B-School Infrastructure – Is there too much hype around it?

While selecting a management institute to do their MBA, the aspirants are often confused. Those who are really good in their performance and manage to get into top grade institutes are the lucky ones and the problem of selecting the institute is not a problem for them. The problem is for those candidates who have to select from the second grade B-schools. The candidates are strongly advised to do a thorough research if they are thinking of going for a C- grade institute even if it is AICTE approved or university affiliated. In fact, the candidates should avoid C-grade institutes unless they themselves are poor academically and do not hope to get into a second grade institute.

When the candidates have to choose from among the B-grade institutes, it is observed that most of the times they go by the physical infrastructure of the institute and the rank given by some business magazines.

The candidates should keep in their mind that the only function of physical infrastructure is to make their stay at the campus comfortable so that they do not feel any kind of inconvenience. The academic infrastructure of an MBA school should be vetted high since it has direct impact on the learning ability of the students. The physical infrastructure can be a five star infrastructure or a decent infrastructure or a sub-standard infrastructure. A sub-standard infrastructure will cause a lot of discomfort to the students and they will not be able to concentrate on their studies. A five star infrastructure, on the other hand will provide them many facilities of a very high quality but these facilities certainly do not add any extra value to their learning capabilities. Therefore, what the candidates should look for is a decent infrastructure. A decent infrastructure may not be a five star infrastructure but it provides all the required facilities of a decent quality.

What is more important for the students is the academic infrastructure because it adds to the learning abilities of the students. The academic infrastructure includes the library facilities, IT infrastructure, the class-room facilities and technology based learning tools. Students generally do not know what a good library can give them because for them the meaning of library is merely a collection of books, journals and other periodicals. They do not know that a good library of a good B-school is much more than that. A good library, IT infrastructure and technology tools provide them an ample opportunity of self-learning which is very important for management students. A student cannot become a complete management graduate if he confines himself to only class-room teaching and learning. A lot of learning in a good management institute happens outside the classrooms. But this is possible only if the institute provides a high quality academic infrastructure. Even experienced and good faculty members make use of this academic infrastructure while teaching students.

Therefore, while selecting a B-school in India, the candidates should give more importance to the academic infrastructure instead of getting carried away by a five star physical infrastructure. Of course, they should see to it that the physical infrastructure is decent enough to provide them a comfortable stay at the campus. The problem is that many management institutes create a lavish physical infrastructure to lure students and neglect the academic infrastructure. The students should keep distance from such institutes.

To get information on the academic infrastructure of an institute the students should carefully go through the web site of the institute and talk to the current students of the institute and its alumni. They should take help of somebody who has the knowledge of management education and can explain them if the academic infrastructure of an institute is really good.      

Of course, there are many other things which students should look for before they make their choice of a management institute to do MBA.

Source: Dr. Dinesh D Harsolekar, Director - IES Management College and Research Centre, Mumbai