Our directive was simple: “Create a global business school which would compete with the best in world.” The directive seemed to be in sync with today’s buzz-word ‘global’; almost all b-Schools in the country attach this pre-fix in some from or the other. The association with ‘global’ somehow tends to enhance the perception on quality of education imparted, but what does creating global b-School entail?
Having a global curriculum was an important but not a sufficient condition. Much to our amazement, we discovered that every business school in the country including those operating from garage spaces followed a curriculum of top global business schools! This remarkable homogeneity was made possible by the ease with which course outlines could be downloaded from the internet. Then what differentiated the top global b-Schools? It was the pedagogy, which cannot be downloaded from the internet. Therefore, one key pillar of creating a global business school is the ability to attract faculty abreast with global pedagogy to deliver the global curriculum.
The next aspect, commonly associated with ‘global’ is the provision of international exchange. International exchange, however, in many occasions gets reduced to foreign trips borne as out of pocket expense by the students; and there is a near complete absence of foreign students coming to the ‘partnering college.’ We were fortunate that our Chancellor, Mr Naveen Jindal, realised this aspect and invested in his alma-mater – School of Management, University of Texas-Dallas (renamed as Naveen Jindal School of management). As a part of this partnership, Jindal Global Business School (JGBS) sends faculty and students on exchange to Naveen Jindal School of Management and accepts visiting faculty and students from the University of Texas-Dallas. In addition, JGBS is working closely with 38 international Universities around the world.
The third aspect, involved acquiring a global mindset. It is unfortunate that most b-Schools in India operate in silos, while most foreign b-Schools are a part of university systems that help imbibe multi-disciplinary approach. At JGBS, students are encouraged to undertake courses from international affairs, law and public policy to develop a much holistic outlook.
The last aspect, we believed was the thought process. The aspiration of creating a global school has to be big. It is fine to get faculty from the premiere institutions of the country and getting good placements for students in India, but that for us was not the end of the world. We are consciously trying to secure global placements and attract foreign faculty to create a truly global school.
Dr. Shounak Roy Chowdhury, Assistant Dean – Jindal Global Business School
Fellow IIM-Ahmdedabad, B.Tech IIT-Kharagpur
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