and less focused in terms of career choices.

The one-year full-time postgraduate program in management (PGPM) at GLIM helps students understand the interactions between the various functional areas of a business system and thereby appreciate the need for developing cross-functional perspectives in business. The intensive program demands students with a proven record of academic brilliance along with an ability to demonstrate vision, initiative, leadership and hard work.

“The one-year program at SPJIMR is different from the traditional two-year model on the following counts. The participants are more experienced, have a clear idea about what kind of job they want to have after their MBA in terms of role and the industry, have reached a stage in their career where they are ready to manage people besides managing issues which was their sole concern in their pre MBA career,” says Dr M L Shrikant, honorary dean at SPJIMR.

Shrikant adds that another group of applicants for one-year programs includes individuals who would have worked on pursuing an MBA program earlier and have realized the importance of a formal degree for career growth and also may have acquired financial strength to do the same.

“In fact, given the opportunity cost of having to give up a job to do the MBA, the one year students are also much more hardworking, focused and serious about utilizing every minute of their stay at the institute,” notes Professor Sriram.

Specialized MBA course content

The fact that the course is of a shorter duration does not mean that the curriculum is more difficult or not extensive enough. The course has been tailored to meet the needs of business and industry. For instance, the post-graduate program in management (PGPM) offered by SPJIMR is an 11-month, full-time course. The SPJIMR program is an intensive course that has been designed to meet specific skill requirements of industry.

The ISB’s program has been ranked 13th in the Global MBA Rankings 2011 released by the Financial Times. It also recorded the highest salary percentage increase among all the top 100 schools. During the last four year period, ISB’s class size grew by over 35% to a current size of 570 students.

Despite these statistics, there are some aspirants who are clearly not bitten by the one-year bug.

Take Mani Sharma, a digital marketing professional from New Delhi for instance. “I don’t want to take up a one-year MBA program as these are more expensive and without company sponsorship, do not make economic sense. One-year works for students who have a background in business or a company sponsorship. Also, one-year programs do not allow students time to network or intern with companies. In the long-term, these are valuable experiences and help in professional development.”

Be that as it may, with the growing popularity of the one-year format in India, it is likely there will be an increase in the number of business schools switching over from traditional two-year MBA program formats to offer this shorter route to professional development.

Source: Published in TopMBA