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The title of this article may remind many of a
very significant piece of writing by a Nobel
Prize winning Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, because it tends to rhyme
with this person's novel titled Love in the Time
of Cholera that was first published in Spanish in
the year 1985 and subsequently in English and was later adapted
into a movie. Besides the rhyming part, there is not an iota of semblance between
the two. Love in the Time of Cholera is
fictional whereas "MBA in the time of recession" deals
with the stark reality of having to live with the
current economic crisis and bear its consequences.
The current economic recession that started in the US has slowly and steadily engulfed the
whole economic world and so far has had
far-reaching consequences on the lives of many cutting
across national boundaries. The impact of recession
has been tremendous on the lives of many people, leaving thousands and thousands of
people jobless, as reported in the popular media.
The impact has been even more in countries where
the citizens are not supported by welfare schemes
and unemployment benefits as it tends to plunge jobless people into a state of despair. Dealing
with this economic crisis is high on the national
agenda of many countries as they would like to come
out of this financial mess as soon as possible.
Like national governments, different institutions
and corporate houses too are trying to deal with
this monster of a problem in their own individual
way. This article tries to explore the challenges
before management education in the time of
recession and what can be done to deal with these challenges. What is intended in this article is
to look at some of the challenges facing
management education from the perspectives of its two
key stakeholders: The students and the institutions
or business schools that impart management education.
To put it very simply, the greatest challenge
before many of the students of management
education today is, will they be able to find a decent
job. Since the past few years the Indian economy
has witnessed an increasing growth rate resulting
in the demand for management education and professionals; and to meet this demand,
business schools have mushroomed across the length
and breadth of India. The business schools who
were earlier able to attract students with the promise of
a lucrative job on the completion of the course
are finding it difficult to place them now. In such
a scenario, the current lot of students without a
job offer is really a worried lot and advice to
such students would be pouring in from all
quarters, leaving them even more confused. It is a
difficult time for them and any amount of
counseling, asking them to be patient and wait for
the recession to fade away, or take up a temporary
job is not going to help reduce their heightened
level of anxiety and apprehension. For the
prospective management students, that is, students
planning to enroll themselves for a management
course would be relying on faith and hope, hoping
that things would improve by the time they
graduate. But, they too, would be a worried lot
questioning themselves constantly as to, do they really need
to invest their time and money in getting a management degree or should they do
something else. Finding answers to these questions is
not simple. Given the magnitude of the current recession, dealing with it would be easier
said than done. Some of the issues that are
discussed below might help deal with the current
situation. The first deals with the issue of investing
in education and developing a pool of skills. The second deals with
the importance of being open to different kinds of jobs so that a person
remains employed. |
