Business school are not the employment exchange
With the onset of the placement season the anxiety levels of the students in Business Schools begin to rise to volcanic levels. Their anger is directed against almost against anyone and everyone associated with helping them find a job. The Placement Cells in particular become the focus of their ire. They feel the 'Placement' people not only do not get better companies with better jobs and better pay packages to the Campuses they also do not treat students with the respect they deserve. "They treat us like commodities," is the common strain.
My issue is not whether the Placement Cells are inefficient and that they don't treat people with courtesy and respect or that they treat future managers like onions and tomatoes because that will depend on the quality of people manning them and their training and if you allow people to treat to you like commodities; they will. No one can treat you bad without your permission. My issue is more fundamental.
Should a Business School that prides itself on providing quality education even have a Placement Cell? Many people believe that the focus of Business School is all wrong when they try to rope students in by advertising their ability to find students a job at the end of the course. The media and the pseudo rating agencies also play their part in ranking business schools where a major criterion is the institute's placement record. Placements become big news and Business schools vie with each other in buying space in newspapers and magazines to report how well they have done and how quickly the batch was 'placed'. Big budgetary allocation are made to wine and dine people in Companies responsible for visiting campuses for placements. Placement people are assured a hefty commission for every candidate landing a job. The whole thing smacks of a malady that afflicts most Business Schools and is eating into their innards and converting them into employment exchanges.
The problem with organised placement assistance is that that it make the students dependent and the faculty lazy. It is a double whammy when Students join a management course attracted by the promise of placement. One the students overwhelmingly begin to believe that it is the responsibility of the Business School to get them a job. And two it attracts a lot of students who otherwise have no acumen or interest in the discipline making a bee line for getting admission in a Business school. It is no wonder then, that despite tremendous encouragement, pleading, plodding, requests and threats many students in most Business Schools do not begin to read the business newspapers let alone get genuinely interested in reading the journals, even towards the end of the third or final semester.
Somewhere deep inside they believe that, because they have paid the money they will get the degree and because the Business school has a Placement Cell it will get them jobs. Most students, especially from non business families come believing that ethics and business can never go hand in hand and that all businesses are built by deceit go out confirmed in their view that you just have to while away two years in a Business School and their Placement Cell will work hard to get them decent employment. What kind of managers would such people make? If they do not make good managers and the society begins to feel, at some stage, especially during a major financial crisis, that business school products are rude, crude, arrogant and greedy should they be alone in taking the blame? Aren't Business Schools as responsible because of their focus on placements and not on education and training?
As far as the Faculty at Business Schools is concerned it makes them lazy and casual in their approach. They begin to think their job is to go to the class and deliver a lecture and go home. They forget it is their job is to help students acquire a holistic approach to business problems. They have to create and disseminate relevant knowledge. The message that seems to go across is "pay money (through your nose) and get admission in a school that guarantees employment and that will help you make a lot of money. You see it is becoming some kind of a vicious circle. It is possible the faculty's laziness stems from students apathy or unconcern. But that is no excuse. It is possible that the student's apathy is the result of faculty's laziness. But that has to be set right. You see the faulty vicious circle taking stranglehold of business education. It is time to stem the rot. To begin with all self respecting Business schools should scrap their Placement Cells and focus on providing theoretical base and practical experience to its students to become future managers that the business world needs. It is then that the Industry and business houses will come looking for genuine talent and future managers will not be treated like commodities.
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