The higher education in India is being planned to be opened up for more participation from private sector and foreign universities. Mean while the Indian Institute of Management is standing up for more autonomy in their operations as the plan is to make IIMs a global brand and admit foreign students. According to M. Damodaran, chairman of IIM Trichy, business schools need to concentrate on areas that are under managed so that they can be a part of nation building activity. He was the former Chief of Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

Powers with the institutions and their responsibilities

The powers vested in any of the organization should be used legitimately for the public good. This is the case with higher educational institutions. The main responsibility of any educational institutes including the IIMs should be to identify those powers that are needed which when exercised will contribute to the public good so that the power will be justified.

The higher educational institutions should consider thinking whether they are exercising the power they already have. Based on this, they should act more responsibly in deciding whether they need more powers which should be only at the interest of public good.

Focus on under managed areas along with other areas

In India, IIMs are considered to be the prestigious management institutes in India. Currently the management education in India focuses on creating investment bankers who work for global companies and as management professional for multinational business corporations. Areas such as health care, education, agriculture etc are neglected by such management institutions in India which is undesirable. Such areas require good management as in the case of finance and marketing. The IIMs which are considered to be the pioneer institutes in management in India are doing very little in up lifting the under managed areas. It is the same case with any of the management institutes in India.

IIMs together with other management institutes in India should give due importance to such under managed sectors.

Challenges faced by management institutes in India

The challenges that management institutes in India face are with the intake of good quality teachers, admitting students with excellent academic records, and a good management for running the institutes. In the case of IIMs they have systems in place which ensures the admission of good quality students, intake of good quality faculty and good management team. According to Damodaran, IIMs have complete functional autonomy and there is nothing to complain about autonomy. Institutes cannot claim that they want to be independent.

As far as the present situation is considered, most the institutes enjoy powers to become a good institute. But for new institutes, it will require time to establish themselves as a respectable brand like the existing IIMs. Such organizations will have difficulty in getting quality faculty, but with time those institutes will be able to overcome it.

So with good quality students, good quality faculty and committed management, institutes will be able to produce responsible managers who will be interested to operate in the under managed sectors.

Demand exceeds supply

In India, IIMs and IITs are leading brands in higher education which are famous across the students, in the academic world and in the corporate world. In India there is an increase in demand for quality higher education. But unfortunately the IIMs are not able to meet the demand. Now new IIMs have been started to meet the increasing demand so that quality management education can be provided to larger pool of students.

Influence of foreign universities and competition

We can see more and more students going to foreign countries to pursue higher education in management. This has made the foreign universities realize that there is huge potential for them in India. As there is huge potential for management institutes in India, foreign universities have started to eye India to set up their institutes. With their brand image and the quality tag attached to them, they will be able to attract considerable number of students. This will increase the competition in the field of management education which will help improving its quality and more over will offer more choices to the students.

Inadequate number of good quality faculty

An important problem that every educational institute, including the IIMs faces is the availability of good quality faculty. The main reason behind this is that there are very few quality faculty members and large numbers of top class institutes compete for a limited number of faculty members. More over lot of people does not consider teaching as a lifetime occupation, which again worsen the situation.

Efforts are under way to bring forward the new IIMs as institutions of greater learning. So IIMs are considering pooling their resources so that it can be shared and solve the problem of quality faculty in the case of new IIMs. This will make them stronger but they will still remain as competitors to each other in terms of quality students and quality faculty.

What the management institutes in India should do?

Be it IIMs, IITs or any other top higher educational institution in India, they have the responsibility in the building of a better nation as they are a part of the Indian society. So as responsible institutions they should engage in activities that will contribute to the society as a whole. Developing all the sectors that are significant to the development of India, other than investment banking and corporate management is a responsibility of the management institutes. Management institutes can instill in their students a sense of individual social responsibility that will help in attracting talents to the under managed sectors in India. Institutes such as IIMs and IITs should consider starting programs that will focus on areas that are not given proper attention India, for example health care, education, infrastructure development, which will lead the way for other institutes so that it can be made into a collective effort. This will increase the participation from students as well as from academicians and institutes across India.