B-schools or placement agencies- Panel discussion at Praxis Business School

B-schools or placement agencies- Panel discussion at Praxis Business School


Popularity of B-schools these days rests on their placement records. Greater the percentage of those placed, the better the quality of education imparted by these B-schools- this is the general notion.
It was this issue that was taken up for a panel discussion on April 17 by Praxis Business School on the occasion of the convocation ceremony of class of ’09 and ’10. The panel consisted of K Dasaratharaman, President, Specialty Businesses, Spencer’s Retail, Shankar Chatterjee, Managing Director, Bertling Logistics, Dr Prithwis Mukerjee, Professor, VG-SoM IIT Kharagpur and Santosh Desai, MD & CEO, Future Brands Ltd, Future Group.
Moderating the discussion was Prof Charanpreet Singh, Associate Dean, Praxis Business School. Singh elaborated on the topic and presented both its sides – why should B-schools not be called placement agencies and B-schools should have a greater aim.

Opening the discussion was K. Dasaratharaman. The IIM A passout spoke about the philosophical, cultural and sociological aspects of a B-school. He humorously narrated how students of reputed B-schools can easily get a credit card or find a spouse.

What made his speech stand out was however a unique observation: “Life is not a choice of ‘or’ but it is the tyranny of the ‘and’. While you do one thing you have to be conscious of its opposite.” He concluded his speech by advising students to be multi-potent and ambidextrous.”
Referring to the issue under scrutiny, the next speaker Shankar Chatterjee explained the meaning of a B-school: “It is a congregation of individuals who join to create something that the business world wants.”

Chatterjee considered B-schools to be the sellers, MBA graduates to be the products and corporates to be the buyers. “These days B-schools follow the practice of selling by yelling. Instead basic fundamental values should be instilled. We, Indians, should be confident”, added the corporate honcho. He felt corporates should give importance to the individual instead of the institute. Prithwis Mukherjee, the third speaker took an extreme position and believed that B-schools had indeed reduced themselves to placement agencies.
He criticized B-schools for propagating the idea of ‘industry ready graduates’. Citing an example from his tryst with the software industry Mukherjee said, “If you know coding and C++, then you are ready for the software industry. There is no original idea because we are all ‘industry ready’.”
“Leadership, Mathematics, Psychology and Technology are the most important factors that an MBA should work upon”, felt Mukherjee, demonstrating the idea with a power-point presentation.

The final speaker Santosh Desai elaborated on the idea of how successful people are never questioned as they are considered to be intellectuals. “The essential question to ask is what does the industry need?” said Desai. He urged the students not to be in love with what exists but instead be creative. He further advised the B-schools to figure out what the business world needs and encourage students to question. The discussion, enjoyed by the audience, gave rise to a lot of questions – why B-schools are not following the way of open-source system, why cannot students stress on education, why are Indians not successful in India and the like. They all got satisfying answers from the distinguished panel and the fresh graduates had lots to take away with them.


Source Link: http://www.minglebox.com/article/mba/B-schools-or-placement-agencies/data-0001-fdbffe7e282ac19301282acf21d906bf