Sensitive To Industry Demands
B-schools that have a ‘bias towards action’ built into their pedagogy always seek to integrate theory with practice, with the objective of developing the students into practitioners. This is augmented with multiple points of industry connect, be it through an internship, live projects, getting industry experts as guest faculty or delivering guest lectures on industry-relevant topics, coordinating with the alumni to communicate the industry expectations to the students, and even handhold them as they prepare to become practitioners and so on.
“Most good schools also include options for global engagement, be it in the form of student exchanges, involvement of faculty from abroad, or short-term visits to reputed foreign business schools. No wonder then that many students summarise their time at IIM Shillong campus as a life-changing experience,” says Basav Roychoudhury, Ph.D., Information Systems & Analytics, Indian Institute of Management Shillong.
Overall, this has also been accepted by the business and industry, as is evident from the successful placements of students on completion of their programmes at these campuses. “Further, we have also seen the progression of our alumni in their career, which gives us confidence in the processes being followed and continually augmented in our campus,” adds Roychoudhury.
Paradigm shift
The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is indeed envisaged to bring about a paradigm shift in education in the country. However, it is worth emphasising here that a key thrust area of NEP -- to provide knowledge and skills which can make one employable or take up entrepreneurship -- has been the hallmark of reputed management schools for a long. Again, as for giving students options as underlined in the new policy, these schools have been already providing students with multiple options in the courses they can take, the internships and projects that they desire, extra-curricular activities thoughtfully designed to develop them as able managers, and so on.
With the advent of NEP, more focus is now given to options that students have in taking up courses, flexibility in terms of completion time of programmes, etc. “At IIM Shillong, the advent of NEP has seen more options to those who do not have the luxury of staying on the campus by leaving their jobs, as well as flexibility in terms of courses that one can take and the time for completion of programmes,” informs Roychoudhury.
IIM Shillong has provided options to working executives to pursue a degree as well as doctoral programmes, without leaving their jobs. These programmes do require the students to spend some time on the campus over the duration of their programme, but the same is designed in a way convenient to most of the participants. Needless to say, these programmes depend on technology to reach out to the participants, who are placed all across the country and beyond.
Modern infrastructure
IIM Shillong shifted to its new campus in February 2021. While there were projects for infrastructure augmentation in the past, the new campus has seen infrastructure development across all segments. In addition to the infrastructure already built to support the activities of the institute, construction work is going on for classroom augmentation, new hostel blocks, dedicated infrastructure for centres of the institute, and sports and recreation facilities for the residents.
There is also a focus on technology on the new campus. Upscaling of IT infrastructure has been done and more are under process. On the classroom front, in addition to the usual classroom enabled with modern digital technologies, classrooms with technology-enabling hybrid classes have been implemented. These are meant to allow students attending in person as well as online to have an immersive classroom experience, dissolving the barrier between those attending in person and those online to a major extent.
The library also has seen a major upgradation in the last five years both in terms of contents and variety.
Sensitising students
Sustainability has been a focus area for IIM Shillong since its inception about 15 years ago when it was not as much in the mainstream as it is today. Every participant enrolling in the programmes of the institute has to compulsorily attend a foundation course on sustainability at the very outset of their programmes. These foundation courses confront the students with the issues of environment and sustainability faced across all management domains, and while discussing the various existing or proposed solutions, they are encouraged to think of innovative and implementable solutions to overcome those. Thus, the environment and sustainability are part of the daily discourse at IIM Shillong. In addition to specific courses on sustainability and business, most of the other courses also have facets of these built into their content.
The institute has options for environment-friendly transport in the form of cycles and electric vehicles for students’ commutes, like many other campuses across the globe. Plastic bottles are not used on campus and for many years, the use of plastic bags has been discouraged. But the ethos goes much beyond. Being situated in the northeastern part of the country also helps in this endeavor. The population across the region is mostly tribal and their indigenous practices are acutely environment and sustainability friendly. The students are exposed to these practices, which help them learn from the traditional knowledge and thus become more sensitive to sustainable practices.
“A small case in point is, after attending the foundation course on sustainability, one of the students had written to a major etailer about their use of plastic packaging materials, telling them that unless the same is reduced, the institute residents may stop purchasing from that etailer. There have been very many instances where students proactively took up such issues. There is also a student club set up to sensitise people on sustainable business practices. All these make everyone coming out of IIM Shillong very environment and sustainability aware and, I believe, concerned,” underlines Roychoudhury.
Viability and affordability
B-school education is very much viable for all. However, one needs to look at it from a different perspective. Management education should not be seen in the same way as school or college education, where for most the cost is borne by the family. It should be something that one takes responsibility for on one’s own. Banks are more than ready to extend such loans and the government also encourages this by extending tax benefits once the students pass out and take up jobs. For students getting admitted to most of the reputed business schools, the banks extend a very simple education loan procedure and mostly do not ask for any collateral for such loans. Given that these schools have good placement records with more than decent CTCs, the students should not shy away from opting for education loans.
Quality placement
The industry is always on the lookout for the right talent. As the economy gets more knowledge-oriented, there will always be demand for such talent in general, barring some transient aberrations. The quality of placement thus depends upon the extent to which the candidate has the skill and knowledge and is capable of thinking through them to implement in practice. The business schools, through their multi-pronged pedagogical approach, try to equip their students accordingly.
“With business schools like IIM Shillong providing the right content through a well-designed curriculum by means of an effectual pedagogy and students sincerely working towards meaningful knowledge and skill acquisition, I believe quality placement as per aspirations should not be a problem. It is not just about getting into a reputed business school, but also how one invests the time during the course of the programme in the school, decides the final outcome,” says Roychoudhury.
