The Indian Institute of Management, Indore, is revamping its PGP curriculum after a period of 4 years. Its director Prof Rishikesha Krishnan, gave PaGaLGuY an  exclusive insight into the changes.

Why is the curriculum being changed?

A major feedback from corporate recruiters has been that in terms of conceptual learning there is not much difference across the top business schools in India. But what makes a difference is the ability of graduating students to apply their learning quickly and effectively once they are a part of the workforce. In other words, a major challenge is to bridge the knowing-doing gap.

What would you call the highlights of the changes?

We have introduced skill development courses in Communication, Leadership, Spreadsheet Modeling, Entrepreneurial orientation, Innovation and design thinking and Sustainability. Taught in a workshop-based format, these courses are graded on an absolute scale and students have to obtain a prescribed minimum percentage that displays their minimum competence in the skill in order to clear the course.

Any changes to the earlier programmes?

IIM Indore retains and reinforces some differentiating features from its earlier programme design. The Rural Immersion Programme takes groups of students, most of whom come from an urban upbringing, for a week to rural Madhya Pradesh to study first-hand the challenges of rural India.

The Himalayan Outbound programme (HOP) allows IIM Indore’s students to understand  the natural beauty and importance of sustainability is now being extended to other locations.

Any changes in teachers/teaching?

Yes,  hiring of professors of practice is the new initiative. This recently created position allows industry professionals with 15-20 years of experience to become a part of the IIM Indore full-time faculty. These professors of practice, I believe, are already making a difference with case-writing projects on SBI, Godrej and BHEL, and a new consulting practicum to be offered in the second-year PGP.

The  industry familiarisation course that runs across the first year is being strengthened by structuring it around a Business Excellence framework. At a recent industry meet held at IIM Indore with more than 150 participants, the new course design was presented to industrial units in and around Indore, and their support and cooperation sought.

You have introduced  First-year Electives?

Over the years, summer internship has become a more important part of the PGP programme structure. To help students perform better in their internships we have introduced a few electives into our first year curriculum. These electives include Supply Chain management, Retail and Corporate Banking, Marketing Research and Sales & Distribution Management, covering some of the main areas in which students usually get summer projects.

Pedagogy changes?

25 of IIM Indore faculty have so far attended Harvard Business School’s Participant-Centered Learning Colloquium. Faculty are encouraged to attend other external case teaching workshops, and internal workshops are also used to hone quality. This summer IIM Indore set up a new Case Centre to strengthen internal efforts to write cases so that there is a better mix of Indian and international cases in the curriculum.

To accommodate the changes in the curriculum, there has been a realignment of credits and sharpening of the core courses. To help students enter the programme on a common platform, an online preparatory course was rolled out to all students that included introduction to accounting (through an innovative animated course provided by an Indian vendor), English language and communication, and Maths & Statistics.