Assistant Professor, JIMS Kalkaji
“Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” —Malcolm X.
The era of globalization and integration among the world’s topmost economies witnesses a growing need for the current education system to provide a global outlook in their curriculum for the management students to excel as future managers and global business leaders. With the world making a gradual recovery from COVID, this is the best time to review and revamp the skills, abilities, roles and responsibilities to function in a world that is becoming financially integrated, economically dependent and being subjected to inter related business environment. Currently the higher-level positions in the world class companies are held by Indians. It so clearly states the fact that Indians if provided with the right education and opportunity and have the desire, passion and will to succeed, can go places in the world. The current generation can draw inspiration from great leaders like Ritesh Aggarwal (OYO), Falguni Nayar ( Nykaa), Vidit Aatrey (Meesho), Kunal Shah (Cred), who have showed courage, resilience and adapted to the changes of this dynamic global environment. Now B-Schools of the country need to move beyond the conventional methods and the innate approach to the management. Disruptive thinkers who are willing to travel into the actual world with the valour to create and have the self-assurance to accept failures, are what the B-schools need to create and nurture. The required skillset to handle the technical and adaptive issues that modern life brings, is what needs to be imparted by the current education system. Understanding that management and leadership education is a lifelong process that extends beyond any two-year curriculum is important for both students and educators. What is required is the will to be a lifelong learner who is always experimenting and eager to infuse a significant amount of societal significance into one’s personal needs. Businesses will now be compelled to reinvent themselves as more modern economic models take hold. Businesses will be forced by market forces to adopt sustainability as a way of life. A new class of business executives who are socially prominent, ecologically conscious, compassionate, and intellectually vibrant will be needed to operate and drive these eco-systems. Sectoral borders have also been demonstrated by COVID to be more administrative than functional. It has also highlighted the necessity for those who are familiar with how the government and civil society organisations function. All of this calls for individuals who are able to manage connections with various stakeholders and have the attitude necessary for collaborative work.
B-schools will need professors that are innovative both in what they teach and how they teach it. More contemporary learner centric approaches should be used by the teaching fraternity to enhance the skillset of the students like task based or activity based projects, spaced learning, flipped classroom, VAK teaching and crossover learning. Institutes will need to create and manage “Studios & Case labs” where topics like Design thinking and Systems Approaches are absorbed to have immersive learning experiences. Also, internships must be carefully designed to give students a practical learning experience where they can learn what works and give employers insight into what the students can bring to the table. To ensure that students are learning as much as possible, companies and institutions will need to jointly create, oversee, and own capstone projects. The curricula must include new ideas like the ‘for-benefit economy’, ‘Hybrid organisations’, ‘Sustainability and climate change for business’, ‘Social stock exchange’ and other such buzzing areas that will shape the future economy of the world. The world’s industrialised and developing economies require a new generation of dynamic managers with the capacity to feel, think, and act. Leaders that can function from both their areas of expertise and aptitude, are what is required currently. This next generation will be the ones who, while bearing in mind the pledge made by Prime Minister Modi at the most recent COP 26 summit, not only have the fortitude to work together to dream about the five trillion-dollar economy, but also make it a reality.
At JIMS, to cater to the growing need of providing global outlook to the management students, 2 flagship programmes PGDM & PGDM(IB) are provided with a curriculum that revolves around the objective of preparing future managers with a resilient mindset. The course objectives and programme objectives are aligned with each other in such a way that there is overall growth and development of the young minds. Some of the papers that give an exposure to the international perspective are Global Business Environment, Financial Technology, Innovation & design thinking, Venture Capital & Private Equity, Data Visualization & Critical thinking, International Business Analytics, International Financial Management. The institute also collaborates with foreign universities for various guest lectures and seminars and also organizes industrial trips and flagship Singapore visit for the students of PGDM(IB). Teaching pedagogy includes use of case studies from HBS Online, Emerald and other prominent world class publishers. Overall, the objective to prepare management students with a global mindset is met at JIMS.
For more information visit: https://www.jagannath.org/
