Improvement of two A S: Solution to Mend the Gap between Management Education and Employability

Transcription

1 Improvement of two A S: Solution to Mend the Gap between Management Education and Employability Rahate Shraddha Bhalchandra, MMS-Finance, PTVA s Institute of Management ===================================================================== Abstract B-School students perceive management education as an easy road to better jobs. Whereas in reality, often the gap exists between management education and employability. This gap can be wider or narrower for different students and B-Schools. Though there are several factors responsible, this paper mainly elaborates on two factors - Aptitude & Attitude of students as well as of B-schools. According to the paper, faulty attitude and less aptitude of students pursuing management education as well as B-schools imparting the education are the prominent factors. Initially, the paper develops - the concept of aptitude and attitude of a student and a B-school which can be coined as "Two A's". It further makes an attempt to discuss how improvement on these two A's can enhance employability. Keywords: B-schools, Aptitude, Attitude ===================================================================== 1. INTRODUCTION: We don t have a jobs crisis in the world, we have a skills crisis - Forbes Today, management education is gaining great importance. Almost every student that has an intention of pursuing some post graduate degree, positively thinks about getting admitted to a B- school & pursuing management education. However many students, taking admission at B- school are doing it, not for the knowledge and intention of upgrading their management skill but because of their perception that being post graduate at management will ensure high paying white-collared job. However the reality they face is different. After completing MBA or MMS, students do not get their expected job profile & expected pay package and feel disappointed. ms. Shraddha rahate Page 45

2 As per All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), 3,54,421 students enrolled for MBA in 3,364 institutions across the country in 2014 but only 35,000 among those were employable (Economic Times, 2015). At macro level, there is huge gap between management education & employability. This gap at micro level will be narrower in case of few top ranking B- schools(tier I) and wider in case of many other B-schools (Tier II/III/IV) that are inexperienced or relatively new or not able to manage the courses effectively. According to experts, there are many factors responsible for this gap. This paper had made an attempt of analysing various reasons located by researchers in the past studies about this gap and tried to find solution to mend the gap by developing the concept of Two As Aptitude and Attitude of the students as well as the organization. 2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE: Relevant and notable past studies locating reasons of the gap between management education and employability were reviewed. According to D. S. Rawat (2013), too many tier-2 & tier -3 management institutes who are unable to impart quality education is the main reason behind this gap. J Philip (2015), noticed two main reasons for the gap Students lack global skills & excess supply of these students. Crisil (2014) Reported that there was positive correlation between ranks of the management institute, percentage of placements offered, pay package received and fee structure. Table 1.1- Category-wise analysis of B-schools Institute % of Occupancy Annual Salary Number of Fees Category Institutes Rate (in %) (Average in Students (average, in Lakh) Placed (in %) lakh) Tier- I(top B-schools) Tier II Tier III Tier IV Source note: Crisil Research Report ms. Shraddha rahate Page 46

3 As shown in the table, higher is the rank of the institute, higher are the fees and accordingly higher are the placements chances and the pay packages. Students with higher grades and affluent economic backgrounds can get entry at Tier-I institute but such students as well as seats are few. Students of other than Tier I institute face wider gap between education and employability. According to R Balaji (April 2013), there were three reasons for the gap: Problems with world economy and world business; thus less job opportunities Failure of management institutes in picking up the trends of world economy and framing policies accordingly Lack of required skill sets with the faculty which will improve quality of management education. According to Dr. Mousumi Majumdar (2012), MBA graduates should have an attitude of converting challenges into opportunities and MBA institute should create an environment that enhances ability of a student to be innovative and adaptive, the authors also had given importance to suitable management curriculum. The gap will persist in absence of these three requirements: After the literature was reviewed, following reasons for the gap were located: Economic environmental problems Lack of infrastructural facilities provided by the institute Lack of inability of management institutes to provide right environment that would enhance managerial skill sets among students Excessive supply of management institutes Lack of industry oriented curriculum Lack of required soft skills amongst the students Lack of positive Attitude of students ms. Shraddha rahate Page 47

4 It was evident that the problems are at student, institute as well as at economy level. Economy level problems are beyond the control of any entity. However student and institute level problems can be controlled and dissolved if improvement is made in the Aptitude and Attitude at the level of both entities. This paper has coined these two variables Aptitude and Attitude as Two A s which becomes solution for the gap. 3. CONCEPT OF APTITUDE AND ATTITUDE AT STUDENTS AS WELL AS AN ORGANIZATION: a) Aptitude & Attitude of management students: Aptitude means, Acquired or natural ability for learning and proficiency in a specific area or discipline. In case of a management student, basic communication skills, soft skills, ability for critical thinking as well as more knowledge in area of specialization is required which talks about aptitude of the student. However if any student lacks any of the skills, those need to be acquired by the students during the course. It can be done by the students on the basis of own efforts for which positive attitude of the student is required. Some of the examples of positive attitude of students are 1) Readiness to locate the exact nature of skill sets required and also to diagnose what skill sets he/she lacks 2) Students should be prepared to take all kinds of efforts to acquire skill sets he/she lacks. 3) Will keep job profile and pay package expectations in accordance with existing business environment. 4) Should be capable of analysing existing economic and business environment and accordingly plan the future. With positive attitude definitely brings improvement in the aptitude. Student acquired skills to become job givers rather than job takers. ms. Shraddha rahate Page 48

5 b) Aptitude & Attitude of a Management Institute: Management institutions are mainly expected to provide all the required infrastructure that would facilitate effective management training. At the same, need to place faculties who are innovative, enthusiastic, cooperative and knowledgeable. Good infrastructure and knowledgeable faculties can be coined as Aptitude of the institution. Willingness of an institute and faculties to conduct various industry oriented activities, given sufficient space for students to apply their creativity and be supportive indicates positive attitude of the institute. Thus, according to the paper, gap between management education and employability can be reduced, provided both - students and institutions make improvement on Two A s. To elaborate the point further primary research was conducted, a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods were used. Primary data included interviews of two faculty in charge for placement and survey of management graduates was conducted. 4. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY: a) To identify the reasons of the students for not accepting the jobs b) To identify the problems faced by placement cell of an institute 5. METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY: 5.1 Population, Sample and Data collection: Two types of primary surveys were undertaken 1. Interviews of two faculty in charge of placement from PTVA s Institute of Management Vile Parle, Mumbai: Faculty interviews were basically taken to locate employee as well as employers expectations 2. Survey was taken of 100 post graduates from various B-schools mainly in Mumbai. Survey was taken against a structured questionnaire 5.2 Data analysis: The entire data was analysed by using simple averages and percentage analysis ms. Shraddha rahate Page 49

6 6. FINDINGS: 6.1 A gap between students understanding and corporate expectations Interviews were taken of faculty in charge for placements of PTVAIM - Mr. Jigar Patel and Mrs. Kritika Zarapkar when asked the various reasons for which students don t apply or don t take up jobs offered by the placement cell of the institute were as follows: Corporates are looking at management graduates as freshers with less experience of industry so they offer salary accordingly but the salary offered by these corporates is considered as low or is not up to the expectations of the students At times the work location is at distant place, so students reject such jobs Few organizations want their employees to work on weekends or on rotational shifts, depending on the type of their work; but students don t show readiness to work for such jobs Brand of the Recruiter is the main criteria for students before selecting or giving interview for any company, as students are not ready to work in small companies or start-ups Work profile offered also plays an important role if the profile is not as per management cadre or specific to their field of specialization. So, students mostly reject such jobs The second question asked to Mrs. Kritika and Mr. Patel was the expectation of industry people from management graduates before recruiting them into their organization to which they stated the following: Attitude and Aptitude of the students towards the work Student should have flexibility on working on various roles and profiles as well as he/she should be ready to work at any job location Corporates prefer those who possess entrepreneurial skills in them rather than just being a team leader. Students should have excellent technical skills (For instance, they are expected to have excellency in MS office related softwares) Students should maintain consistency in their academic scores Proficiency in Communication skills both written and verbal and good soft skills Companies need students who are committed to their work and organization ms. Shraddha rahate Page 50

7 On the basis of this interview the following aptitude and attitude related problems were located a) Attitude related problems: Pay package not up to the expectations of students Students are not prepared to work if the job place is far away Students don t show readiness to work on weekends or rotational shifts Most of the students apply in those companies who are already established in market They want only high profile jobs right from initial stage b) Aptitude related problems: Lack of excellency in technical skills Lack of entrepreneurial skills Lack of Soft skills and interpersonal skills 6.2 Survey of 100 management students was taken from Mumbai where structured questionnaire On the basis of our findings from above mentioned personal interview we took interviews of 100 management pass outs by using structured questionnaire in order to locate aptitude and attitude based problems of students as well as management institutes a) Attitude and aptitude problems of management students Out of 100 students 29 students were in the age-group of 20-23, 52 in age-group of and 19 in age-group of 27 and above, these were the students of Tier I/II/III/IV management institute majority from Mumbai ms. Shraddha rahate Page 51

8 As shown in the above chart 40% decided not to take the job, 46% were placed and 14% couldn t get the job Above charts shows reason wise distribution of students who have not taken placements. The chart also shows attitude related problems of the students which were specified by placement in charges in the personal interview. Students need to take into account the level of aptitude they possess and contemporary economic environment and decide the pay packages, job profiles they can get. In short students expectations should be more realistic. ms. Shraddha rahate Page 52

9 The below chart shows the aptitude of the students which was examined through their CGPA scores. Majority of the students have good aptitude; having better subject knowledge However better subject knowledge does not ensure soft skills and interpersonal skills. Right kind of aptitude and attitude of the student up to certain extend depends upon the kind of learning environment the students get institute level. So, students aptitude and attitude depends upon institute s aptitude and attitude which was analysed further. b) Institute s aptitude and attitude Institute s attitude was measured on the basis of following factors: Faculties co-operation, encouragement given to the students to come up with suggestions and how the institute reacts to these suggestions as well as the institute s attitude towards arranging guest lectures. ms. Shraddha rahate Page 53

10 The above pie-diagram shows that 87% agree that the faculty is co-operative whereas only 13% students disagree this. So, it means that this factor is being taken care of by most of the institutes. As shown in the above diagram, 83% students take the initiative of giving suggestions for overall improvement of their B-schools whereas, it was found that only 53% of the B-Schools actually work on it ms. Shraddha rahate Page 54

11 As shown in the chart most of the institutes are arranging the guest lectures atleast once a month, this frequency is fair enough. Institute s aptitude is measured on the following factors: The infrastructural facilities of the institute, the students given industry oriented projects to work on and whether the institute arranges guest lectures from industry people. ms. Shraddha rahate Page 55

12 As shown in the charts 1.7, 1.8 and 1.9 majority institutes seem to be doing fairly good job in case of provision of required infrastructure and industry academia connect. 7. KEY SUMMARY FINDINGS: After analysing the data following conclusions were drawn: Student s aptitude in terms of the subject knowledge was found to be good. However, aptitude in terms of technical skills becomes more important from employability point of view. For aptitudinal grading technical aptitude needs to be measured which becomes future scope of the research Problems were located at the level of students attitude; hyped expectations were found to be a problem In case of aptitude and attitude of institute problem was comparatively less ms. Shraddha rahate Page 56

13 8. RECOMMENDATION: On the basis of above mentioned analysis and conclusion following recommendations were made: To improve technical skills of students, a number of workshops should be conducted at institute level Motivational talks, more interaction with industry people, creating better awareness about contemporary business environment would solve attitude related problems of the students Ensure that students are getting a practical exposure to management problems through industrial visits 9. CONCLUSION: The gap between management education and employability does exist. The reasons are students, institute, economy based. Economy based problems are beyond anybody s control. However, student and institute level problems can be reduced if attitude and aptitude of both entities is improved. Thus, improvement on Two A s will narrow the gap. 10. REFERENCES: 1) Balaji R (April 2013), Trends, Issues and Challenges in Management Education, International Journal of Innovative Research in Science, Engineering and Technology, ISSN: , Vol. 2, Issue 4 2) Prof. K Krishna and Dr. Majumdar M. (2012), Management Education And Corporate Expectations: A Gap Analysis, Handbook of Management and Behavioural Science [Vol-7], WEBSITES: 1) ms. Shraddha rahate Page 57

14 2) increasingly loosing shine in India, says ASSOCHAM, January ) 4) 5) of-schools-start-at-rs-3-lakh-report/ /articleshow/ cms AUTHOR: Ms. Shraddha Rahate completed B.M.S. in Finance from Mumbai University & is currently pursuing her M.M.S. in Finance from Parle Tilak Vidyalaya Association s Institute of Management Studies affiliated with Mumbai University. Id: shraddharahate0@gmail.com Contact No.: ms. Shraddha rahate Page 58