Is this the MBA I ordered?? Sharing term papers and outsourcing the projects
Well, today I came across the news pertaining to sharing of term papers by some site by the name managementparadise.com in Hindustan times. This is indeed a shameful exercise being carried out in the name of "sharing and collaborating", and it just puts the notoriety of the Indian MBA being a mass production low quality factory, a few rungs up!
Hindustan Times report
With these sites propping up like paan /cigarette walahs near the swanky IT companies' offices , there is an immediate need to stop this phenomena, at least minimize its impact on the quality of the education that is being imparted. But why, all of a sudden, have these sites came out of nowhere? Is class room teaching to blame, which puts much emphasis on the learning by rote and memorizing the slides/ppts and then vomit it in the mid terms/end terms to get good grades. In my opinion, getting grades is the basic reason for the existence of these sites.
Definition of a market goes like this " The world of commercial activity where goods and services are bought and sold ". With there being a greater emphasis of the hiring cos on grades and lesses emphasis on the overall performance and fit of the candidate for the right job, the students get restless and hence seek for ways to maximize their grades.
Now, the quality of the students intake may be a partial reason to blame, as most good B schools admit the students via CAT score and many give 60-70% weight age to CAT score in the final selection process, the personality of the students admitted tends to be skewed towards academic/marks getting side. This is not wrong, as I have time and again reiterated, that CAT is the necessary evil, like Friction in physics! But see the result. The student may not be able to cope up/ may not like to cope up with the "hectic and rigorous" rigmarole of the B school life and hence succumb to the forbidden fruit in the form of downloadable term papers/assignments/presentations and case analysis. This basically defeats the purpose of the management education per se.
Recently, I had the discussion on the same topic with my lobby mates over the cup of tea. Though no body wants to work hard, if the easier path is available, the wisdom dawns only slowly that working towards the cases actually develops the management acumen. (though this wisdom usually dawns at the time of last term, when you are all packed to move out of the B school and also, the inherent Indian quality in all of us to become sagacious at the times!!
Coming back to the point, there is a mention of a lady who is getting outsourced clients for a sum of rs 4000, which entitles you to a full fledged 50 pages report etc etc...Phew....we are certainly good at bye passing systems. We have this strange and unique quality of getting cheated by ourselves only.......and lack the long term consequences of the same......I think we left behind those visionaries long back to the time of Kautilyas, Mauryas, Cholas, Aryabhattas etc......Have we just become a nation obsessed with mass consumption.....be it Bollywood, Science, PhD's, Literature or MBA education....
Some times, I had to ponder....where are exactly we heading. If getting the grades and the vicious circle of the students- companies- b schools- students is to be effectively ended, what needs to be done. Low teacher student ratio is one answer, which is effectively followed in the Ivy league schools.....but still the premier B schools strive to get even closer to the magical ratio of 5 -8 students per teacher. Peer pressure can be another way out....but relying on students to be pro active is not only preposterous, but also foolish to think. It is an accepted fact that human being tend to fall if the system is lackadaisical. So the system has to be good enough, so that minds are forced to think. The education has to be practical and interesting, rather than boring emphasis on just theories, fundaes and all the "Global Gyaan"......
Hindustan Times report
With these sites propping up like paan /cigarette walahs near the swanky IT companies' offices , there is an immediate need to stop this phenomena, at least minimize its impact on the quality of the education that is being imparted. But why, all of a sudden, have these sites came out of nowhere? Is class room teaching to blame, which puts much emphasis on the learning by rote and memorizing the slides/ppts and then vomit it in the mid terms/end terms to get good grades. In my opinion, getting grades is the basic reason for the existence of these sites.
Definition of a market goes like this " The world of commercial activity where goods and services are bought and sold ". With there being a greater emphasis of the hiring cos on grades and lesses emphasis on the overall performance and fit of the candidate for the right job, the students get restless and hence seek for ways to maximize their grades.
Now, the quality of the students intake may be a partial reason to blame, as most good B schools admit the students via CAT score and many give 60-70% weight age to CAT score in the final selection process, the personality of the students admitted tends to be skewed towards academic/marks getting side. This is not wrong, as I have time and again reiterated, that CAT is the necessary evil, like Friction in physics! But see the result. The student may not be able to cope up/ may not like to cope up with the "hectic and rigorous" rigmarole of the B school life and hence succumb to the forbidden fruit in the form of downloadable term papers/assignments/presentations and case analysis. This basically defeats the purpose of the management education per se.
Recently, I had the discussion on the same topic with my lobby mates over the cup of tea. Though no body wants to work hard, if the easier path is available, the wisdom dawns only slowly that working towards the cases actually develops the management acumen. (though this wisdom usually dawns at the time of last term, when you are all packed to move out of the B school and also, the inherent Indian quality in all of us to become sagacious at the times!!
Coming back to the point, there is a mention of a lady who is getting outsourced clients for a sum of rs 4000, which entitles you to a full fledged 50 pages report etc etc...Phew....we are certainly good at bye passing systems. We have this strange and unique quality of getting cheated by ourselves only.......and lack the long term consequences of the same......I think we left behind those visionaries long back to the time of Kautilyas, Mauryas, Cholas, Aryabhattas etc......Have we just become a nation obsessed with mass consumption.....be it Bollywood, Science, PhD's, Literature or MBA education....
Some times, I had to ponder....where are exactly we heading. If getting the grades and the vicious circle of the students- companies- b schools- students is to be effectively ended, what needs to be done. Low teacher student ratio is one answer, which is effectively followed in the Ivy league schools.....but still the premier B schools strive to get even closer to the magical ratio of 5 -8 students per teacher. Peer pressure can be another way out....but relying on students to be pro active is not only preposterous, but also foolish to think. It is an accepted fact that human being tend to fall if the system is lackadaisical. So the system has to be good enough, so that minds are forced to think. The education has to be practical and interesting, rather than boring emphasis on just theories, fundaes and all the "Global Gyaan"......
Labels: IT, MBA, Presentations, Teaching System, term papers
posted by Raman Sallaria @ 9:17 pm
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