India is one of the oldest nations in which education has been an integral part of inculcating cultural values along with imparting knowledge in all disciplines. Institutions across the country always try to uphold that tradition and create socially responsible students who have the capability to give it back to the society. However, the modern times have also shown us a lot of competition among institutions for the maximum number of placements they can offer and this happens most for the management institutions in the country. In the race to become more and more profitable, the institutions sometimes compromise on the quality of education rendered to the students. But not Goa Institute of Management (GIM). The institution's primary motto is to create socially responsible students with ethical leadership qualities. It concentrates the most on the overall grooming of candidates and preparing them for successful careers with perfection.
The institution takes pride in the history of itself as it stretches back more than 28 years. The institution was founded by Late Father Romuald D'souza. He was a Jesuit priest and a renowned educator of the 1980s and 90s. He was the one to set up the Xavier's institute and then came back to Goa to open Goa Institute of Management. For the first 17 years of its operations,GIM was housed in a heritage building which originally was one of the oldest medical colleges in India built by the Portuguese more than 200 years ago. Father D'souza found other like-minded people and started off with GIM finally in 1993. "The founding members went to the then government of Goa and started the institute with a handful of students and as it stands, the institution now has its own campus since last 12 years that is spread over an extended area of 50 acres. We feel very proud as how the reputation of GIM turned out to be with a long legacy of over 28 years", mentions Devasheesh Mathur, Assistant Professor, Goa Institute of Management.
Standing Apart
Gim Has Always Believed In Ultimate Contribution To The Society. It wants to create socially responsible student who can become ethical leaders in their respective fields of work and this reflects in the way the institute structures its courses. "We put a high premium on whether our incoming students are socially responsible and are able to understand the ethical dimensions of leadership. Throughout their Two years of training, we constantly teach them socially responsible and ethical behaviour irrespective of the course they are in", says Devasheesh. From a small beginning in 1993, with 6 faculty members, teaching a single class with an intake of 24 students in a rented premise, we have grown to More than 75 full-time faculty members, six courses with an intake of over 900 full-time students, and a 50-acre campus with world-class infrastructure. GIM feels fortunate to have had Late Fr. Romual d D'Souza as its founding Director. The institute has grown under his visionary leadership from strength to strength.
Some distinguishable aspects worth mentioning are the rain water harvesting and solar electrification process all over campus. The institute meets all its water requirements by the process of rain water harvesting. It is believed to have been one of the sustainable procedures for the usage of water all across the world and that exactly what GIM wants its students to learn from. Second is the usage of solar panels all across the campus. The management of GIM is optimistic that within the next few years the institute will become self-sustainable in water and electricity that adds to the ultimate value that the institution is offering to the society.
GIM researches on the needs of the country before coming up with any specialized course. Whenever it has detected the need of something in the society, courses have been formulated in accordance with that. For e.g, GIM had started its own Healthcare Management program only in 2013 after researching on the requirements the healthcare sector of the country needs. The program has grown from strength to strength and boasts of more than 300 alumni leading from the front in healthcare industry. There is indeed a special concentration given to the healthcare management as GIM has partnered with many NGOs where students visit and acquire grass root level understanding from the real world problems of the industry.
Faculty and Infrastructure
All the faculty of the institution come from very reputed educational backgrounds. Devasheesh himself has finished his bachelors as well masters from IIT Bombay and done his Ph.D. from MDI, Gurgaon which is one of most reputed management institutions of the country. There are many sector-specific education centres that GIM has on its campus, such as Centre for Social Sensitivity and Action, Centre for Public Policy and Governance, Centre for Creativity and Design Thinking, and many more, that conduct cutting-edge research, promote awareness around their adopted mission, and provide a multi-dimensional approach to the institute's pedagogy. On this note, it is worth mentioning that all the education that the institute tries to provide is not only relevant to the Indian scenario but a global one. GIM has faculty connections and networks all across Europe, North America, Australia, and Asia Pacific. "We feel that the more connected we are with the world, the more real-world solutions we will be able to teach our students. We have many international partners that help us in being successful in this aspect", states Devasheesh.
GIM has got excellent infrastructure at hand after a long journey of over 28 years. It has got the time to carefully build the institution according to the needs of the students and industry. It has a Big Data lab with all the needed software and SAP partnership with which the students can see and solve real-world problems of the industry while pursuing the course here. It becomes very much instrumental when they start their career.
"Gim has always believed in ultimate contribution to the society"
It also has a full-fledged finance lab and a Bloomberg lab. This has been very useful for the students who want the understanding of financial markets and aspire to have a career in it. GIM also has student clubs which arrange workshops and seminars for students independently in order to bring more clarity to the study of their respective fields.The infrastructure of the institution has such strong roots that even during COVID, there was no set back. For more than a year, it continued with online classes using virtual collaboration tools and carried on each and every course successfully. Even now, after the educational institutions all over the country have opened, GIM has opened the option of hybrid classes for students as well. Here, students are able to attend a lecture from class or from isolation as well.
Future Endeavours
GIM wishes to be among the top management institutes not only in India but in the world. It also offers various scholarship opportunities to students who have the needed merit and deserve an opportunity. GIM is of the opinion that no student should be deprived of education if deserved and provides up to one-fourth of the course fee as scholarship to students with merit. "Looking ahead, we want to add to our number of courses and bring more interesting topics of global importance to our curriculum. We are also trying to increase the amount of scholarships and the number of them in Healthcare management program in order to serve more deserving students in the future", concludes Devasheesh.
Dr. Devasheesh Mathur, Admissions Chair, PGDM Healthcare Management
Devasheesh is an assistant professor at goa institute of management, the first business school from india to be inducted in united nations sustainable development solutions network. His primary research areas include public service innovations, public health systems, and policy analyses. He is currently working on projects to collect the lived experiences of people suffering from polycystic ovarian syndrome (pcos). He works with world health organization and national health agency on various projects related to policy monitoring and impact evaluations.
.png){kind=logo}