IIM Ranchi Nanos business education to reach out to masses….Prashant K. Nanda
What Tata Motors Ltd. did to cars, the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) at Ranchi wants to do to business education — by offering a post-graduate diploma in business management (put simply, an MBA) for Rs. 100,000. The IIM aims to adopt the open university concept to reach out to the masses and, according to the institute’s director M.J. Xavier, plans to set up small study centres across India and integrate them with the main campus.
“Over 200,000 students appear for the Common Admission Test (CAT), but less than 5,000 make it to IIMs. Here, we want to reach out to a larger base,” Xavier said in an interview. The director was in New Delhi last week to participate in the Indian Management Conclave. “There is a demand for quality management education at an affordable price. We want to be innovative — by opening study centres and linking them to the main campus, we can achieve that,” he explained.
On an average, the tuition fee for an MBA works out to around Rs. 1 million. There were 204,000 people who appeared for CAT 2010; the previous year the number was over 242,000. CAT is a computerized entrance exam for those seeking a berth in IIMs.
IIM Ranchi is convinced it can reach out to 10,000 students in three-five years with its new programme. Xavier said two large companies in south India are ready to send 200 employees each for full-time courses through study centres. He declined to identify the companies. “IIM Ranchi wants to create its own brand for others to follow by reaching out to the masses, both in the corporate sector and otherwise. I am already working on the model and in the next six months a few institutes in Jharkhand can be interlinked with the IIM,” he said.
Xavier said that while critics may find the model wanting on account of those enrolling for the programme not benefiting from a campus atmosphere, this century is all about reaching out. “Why cannot we reach smaller cities and towns? The country’s economy is growing and here rural India plays a key role. We need efficient managers in those parts of the country. I know IIMs have not done it so far, but we want to cater to such a market,” he added.
The school would not need to invest much in creating and running the programme, Xavier said. “One-third of the course will be taken care of by the permanent faculty, one-third by the visiting faculty from both academia and industry, and the rest will be e-content,” he added.
Sanjeev Bajaj, chief coordinator at the Xavier Institute of Social Service (XISS), said IIM Ranchi is changing the tradition. “Unlike other IIMs, IIM Ranchi is believing in collaboration with private institutes. Xavier has a vision and he is working towards it,” he added. XISS is one of the schools in Ranchi that the IIM is looking to work with when it offers the programme.
But not everyone is enthusiastic about IIM Ranchi’s idea. “It does not look to me as a great idea. Let’s see how the IIM works it out,” said S.S. Sarkar, head of the department of business administration at Tezpur University, a central university in Assam.