Preference of Students at the time of Selecting a Business School for Higher Management Education in Gujarat State

Preference of Students at the time of Selecting a Business School for Higher Management Education in Gujarat State

Gaurav B Gandhi Designation: Sr. Manager – Marketing

Organization: Ganpat Global Educorp, Ahmedabad.

The purpose of this research paper is to brief about students expectations when they select Business school for studying Higher Management program. This paper will help Business schools in Gujarat to focus on which direction and how to attract good and quality of students.

Education today is a trillion dollar industry in India (approximately 20,000 crores), Business school (B-school) education has seen spiraling growth in the last 20 years. The first business program was started in 1954 by the Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management in Calcutta. There were 118 B-school programs in 1989 and 744 in September 2000 (Abid Hussain Committee)1. Recently, industry estimates suggest that there are more than 1,300 B-schools in India. If a B-school wants to build a long-term future,

consistent improvement of quality is essential. Quality has to be operationalized in various parameters like quality in inputs (faculty and infrastructure), quality in processes, (active learning time), quality in outputs, (tests and gradation scores) and quality in outcomes (gainful employment). Innovative colleges, universities and private enterprises are positioning themselves to take market shares from those B-schools that fail to respond to customer needs (Hatfield and Taylor, 1998). New technology is a catalyst for changing delivery constraints and educational mergers are creating large, versatile competitors (Hatfield and Taylor, 1998). There is a need to understand and interpret the effect of the emerging technologies through research and apply emerging technologies in the classroom to develop student skills and boost academic credibility.

There are 141 MBA colleges in Gujarat affiliated to GTU (2011) and they are accepting GCET score (according to GTU MBA college report 2011) in year 2012 there are 132 MBA colleges. It is observed that number of Business schools is falling now days. There is a need to Brand oneself in such a way that Business school should not face closure or vacant seats. Apart from it there are private Business schools also offers Degree and Diploma in the field of

management for post-graduation. As there is a tough competition in market there is a need for Branding a business school. The practices adopted are showing features through advertisements in newspaper, Magazine ads, Hoardings, participation in MAT, CAT other state level management aptitude test bulletin, seminars and counseling sessions in collages and coaching institutes, sponsorships in college level activities, attracting students by offering scholarships, foreign education trip for global exposure, offering free laptop, participating in ranking survey, focusing upon students development by personality development, Placements, focusing on faculty quality, Pedagogy, Industry interaction for research. As there is a huge demand for talented manpower in corporate, having required Degree/Diploma in the field of management and skills to manage and develop the system. With reference to continuous fall in students enrollment MBA/PGDM courses in some of the GTU affiliated MBA colleges as well as to private Business schools from last 3 years, there is a need to Brand oneself in a proper way so that seats should not get vacant. As of now it is found that there is very less research been made in Branding of Business Schools with special reference to Gujarat, my research will put a new concepts for Business Schools in Gujarat to make them focused about their further path.

Students are the ultimate users of services offered at Business school and it is one of the important factor to be focused upon. According to Sharrock (2000)2, a student might be a: customer wanting routine information (from a department or faculty); A client in need of expert guidance (choosing a course, or reviewing an assignment, choose a career path at the time of placements); citizen with certain rights (borrowing a book or appealing against an act of discrimination); and subject with certain obligations (being fined, for an overdue book, or working to make a grade, having some operational issues).If we consider

students as a customer then there would be a drawbacks like students may shift the responsibility of learning and placement success to the faculty and B-school and if students could not get proper placements then negative publicity will start.

Saptarish iSarkar 20063, Existing students are like your current assets. At every stage of two years course they should feel that there is sustainable value addition. Value for money proposition works quite well for them for both students and faculties, there should be tie up with foreign university academic research and quality. Student and faculty exchange program must be part of two years rigor exchange of inputs and ideas between them. There should be tie up with different corporates for upgrading and developing courses to make it relevant and dynamic in every area mark, fin, sys, HR, Ops.

Researcher has prepared questionnaire for students preferences about the Business schools and asked them to give answer in likert scale from Not important to Very Important. The Author has approached different type of Business schools and located at different geographic location to collect database from students who already study at the Business school. The Author first approached respective authority of the Business school to take permission to get questionnaire filled by the students. Out of that researcher has collected database of more than 500 students and after getting database, the author did analysis by calculation Grand mean of each variable.

Following is the research questionnaire designed for students

Answer with tick mark from following option from 1 to 5. (1=Not Important, 2=Somewhat Important, 3=Neutral, 4=Important, 5=Very important)

5

The researcher has taken grand mean of all variable and given ranking based on more the ranking will be on top and lesser will be followed.

Outcome is as below.

market themselves at better level. It is also advised to Business schools that focus on students expectations as it is a part of service industry where customer needs more attention.

Reference:

1. A conceptual model of brand-building for B-schools: an Indian perspective, Shahaida, P; Rajashekar, H; Nargundkar, R. International Journal of Commerce & Management 19. 1 (2009): 58-71.

2. A conceptual model of brand-building for B-schools: an Indian perspective,

   P. Shahaida, Department of MBA, PES Institute of Technology, Bangalore, India, H. Rajashekar, Department of Commerce, University of Mysore, Mysore, India, andR. Nargundkar, Department of MBA, PES Institute of Technology, Bangalore, India, International Journal of Commerce and Management, Vol. 19 No. 1, 2009, pp. 58-71, q Emerald Group Publishing Limited

3. Higher Education Needs 8 Million Seats, 02 February 2011, Business India