Management Institutes need to Change Learning Process to match changing requirements of Corporate
Management education in India is on the crossroads for the learning process. It needs an overhaul in terms of knowledge sharing, education delivery, and syllabus according to the needs of the industry. Technology adoption should be increased to overcome those challenges.
With the changing times, it is the need of the hour.
Education technology has been helping many education entities to adopt technology to simplify and improve educational processes.
According to the latest reports, hardly 20-25% of the management graduates are employable after completion of their management education. Rest of the graduates struggle to get job opportunities or had to settle for lower level jobs or need to undergo substantial training to be eligible for hiring.
The ‘solution’ to this would be to work on some of the vital aspects.
1. Global Perspective
Today’s globalization demands a dynamic and new approach for the organizations to sustain in the competitive environment. Business Schools should take into consideration the implications of globalization, cross-cultural aspects of business strategy while defining teaching methodology, case study learning approach.
Today’s world is highly digital with interconnected economies. Any positive or negative event in one country can affect the business environment of other countries on the globe. Entire equity markets of the world are connected and have a common effect of any positive or negative news taking place across the world.
Management institutes can include global case studies for their students. Case studies can be of entities of various culture, geographies so that students can understand the global business environment, global business practices and challenges.
The aim is to teach the ins and outs of the global economy and business world.
2. Classroom Lectures
Most of the things to learn are moving outside classrooms and classroom-based lectures are becoming bit obsolete. The industry is adopting interactive workshop based approach to enhance the learning experience of the students.
Business Schools should certainly consider workshop oriented classroom training. Workshop approach helps to understand concepts easily and improves the analytical ability of the students.
The intention here is to teach the students about practical knowledge; to make them aware and ready for the know-how of the world’s functioning. It also prepares them to deal with real-life situations.
3. Changing Business Environment
The business environment is influential and with technological enhancements, organizations might not able to identify new competition coming for them in the future.
To avoid that, the organizations need to be on their guard all the time to tackle business challenges and keep refining business models.
Business Schools should take into consideration important aspects of the changes taking place and invite business entities for student interactions, guest lectures, knowledge sharing sessions, etc.
Being up-to-date with the trends in the market will certainly help one to enhance their business. Hence, the guidelines from the business experts come in handy here.
Practical knowledge of business would certainly help compared to textbook knowledge. If textbooks teach one the detailed technical terminologies, then practical knowledge teaches the implications of those.
4. Learning for Entrepreneurship
Most of the management Schools are equipped with contents of academic suitable to prepare future managers of the blue-chip company.
Most of the case studies taught are aligned with reference to multinational organizations.
Entrepreneurship is only taught as an elective subject and is not considered on par subject with other topics. Nevertheless, Management Schools should invite entrepreneurs to provide practical aspects of business knowledge for the students.
Most of the top management Schools including Stanford, Harward have a specialized curriculum for entrepreneurship.
Indian Business schools should adopt some of the best practices since that is the need of today.
Having a specialized curriculum for business will not only educate the person about the mechanics of the business world but also enable the students to learn about the tactics of entrepreneurship.
5. Development of Leadership Qualities
Business schools are meant to refine, improve and enhance the leadership qualities of the candidates. In order to improve authority elements instead of using a textbook case study approach, real-life case studies need to be implemented.
Real life experiences means, teaching the students the practicality of the trading industry. These experiences tend to teach one more than what the textual cant.
For example, there are some of the institutes who ask their students to work in NGO’s for a certain period of time which is a very unique approach to understand the business, interpersonal skill, leadership qualities.
Working in such an organization helps students to get a holistic view of the situation and such learning can be implemented in the business environment.
6. Digital Learning
Digital learning is the new age of technology where knowledge sessions can be digitized and shown to the students with an entirely different approach.
Interactive, animated contents enhance the learning experience and improve knowledge and grasping capacity of the students.
Advance Business Schools must understand the technological aspect and start working towards making management school truly techno-savvy with digital contents.
This step, if taken, will not only prove to be beneficial for the students, but also for the schools in many ways.
Knowledge management solutions like Eklavvya can be added as an integral part of the learning process. Professor/teacher can upload the notes from the prescribed syllabus which can be accessed by the respective students in a secure environment.
7. Assessment Process
The student evaluation process should be upgraded and more focus should be for analytical ability, problem solving approach.
Knowledge can be gained from various sources in this internet connected world. But what is important is how to utilize the knowledge and apply it in your industry, segment.
Students should be assessed and evaluated using the Online Assessment Process which are specially designed to analyze certain specific qualities of the candidate. Such an assessment mainly focuses on analytical and practical knowledge of the subject.
Many education institutes and management schools are moving towards technology based assessment. It is helping them to eliminate traditional theory examination process which was very tiring and tedious.
Such assessments can be easily defined according to industry requirements. Many organizations are using online assessment approach to evaluate knowledge, aptitude, the personality of the candidate before taking a decision about hiring.
8. Soft Skills
According to the definition, soft skills are the aggregate of people skills, social skills, communication skills, character or personality traits, attitude, career attributes, social and emotional intelligence quotients, etc. that help people judge their surroundings, work in harmony with co-workers, and achieve their aims.
Soft skills are one of the key areas for management institutes. Most of the corporate entities have a high weight for soft skills. This skill can be improved with the help of more practical oriented group discussions, opportunities for the students to get feedback and improve their own skills.
Eventually, one comes to the conclusion that to keep up with the changing world, to be updated about the changes, and to initially grow in their own businesses, we can say that it is now mandatory that the Management Institutions start adapting the digital learning and practical learning methods of teaching.
Eklavvya is an award winning online assessment and knowledge management platform used by many universities, education institutes to manage online assessment, entrance examination management, knowledge sharing and learning process. Eklavvya has many success case studies and best practices for education institutes. It can be helpful for your education institute to subscribe and use services during learning academic process for the students.