Ombudsman for higher education institutions

More news from HRD Minister Kapil Sibal’s chamber.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development will put in place a grievance redressal mechanism for students and applicants for admission in higher educational institutions. The framework will be implemented in all central universities, IITs, IIMs, NITS, IIITs, private and government-run deemed universities and all higher educational institutions under various Central government ministries.

Regulatory bodies such as the University Grants Commission, All India Council for Technical Education and National Council for TeacherEducation would ask educational institutions to set up grievance redressal mechanisms.

KAPIL SIBAL: SETTING STANDARDS?

As part of the initiative, each institute would be required to appoint an ombudsman who would be a person with judicial or legal experience. In case the grievance relates to SCs/STs/OBCs or minorities, the ombudsman can co-opt a person of eminence from the weaker section to assist him in taking a decision. The institute would have to appoint him from a panel suggested by the affiliating university in case of technical and management institutions and the Central Government in case of deemed universities. “Non-compliance can lead to withdrawal of recognition,” Sibal states.

Applicants for admission and students can apply to the ombudsman for redressal of grievances and s/he would have to give the order within a month. According to Sibal, students have several grievances at the time of applying for admission that needs immediate redressal. Sibal indicated that even the Parliamentary standing committee, in its report on the bill to prohibit and punish unfair practices, had recommended setting up of grievance redressal frameworks.

Soumitra Dutta named new Johnson dean

Soumitra Dutta, a professor of business and technology and founder and faculty director of a new media and technology innovation lab at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France, will become the eleventh dean of the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University effective July 1, 2012, Cornell President David J. Skorton announced today.

Soumitra Dutta: Scaling new heights

Academics of Indian origin such as Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria, and Chicago Booth Dean Sunil Kumar are scaling the professional ladder in the west. In appointing Dutta, Johnson becomes the first major business school in the United States to hire a dean from a business school outside the country. INSEAD, with campuses in Fontainebleau, France; Singapore, and Abu Dhabi, UAE, is one of the top-ranked graduate business schools worldwide.

Dutta himself has served visiting professorships in Haas School at UC Berkeley, Oxford Internet Institute at University of Oxford, and Judge School at University of Cambridge in England, as well as advised several governments with their national information and innovation policies and consulted with leading international organisations.

“Professor Dutta’s appointment is a natural fit with Johnson’s increasingly global outlook,” said Skorton. “He has expertise in new and emerging media, he has studied the conditions that promote innovation and he has extensive experience on the international stage. Among other qualities, these prepare him well to oversee the education of our next-generation business leaders and entrepreneurs. Johnson students, Cornellians who take courses at Johnson and, in the very near future, aspiring entrepreneurs at our new tech campus in New York City will benefit from this appointment.” Dutta received a B Tech. in electrical engineering and computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology and an MS in business administration, an MS in computer science and a PhD in computer science from the University of California at Berkeley.

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.

Positive trends for b-school grads in 2011

Key survey and poll results from the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) during 2011 provided a positive outlook for MBA graduates in 2011 and projected hiring for 2012. The year’s noteworthy findings include:

• 54 percent of all graduate business students seeking employment in 2011 had at least one job offer pre-graduation, up from 32 percent in 2010, according to the GMAC Global Management Education Graduate Survey.

• Class of 2011 grads who did an internship are 26 percent more likely to have a job offer pre-graduation than classmates without an internship, according to the GMAC Global Management Education Graduate Survey.

• 67 percent of full-time MBA programs reported a decline in application volume in 2011 compared with 2010; 54 percent of part-time programs reported that application volume was the same or more than last year; and 58 percent of executive MBA programs said application volume was the same or more than last year, according to the GMAC Application Trends Survey.

• 83 percent of Master of Finance programs reported that applications were up, and 69 percent of Master in Management and 51 percent of Master of Accounting programs reported an increase in applications, according to the GMAC Application Trends Survey.

• Admissions offices at business schools reported that the quality of applicants for 2011-2012 incoming classes and their academic credentials are equal or better for 89 percent of full-time MBA programs compared with last year, according to the GMAC Application Trends Survey.

• Nearly four times as many companies are planning to increase the number of MBAs they hire in 2012 (22 percent) compared with the six percent of companies that actually hired more MBAs than planned in 2011, according to the GMAC Year-End Employer Poll.

Global stamp of recognition

In my recent post about Indian business schools: Best practices, I had written about top business schools identifying best practices to help benchmark with foreign schools and attract the best students and faculty. International accreditation helps business schools get a global stamp of recognition for their MBA programmes. Students get their degrees recognised globally, while the business school is successful in securing more foreign partnerships and linkages.

Four business schools in India have received the Association of MBAs (AMBA) accreditation. The UK-based AMBA is an international impartial authority on postgraduate business education. The AMBA accredits MBA provision at 187 schools in over 70 countries. IIM Lucknow’s MBA programme is the most recent to receive the Association of MBAs accreditation in November 2011.

The first to receive global accreditation from the Association was MDI Gurgaon in 2005 followed by SP Jain and IIM Kozhikode. More business school accreditations are also in the pipeline. “Granting Association of MBAs accreditation is a mark of the quality of a business school’s programmes and ultimately is a great profile-raising tool for schools, as our programmes are recognised internationally, thereby giving the business school a global status and network,” said Sharon Bamford, Chief Executive of the Association of MBAs. “The Association of MBAs accreditation is unique as it focuses on individual programmes, rather than the whole institution. This in-depth and detailed approach means that the highest standards of teaching, faculty and student interaction are guaranteed by our accreditation. We also believe that programmes should be of the highest standard and reflect changing trends and innovation in postgraduate management education,” she added.

As well as accreditation of top business schools, the Association of MBAs is committed to the growth and high standards of post-graduate management education by creating enhanced membership opportunities for Indian MBA students and alumni. The first of the Association’s membership initiatives launched in November 2011 with a networking and learning event called Global Connections. “India is the cornerstone of the Association of MBAs innovation strategy. Our focus is to work with Indian business schools to build and improve on their management education giving them international recognition, and to support MBA students and alumni with membership opportunities that assist in their professional development,” said Sharon Bamford.

Future initiatives include empowering local MBA students and graduates to build a global network representing accredited MBA programmes. This will provide professional development through learning and networking events and through the opportunity to build an international profile for those who have studied at an accredited programme. This global network would unite MBA students, business schools and employers of MBAs under the prestigious umbrella of the Association of MBAs.

Indian Students in the United States

Created by Uniguru