Page 115 - EW 1-156 May 2024

the overwhelming majority of college
graduates signing up for B-school edu-
cation.
Since then, the EW league table of
private B-schools has been dominated
by the Indian School of Business,
Hyderabad (ISB) funded in 2002
by several of the biggest names of In-
dia Inc – Ambani, Godrej, Bajaj and
Rajat Gupta (McKinsey, New York) --
on a 260-acre state-of-the art campus
in Gachibowli, suburban Hyderabad.
And over the past almost quarter
century since this private B-school was
promoted with a reported endowment
of Rs.250 crore, ISB has built an excel-
lent reputation for providing globally
comparable business management ed-
ucation to its students obliged to fork
Indian School of Business: Financial Times, London global #31 out Rs.33-35 lakh for its 13-month
fully residential MBA programme. In
ness of India Inc is socialist ideology these capital-intensive B-schools effect, this tuition fee is double that
foolishly imposed upon newly inde- which certified 200-300 MBAs an- of the top IIMs which after decades
pendent India by the Congress party nually. of over-subidisation currently levy an
which remained in government at the Suddenly the two-year wholly resi- equivalent fee for their two-year MBA
Centre and most states of the country dential MBA programmes of the IIMs programmes.
for over half a century. became very popular and 50,000- According to ISB spokespersons,
Under the “socialist pattern of soci- 100,000 candidates started writing this huge (by Indian standards) tu-
ety”, India’s 256 Central government CAT (Common Admission Test) of the ition fee is justified because of its part-
PSEs and an equal number promoted IIMs whose number has since multi- nerships with top ranked B-schools
by state governments failed to gen- plied to 21 countrywide. Moreover worldwide, and its global #31 Finan-
erate the surpluses for investment with the increasing liberalisation of cial Times (London) ranking.
in infrastructure, public health and the shackled Indian economy which Although its FT rank is above IIM-
education. Simultaneously bound up averaged a pitiful GDP growth of 3.5 Ahmedabad (#41), IIM-Bangalore
in red tape India’s high-potential pri- percent per annum for over 40 years, (47) and IIM-Calcutta (67), it is per-
vate sector companies failed to grow several other B-schools mushroomed tinent to note that ISB is not Asia’s
and prosper and were surpassed by all over the country providing good, premier B-school according to the FT
Japanese, Korean and latterly Chinese bad and indifferent business manage- 2024 league table of the world’s Top
private corporations. ment education to an ever increasing 100 B-schools. Shanghai University of
Against this backdrop, India’s first number of students. Finance & Economics College of Busi-
B-school, the Indian Institute of Man- In 2013, we introduced the Edu- ness (#24), the National University of
agement-Calcutta (IIM-C) was estab- cationWorld India Higher Educa- Singapore’s B-school (#27) and the
lished in 1961 with American funding tion Rankings (EWIHER). The an- Fudan School of Management (#27)
and grudgingly permitted collabora- nual EWIHER inter alia also rated are ranked higher. However, despite
tion with the MIT’s Sloan School of and ranked India’s most admired B- the distinguished alumni proclaimed
Management (USA). IIM-C was soon schools in a separate, dedicated cat- on its website unlikely to set the Gan-
followed by IIM-Ahmedabad and IIM- egory. But with the IIMs dominating ges on fire, on the index of hubris,
Bangalore. the initial EW B-school league tables insolence of office, proud man’s con-
Yet the contribution of these three (and all media rankings), and bear- tumely etc, ISB is likely to be ranked
premier IIMs to the national develop- ing in mind that they admit a mere #1 worldwide.
ment effort remained hazy until the 2 percent of MBA aspirants, in 2016 Although ISB dean Dr. Madan
advent of the country’s first business we stopped ranking IIMs and gov- Pillutla has received the benefit of
magazines — Business India and Busi- ernment B-schools and focused on excellent education in BITS, Pilani;
nessWorld — made private enterprise ranking privately promoted business XLRI, Jamshedpur; University of Illi-
respectable and shone a spotlight on education institutions which admit nois; and a Ph D from the University of

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