Is MBA in India overrated?

Is MBA in India overrated?

THE MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION

Scenario: (2 friends were walking down a narrow road chatting about future career prospects crowded by street food vendors on both sides of the road.)

Person A: So what are your future plans now after graduation? Would you be going on for a Job or for post graduation?

Person B: I am planning to do MBA from any college. I've heard MBA is good.

Person A: MBA is good in what aspects? Why MBA? Don’t take decisions in such a hurry.

Person B: Many of my friends are doing it and it looks good on your CV too.

(Person B stops by an ice-cream vendor and is about to purchase a 5 rupee ice-cream when person A intervene)

Person A: Instead of buying a cheap ice-cream lets buy good price-quality stuff.

Person B: Dude, you know nothing about ice-creams. This ice-cream is so soft with sweet cream in between and it melts so softly in your mouth. Its stick is made up of chocolate and you can even eat it after finishing your ice-cream and above that this cost you 5 bucks only.

Surprised by the attitude of his friend towards a 5 rupee super-fast consumable good he replied-“My friend, a 5 rupee ice-cream holds so much importance in your life that you could count it’s qualities on your fingers, but there’s no concern over the choices you can really have to build a good future for yourself.

Both looked at each other as the ice-cream starts melting.

 India has been a land of innumerable traditions, some of which are practiced blindly. One such tradition that has emerged lately is the overvaluation of certain fields in education that has emerged from last 10-15 years and has certainly been followed by masses blindly over time. One such field in higher education that has evolved as an overrated degree especially in India is MBA/PGDM.

How many MBA colleges in India talks about transformation of an individual into an effective leader that is able to motivate and produce desire results from behavioral modifications of all other individuals under him? How many colleges even talk about preservation of creative ideas and innovative thinking that originates in an individual’s mind? At some point in time it would be very easy to prove the fact that  MBA in India is overrated but  the question that still wanders in close vicinity to this fact is who’s really responsible for this scenario. A fact or a theory is proved by the existence and involvement of people directly associated with it.MBA in India is certainly overrated due to the people and students involved in the Multi-million dollar movie that assures each person attending it of a secured future with a cool job but does it talk about the true value enhancement or is it just a sweet dream that gets embedded in the minds of individuals every night.

Most students pursuing MBA from colleges across India are not concerned about the value addition and enhancement of expertise but are more concerned to lead and be a part of the packages war that creates such a huge hype that some even crumble under that particular pressure. The aim of colleges should be to create warriors and not soldiers, and warriors wouldn't rise unless education is constantly measured in terms of price and not value enhancement.MBA in recent years have seen people coming from not only commerce background. We can’t even blame this thing on the psychology of students alone. It is also the hype that has been created by various elements of society which sees an MBA at a certain higher level than a post graduate or even a doctorate from Sanskrit or from a music background. Is there any criterion for distinction between the two which can tell which one is better? All of them represent a different class of education which has their own advantages in respective fields. Currently, there are approximately 3644 B schools according to recent report published by AICTE in India producing over 90,000 MBA graduates each year. But are they all employable? .If MBA is such a prestigious course then why are the statistics so poor even though there is a great demand in the market for professional courses. The answer lies in the fact that all those poor kids lack the required skills because MBA is less about education and more about marketing. With B-schools growing up like mushrooms in wild which boasts of acres of campus we've never seen and faculty from foreign places we've never heard.

There are colleges where a part of the fee is paid to the recruiter for hiring up of individuals in order to show 100% placement record. Also recently Aspiring Minds based its conclusions on a so-called “employ ability test” it conducted on 32,000 MBA graduates from 220 business schools across India. The test, which quizzed graduates on topics ranging from grammar to quantitative analysis, found that only 10% of those tested had skills that recruiters typically look for while hiring management graduates. The study found that less than half of the students tested had some knowledge of key industry terms and concepts in their areas of specialty. For instance, a third of the surveyed students who had majored in finance, did not know what IPO – short for initial public offering – stood for

This is not about what qualifications we have in our Resume but it’s all about what skills we have developed and what various creative things we did in recent time. Recruiters don’t look for the theoretical knowledge in you but they are more concerned about the practical exposure you have gained all through your life. Life is not about being a part of the herd mentality. Nothing happens within the herd. This is conforming to mediocrity, and in many cases, an example of an old saying, misery loves company.

Abhinav Pandey