Given your vast experience at MICA, what would you like to establish for PCTE as Director? What are your top 5 challenges as the Director of PCTE?
My experience at MICA gave me to understand that management education needs to focus on :
1) Harnessing the intelligence & aspirations of young people
2) Encourage lateral, out of the box thinking
3) Infuse curiosity & thirst for knowledge and information
4) Learn to apply concepts to pragmatic business solutions
5) Respect cultural diversity
I believe the challenges at PCTE are of a similar nature.
While building relationships with the broader spectrum of industry, across various sectors, we at PCTE also need to acknowledge and execute :
Management education to be delivered through a fundamental philosophy, that the pedagogy deployed must facilitate learning through sharing of ideas, appreciation of alternative points of view and the value of team work, along with harnessing industry experience through various co-curricular activities. One such activity at PCTE is RAWAR (encouraging entrepreneurship). Besides, we encourage and conduct Workshops anchored by visiting faculty from industry. This provides relevant and contemporary learning for the students.
While Institutes declare having partnerships with International Universities and accreditation from foreign bodies, how much of a significant impact does it have in the classroom?
Twinning programs with International academic Institutions is extremely useful & relevant approach, to assimilating a global understanding of business, management, & cultural diversity. This sharpens the student’s quality of thinking & leadership capability in a rapidly globalizing business world.
It also prepares the student for the management responsibility in different industry sectors across several geographic locations.
Have you witnessed any major change in the outlook of students towards a management degree in last 10 years?
Yes, there is a definite change in outlook. Young management students today, have :
1) Better skills and use digitally enabled platforms of data & information acquisition, analysis and interpretation.
2) More maturity & self confidence in taking the risk towards entrepreneurship.
3) More confidence in building their careers in alignment with the opportunity in an emerging market like India, without losing sight of International opportunities.
How can a candidate with a national test score (CAT/XAT/MA/CMAT…) be considered as an “Admit” in your program? What’s the process?
International or national tests of this kind essentially assist to provide a level playing ground in assessing certain skills of the aspirant student, irrespective of the graduate education background & system through which they have attained their Bachelor’s degree.
In a similar way it provides a level playing ground irrespective of industry & process by which the aspirant student may have got some work experience.
However the Group Discussion & Personal Interview conducted by the Institute are equally critical in assessing the admissibility of the student to the management program being offered by PCTE.
How are you improving employability factor in your B-School?
In three ways:
1) Inviting visiting faculty from industry to conduct Workshops & share the real world management issues. This keeps learning pragmatic, relevant & contemporary.
2) By encouraging students to undertake field projects & thereby assimilate the balance between concepts & industry application.
3) By providing opportunities for understanding the requirements of a rapidly globalizing, competitive & changing business dynamic through exchange programs, study tours and International faculty.