Colloquium @ SIBM Bangalore

Bangalore (Karnataka) - August 19, 2010
Colloquium 2010 was held today at the Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Bangalore (SIBM-B) auditorium today. The event witnessed the convergence of many eminent academicians and corporate personalities from across the world on a common platform.


The event’s Inaugural Address was given by Dr. Ramaswamy (Founder Director – IIM-B, Director of NGO Cartman), who made a very eloquent and enlightening speech encompassing various issues related to the present day higher education. He said education system today is in a wrong place and suggested various reforms he believes are required to address this problem. He greatly emphasized the need for opening up the educational system for privatization, Indianizing the education in the country, and relaxing the rigid regulations. He concluded by leaving the following thought behind- “We don’t want brilliant people. We want good people in the world.”

This was followed by the keynote address by Dr. Shyam Sunder (Professor of Accounting, Economics, and Finance at the Yale School of Management), who stressed on the need for innovation. He expressed his concern on how the amount of innovation happening in India pales in comparison to that in the US or China. Prof. Sunder concluded by saying that it is not enough for India to keep abreast with the rest of the world; it needs to take the lead.

The first panel discussion was on the topic, ‘Reforms & Internationalization of Higher Education’. There was congruence in the thoughts of all the panelists and they all agreed on the fact that research centres have to be developed in large numbers in India. Innovation was also pointed out to be the engine of growth. Prof. Bala K. R. Balachandran (Professor of Accounting and Operations Management, New York University) stressed that it was important to shift from a quantity perspective to a quality perspective when it comes to higher education, and that funding to various colleges should be related to the quality of the faculty. Prof. Krishna Ladha (Professor of Economics, IIM-Kozhikode) opined that the political class in the country does not encourage the growth of new colleges and new systems of learning. Prof. P.G. Apte (Professor of Economics and Former Director, IIM Bangalore) was of the view that the quality of rural lower education has to be improved drastically and that the government shouldn’t subsidise higher education. Mr. Parth Sarwate (Azim Premji Foundation) motivated the students present by saying, “If you want to make a name for yourself, take a risk and break out.” Dr. Harkant Mankad (Former Vice Chancellor, NMIMS University) felt that the institutes should leverage technology for a greater spread of higher education.

The topic for the second panel was ‘Future of Management Education’ and the moderator of the discussion was Mr. Amit Agnihotri (Chairman, MBAUniverse.com).

Prof. M.R. Rao (Dean Emeritus, ISB Hyderabad) delivered the opening address of the session. He voiced his concern about the lack of quality faculty in the higher education institutes and how there is no system of performance based incentives in most of the management institutes. Mr. Rao expressed his hope to see India as the hub of management education in 10 years.

The moderator Mr. Amit asked the panelists to share their biggest concern vis-à-vis management education. To this, Dr. H. Chaturvedi (Director, BIMTECH) said what worried him was the slow speed of globalization in Indian B-schools, which might not be sufficient to compete with global schools. Mr. C. Mahalingam (Executive VP and Chief People Officer, Symphony Services) said he considered the lack of true leaders the major problem; while for Mr. Harpreet Singh (Director, Educomp Raffles Higher Education Ltd.), the quality of faculty, accreditation of the right schools and the lack of information and transparency were the biggest concerns. Prof. Rachel Davis (Adjunct Professor, NUS, Singapore) said she thought the unemployability of the students passing out as a big problem; while Prof. Pankaj Gupta shared his opinion on how the management institutes were facing governance challenges.
Mr. Amit then asked the panelists to comment on what they considered to be the biggest opportunities in front of these management institutes. Mr. Rao said since the demand for higher education is rising by the day, the institutes have an opportunity to provide quality education. Dr. Chaturvedi felt there should be joint ventures between the foreign and local universities in order to reverse the migration of students to other countries. Mr. Mahalingam opined that we are well equipped to start an educational revolution and hence, the best practices as well as the ‘next practices’ would come from India. Mr. Singh proposed concentrating on the use of IT and communication technology to reduce cost and scarcity of quality faculty, while Prof. Davis stressed on the fact that a more women friendly management society should come up in order to enable more women to enrol in management institutes. Prof. Gupta put forth his idea of the requirement of co-creation wherein the management schools will join hands with the corporate world so as to ensure better management education.
Colloquium 2010 proved to be a platform where many thought-provoking issues concerning higher education system and management education were raised and addressed to by the experts in this field.