Indian companies are looking for talented employees who have the sort of practical skills and up-to date business knowledge possessed by MBA graduates of top business schools from the UK and USA. This is because these companies need to implement global best practices to compete with multinationals that have entered the Indian market and to satisfy the Indian consumer who now expects world-class products and services. Conventional Indian management institutions are struggling to create these globally competitive MBA graduates, as their textbook-based pedagogy primarily imparts bookish knowledge without any practical real world skills. It is no wonder that the results of a recent industry survey showed that 77 percent of Indian MBA graduates were considered unemployable. Against this environment, The Shahani Group established the Thadomal Shahani Centre For Management (TSCFM) in 2009, with the expressed purpose of creating MBA graduates who would be truly employable in any country around the world. The Shahani Group has been in the field of education since 1950 and its members are on the management of 27 iconic colleges in Mumbai. Akhil Shahani, TSCFM’s Managing Director, says; “We spoke to around 250 employers from multinationals and top Indian companies to understand what sort of MBA graduate they wanted to hire. Based on their inputs and with curricula from our global partners, we built an education system that creates MBA graduates with the right attitude, useful job skills and latest industry knowledge needed by Indian companies.” TSCFM’s unique education model is called the Responsive Learning System and can be explained by the “4-I”, which stand for International recognition, Industrial focus, Innovative teaching and Individual attention.
The Responsive Learning System
TSCFM’s model moves away from the factory style approach of conventional MBA institutions and understands that every student is unique with different ambitions and strengths. Each student undergoes a psychometric test at the beginning of the MBA program, to understand his or her strengths and weaknesses. These are matched against the career they aspire to have on graduation, and an individual learning path is created for them. Faculty, who are all ex-senior managers from the corporate world teach them in a tech-enabled learning environment that builds their skills and knowledge via practical live industry projects. Every student is given projects allocated by actual companies every semester and they work under industry mentors to complete them. There are no exams, which require students to memorize textbook facts. They are mainly assessed on how well they execute their industry projects. “Companies do not use exams to assess their employees, so why should we? Only by immersing our students in a corporate style environment under industry mentors, can they learn the skills and knowledge they need to work well in any company they join,” says Shahani. This Responsive Learning System ensures that students are able to develop the attitude, skills and knowledge they need to get their dream job.
TSCFM is developing additional tie-ups with global Universities and is adding more industry driven courses to its portfolio. It is also addition new campuses supported by its online education to employment platform called, Ask. Careers. “At the end, we hope that other Indian institutions can learn from the global education model we have built, so that they can also create employable students. India needs millions of skilled workers and this shortfall can only be filled if more institutions join together to learn from each other!” says Akhil Shahani.
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