Bad B-schools: A shocking injustice

A recent study by the business chamber Assocham reveals that more than 5,500 business schools in the country are producing unemployable graduates. This is not surprising; it is a fact known for years. What is surprising is that little or nothing is being done about this shocking injustice being perpetrated over the years. Parents beg and borrow and use their hard-earned money to send their children to these B-Schools (excluding the IIMs) only to be told at the end that their children are unemployable and can get jobs that earn them barely Rs 10,000 a month. Only seven per cent of them are employable, according to the study. The fees charged by these schools is between Rs 3 lakh and Rs 5 lakh for a two-year MBA programme. It is little wonder, therefore, that as many as 220 of these bogus B-Schools have closed down as the students realise that there is hardly any recruitment happening on their campuses. These schools also don’t get enough teachers or good teachers as they pay poorly. They have never bothered to update their curriculum to keep pace with technological developments.

This is the same story with the engineering colleges that sprout like weeds. Most — some say 80 per cent — of the engineers that graduate from these colleges (except the IITs) are unemployable. Companies have to re-skill them. The medical college scam is even more scandalous as most of them don’t even have the necessary equipment or labs. There seems to be no one to regulate them, and if there is a regulator he is either not doing his job properly or accepting bribes and turning a blind eye.

In the early years, some state governments permitted politicians to set up these engineering and medical colleges with or without any expertise and it soon became a money-making racket: anyone with some money and clout could and did start these colleges. This spread to business schools because the need was so huge as the economy was growing and people with skills were needed. However, there was no planning by the government or the authorities who decide these matters.

The situation does not seem to improve despite not a day passing without various chambers and business houses expressing concern over the shortage of skilled workers. One of the biggest sufferers are the medium and small enterprises which cannot get skilled workers. The government has a national skill development programme but somehow it seems top-heavy and its expenditure is not justified by its output in the number of people skilled. Some out-of-the-box thinking is required and one hopes that Mr Amitabh Kant of Niti Aayog can provide this by taking into confidence people who can think differently on this critical issue of providing skill to the youth of India.