In an interesting comment on my last blog post, ' A Business School is not an Employment Exchange', Rhea said that the job of a business School should be "helping students improve themselves to such a level that, 'not hiring them fast enough' becomes a threat to the companies. I guess she hit the nail right on the head, pretty much summing up what Business Schools ought to be doing. The moment you hear that kind of a thing, what comes straight to one's mind is the saying that you can take a horse to the water but can't make it drink and rings true. There is only that much that even the best schools can do. The onus of learning, training and finding a job lies with the student. You will probably ask what purpose do the B.Schools serve then? B. Schools can at best provide a platform for that learning. You would have noticed the emphasis all along is on learning not on teaching.
The teachers in B Schools need to grasp the value of this slant towards 'helping' students 'learn' rather than 'teach' otherwise they will continue to be an obstacle in the way of their learning despite best of intentions. Yet I hear a lot of well intentioned, yet unpalatable boast in conversations when members of the venerable fraternity get together in their cabins or at boringly routine get-togethers over tepid tea and the ubiquitous samosas and biscuits, extolling the quality of the lecture they 'delivered' and how well they 'taught'. How such and such a a student would have been struck in finance if 'I' had not forced him take up marketing"; or how "I literally caught him by the ear and made him finish her assignment or else she would have flunked that year..." and it goes on and on interminably. The self adulatory tone sometimes becomes overbearing, to say the least, yet that is the prevailing strain in such mild encounters. The teachers have to learn make themselves less obtrusive and get out of the way of student's learning. This is not to suggest that B. Schools do not need teachers.They do. Only there style of functioning needs to change. There probably is a need to set up training institute to train B.school teachers so that they can appreciate the difference between teaching in kindergartens and teaching in B. Schools.
The reason I am writing this piece is not as much to change the teaching style and stance of the faculty as it is to encourage students acquire the right attitude to learning. They have to some day take ownership of their lives and sooner they take a decision to do so the better. Students have been a victim of a vicious circle. They joined a particular B.school, based on its ranking. They expect to earn large sums of money when placed as an all pervasive impression that higher the ranking of B.schools means higher pay packets for its students has been created by B. schools in cahoots with the media. There is nothing wrong with being able to earn large sums of money but the focus in this has to be on the skills, ability and behaviour of the graduates; not on money. Another thing that's even more damaging and works at a deeper psychological level is the fact that it makes students, who are going to be the decision makers in the business world tomorrow, dependent on the Placement cells to find them a job which they believe the B. Schools have tacitly promised them. This makes very deep inroads into the psyche of the students and leads to their becoming dependent on the placement cells to find them a job and the faculty to 'teach' them. They come in dependent and they go out dependent - exactly the opposite of what any professional school ought to be doing for them. When I ask them why do they think they deserve a seven to ten lakh package, the answer nine time out of ten times is that the ranking of the school warrants that. On probing a little further one learns that the students with higher CGPAs expect higher salaries because they did everything their teachers and their parents 'told' them to do. That is how they slowly become the problem rather than the solution to the problem. They have learnt too well what they have been 'told' to do. They have never been encouraged to think for themselves and take their own decisions.
The students should learn to take their own decisions starting from small things like whether they should attend a particular class or bunk it to what discipline they ought to major in and so on. They should during their stay in the B. school acquire enough self esteem to find jobs for themselves based on their own learning, skills, ethics and confidence. What graduating students can do has been nicely suggested by Charlie Hoehn in his beautiful little e- book, Recession Proof Graduate It is also is a great way to pick a Company YOU want to work for rather than be picked by any company the Placement Cell chooses to bring to the Campus. More on that in another post. Meanwhile read the book.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
A Business School is not an Employment Exchange
With the onset of the placement season the anxiety levels of the students in Business Schools begin to rise to volcanic levels. Their anger is directed against almost against anyone and everyone associated with helping them find a job. The Placement Cells in particular become the focus of their ire. They feel the 'Placement' people not only do not get better companies with better jobs and better pay packages to the Campuses they also do not treat students with the respect they deserve. "They treat us like commodities," is the common strain.
My issue is not whether the Placement Cells are inefficient and that they don't treat people with courtesy and respect or that they treat future managers like onions and tomatoes because that will depend on the quality of people manning them and their training and if you allow people to treat to you like commodities; they will. No one can treat you bad without your permission. My issue is more fundamental.
Should a Business School that prides itself on providing quality education even have a Placement Cell? Many people believe that the focus of Business School is all wrong when they try to rope students in by advertising their ability to find students a job at the end of the course. The media and the pseudo rating agencies also play their part in ranking business schools where a major criterion is the institute's placement record. Placements become big news and Business schools vie with each other in buying space in newspapers and magazines to report how well they have done and how quickly the batch was 'placed'. Big budgetary allocation are made to wine and dine people in Companies responsible for visiting campuses for placements. Placement people are assured a hefty commission for every candidate landing a job. The whole thing smacks of a malady that afflicts most Business Schools and is eating into their innards and converting them into employment exchanges.
The problem with organised placement assistance is that that it make the students dependent and the faculty lazy. It is a double whammy when Students join a management course attracted by the promise of placement. One the students overwhelmingly begin to believe that it is the responsibility of the Business School to get them a job. And two it attracts a lot of students who otherwise have no acumen or interest in the discipline making a bee line for getting admission in a Business school. It is no wonder then, that despite tremendous encouragement, pleading, plodding, requests and threats many students in most Business Schools do not begin to read the business newspapers let alone get genuinely interested in reading the journals, even towards the end of the third or final semester. Somewhere deep inside they believe that, because they have paid the money they will get the degree and because the Business school has a Placement Cell it will get them jobs. Most students, especially from non business families come believing that ethics and business can never go hand in hand and that all businesses are built by deceit go out confirmed in their view that you just have to while away two years in a Business School and their Placement Cell will work hard to get them decent employment. What kind of managers would such people make? If they do not make good managers and the society begins to feel, at some stage, especially during a major financial crisis, that business school products are rude, crude, arrogant and greedy should they be alone in taking the blame? Aren't Business Schools as responsible because of their focus on placements and not on education and training?
As far as the Faculty at Business Schools is concerned it makes them lazy and casual in their approach. They begin to think their job is to go to the class and deliver a lecture and go home. They forget it is their job is to help students acquire a holistic approach to business problems. They have to create and disseminate relevant knowledge. The message that seems to go across is "pay money (through your nose) and get admission in a school that guarantees employment and that will help you make a lot of money. You see it is becoming some kind of a vicious circle. It is possible the faculty's laziness stems from students apathy or unconcern. But that is no excuse. It is possible that the student's apathy is the result of faculty's laziness. But that has to be set right. You see the faulty vicious circle taking stranglehold of business education. It is time to stem the rot. To begin with all self respecting Business schools should scrap their Placement Cells and focus on providing theoretical base and practical experience to its students to become future managers that the business world needs. It is then that the Industry and business houses will come looking for genuine talent and future managers will not be treated like commodities.
My issue is not whether the Placement Cells are inefficient and that they don't treat people with courtesy and respect or that they treat future managers like onions and tomatoes because that will depend on the quality of people manning them and their training and if you allow people to treat to you like commodities; they will. No one can treat you bad without your permission. My issue is more fundamental.
Should a Business School that prides itself on providing quality education even have a Placement Cell? Many people believe that the focus of Business School is all wrong when they try to rope students in by advertising their ability to find students a job at the end of the course. The media and the pseudo rating agencies also play their part in ranking business schools where a major criterion is the institute's placement record. Placements become big news and Business schools vie with each other in buying space in newspapers and magazines to report how well they have done and how quickly the batch was 'placed'. Big budgetary allocation are made to wine and dine people in Companies responsible for visiting campuses for placements. Placement people are assured a hefty commission for every candidate landing a job. The whole thing smacks of a malady that afflicts most Business Schools and is eating into their innards and converting them into employment exchanges.
The problem with organised placement assistance is that that it make the students dependent and the faculty lazy. It is a double whammy when Students join a management course attracted by the promise of placement. One the students overwhelmingly begin to believe that it is the responsibility of the Business School to get them a job. And two it attracts a lot of students who otherwise have no acumen or interest in the discipline making a bee line for getting admission in a Business school. It is no wonder then, that despite tremendous encouragement, pleading, plodding, requests and threats many students in most Business Schools do not begin to read the business newspapers let alone get genuinely interested in reading the journals, even towards the end of the third or final semester. Somewhere deep inside they believe that, because they have paid the money they will get the degree and because the Business school has a Placement Cell it will get them jobs. Most students, especially from non business families come believing that ethics and business can never go hand in hand and that all businesses are built by deceit go out confirmed in their view that you just have to while away two years in a Business School and their Placement Cell will work hard to get them decent employment. What kind of managers would such people make? If they do not make good managers and the society begins to feel, at some stage, especially during a major financial crisis, that business school products are rude, crude, arrogant and greedy should they be alone in taking the blame? Aren't Business Schools as responsible because of their focus on placements and not on education and training?
As far as the Faculty at Business Schools is concerned it makes them lazy and casual in their approach. They begin to think their job is to go to the class and deliver a lecture and go home. They forget it is their job is to help students acquire a holistic approach to business problems. They have to create and disseminate relevant knowledge. The message that seems to go across is "pay money (through your nose) and get admission in a school that guarantees employment and that will help you make a lot of money. You see it is becoming some kind of a vicious circle. It is possible the faculty's laziness stems from students apathy or unconcern. But that is no excuse. It is possible that the student's apathy is the result of faculty's laziness. But that has to be set right. You see the faulty vicious circle taking stranglehold of business education. It is time to stem the rot. To begin with all self respecting Business schools should scrap their Placement Cells and focus on providing theoretical base and practical experience to its students to become future managers that the business world needs. It is then that the Industry and business houses will come looking for genuine talent and future managers will not be treated like commodities.
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