It is counseling time again. It is also the time the students and parents get anxious to decide on their future plans. The questions reeling in their minds are – Which higher education qualification is the best? What is the future of MBA? Would there be good job prospects? Which college should they join? What should be the criteria to select a college? What specialization should they study – marketing, finance, HRM, IT? There are multiple sources of information. But the more they sift through information more they get confused.
MBA has become the middle-class dream a few years ago. For many young and budding managers the three letters, M-B-A meant attractive pay packets and ever growing career prospects. Middle-class parents in search of prosperity have been pushing their sons and daughters to study management. MBA has become a part of every aspiring mind, whether the student is an ordinary graduate, engineer or even a doctor. MBA has paid rich dividends to the students and parents. It has become synonymous with prosperity.
But during the last three years the seats in MBA have remained vacant in a good number of colleges. Interestingly out of the 2,385 MBA colleges in the country, a whopping 943 colleges accounting for 40% are in Andhra Pradesh. These colleges together have 91,995 seats in the State, i.e. 26% of the seats in the country. Andhra Pradesh accounts for only 7% of the country’s population. Aren’t the MBA colleges disproportionately high? There is no doubt that MBA colleges mushroomed in the past one decade to cash on the opportunities in higher education in the prosperous liberalization era.
According to AICTE 14 of the MBA colleges in the State have shut down this year due to lack of admissions. It is expected that some more colleges would down their shutters after completion of this year’s counseling. What does this imply to the students and parents when they appear for counseling shortly? Would they be forcing themselves into a college likely to down shutters now or in future? A student who passes out of a college whose obituary is already likely to be scripted is bound to erode his/her self esteem and self confidence. Hence it is time to be cautions and take informed decisions.
Is this problem with MBA education or with MBA placements? Are the colleges getting closed due to shrinking demand for MBA or shrinking job opportunities? If it is due to shrinking job opportunities, then is it due to quality of education in such colleges or is it due to changing industry demands? It is true that the aspirants for ICET 2012 are 10% lower than last year at 1,36,000 applicants. The number of MBA seats which remained vacant last academic year was 32,225. The 14 colleges closed this year are from the remote parts of the state located in rural Andhra Pradesh.
Almost all engineering colleges have set-up an MBA college in the hope of better admissions leading to better revenue. Sadly they did not think of quality of education provided to students which requires quality of teaching and teachers. There is a tremendous short supply for good quality teachers in the higher education in general, and in management education in particular. Poor quality teaching led to poor or no placements eventually forcing the colleges to shut their MBA colleges.