Coronavirus Agony for Indian MBA

Top students, who come to multi-crowned management institutes in India, are more than just a 20-year-old college student. They have been involved in a very active campus life while pursuing their undergraduate degree. They have set up clubs and groups; bagged scholarships and awards; pursued hobbies and interests; travelled and not to mention, most of them can speak at least 3-languages.

There are two cohorts of students who arrive at the beginning of each academic year at the management institutes. One of the cohorts is of fresh students who had been dreaming and slogging hard for over a year to enter a premier b-school and who finally aced the selection process by beating thousands of competitors to win an entry to their coveted management institutes. The other cohort is of the students who had experienced the management institute for a year, having been admitted in the last academic year, and then taken off for a mandatory internship of two months or so, at a popular business enterprise; and now returning to finish off their final year before they get the ever so weighty and mighty MBA.

Students come to a management institute for assured career prospects (read campus placements), building new networks (different from their school and undergrad colleges), picking the jargon and grammar of contemporary business (not necessary the skills) a good social and community living which can put a chip on their shoulder and wider awareness (of 20 odd subjects and not much of a deeper understanding); most usually in this order of importance. 

COVID-19 disrupted the mandatory internship of two months for a lot of students in the second cohort while for the first cohort even the entry-tickets to their dream management institutes have been delayed or disrupted.

What if classes stay online next academic year due to COVID-19 - the first consequence of such a scenario will be that no one is coming or coming back to institute’s campus. For everything which students seek from a management institutes, the students have to be there and be present. The students will have to choose between graduating on time versus all the experiences and benefits they were expecting to have. They may find that once-lively classroom sessions and seminars are less engaging over Zoom and there may be practical complications that make virtual learning less than ideal.

Given an option, many students may like to take leave for a semester or a year. They may consider taking the online classes at the Number #1 b-school instead of Number #2 or Number #2 or their own school, if the Number #1 school so allowed them and simultaneously engage in some work which could pay them a little and add embellish their profile so that they could return even better credentialed to their management institutes when the classes resume face-to-face.

These experiences help explain why the Indian management institutes, a longstanding access point into adulthood and the middle or professional classes, is suddenly looking precarious. The pandemic has exposed the harsh economic reality of the Indian management education, and it could be a breaking point for students and institutes after years of growing queues of aspirants at the doors of premier management institutes, not to mention the debate over the benefits of a hefty price tag for their degrees. It is regrettable that most webinars and discussions are being setup to discuss the content of the MBA education post COVID-19 and very little is being debated about the processes involved. This may well be a symptom of the mental ailments caused by novel coronavirus which may be afflicting the leadership of management institutes.

In order to survive, many top management institutes need to prove that they can replicate the campus experience virtually— and many may not succeed.

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