IISWBM setting new benchmarks in management

Established in April 1953, Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management (IISWBM), the first management institute in India, still stands out to be one of the most reputed and acknowledged management institutions of the country. Enlightened Indians like Pt Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy, the then Chief Minister of West Bengal and Prof DK Sanyal set up the institution keeping a unique dimension in mind. With social welfare programmes and management courses under the same roof, this institute has earned numerous accolades to its name.

Over the decades, IISWBM has successfully kept its intellectual tradition alive by recruiting imminent faculty members, preserving the learning environment, nurturing intellectual minds, and maintaining infrastructure facilities. With sixty four years into management, its journey has been studded with glorious achievements.

Being one of the highest ranking B-schools since its inception, the institute might soon get upgraded to a University and with the new campus coming up in the satellite city of Kolkata (Newtown), the institute has plans to start some academic programmes there by 2019. Involved in research and consultancy work, several faculty members have won many prestigious awards and the Institute itself boasts of alumni in various prestigious organisations both in India and abroad.

Prof (Dr) Amitava Sarkar, the Director of IISWBM, who has long been associated with the institute, opens up about their success story, uniqueness and big plans ahead.

This is the first management and social welfare institute that started in India. We have our heritage. When we started, the concept of bringing social welfare programs and business management courses together was one of a kind; a concept alien to many. After all, social welfare programs in order to survive, need to be managed well and similarly, if management studies are devoid of any ties to social welfare, it will fail. I don't think there are institutions where these two fields are together under the same roof and even if there are such institutions, they definitely did not start back at the time we did. From early 1950s onward, we have always tried to remain relevant, keeping in tune with upcoming demands.

I believe we have quite a number of good institutions offering programmes in various fields. And the lack of access that we have faced a couple of decades back has gone down to a great extent. We have not been able to match up with the demands in certain fields with openings in higher education institutions. I don't want to blame the planners or the government but this happens because it is a fast changing world.

We don't know which particular field is going to occupy the centre stage two years down the line or what particular demands are going to come up and we are always a couple of steps behind in supplying the required academic programmes and institutions. That's where the mismatch happens. This is mainly due to fast changes and our inability to forecast.

Apart from the flagship programs like Master of Business Administration, Master of Human Resource Management, the Institute also conducts full-time programmes in affiliation with the University of Calcutta in Sports Management, Media Management, and Retail Management among others. We offer programmes in fire safety management as well.

We have also condensed our three years MBA evening program into 2 years and the response has been amazing. We are the first institution to start with a two -year full time MBA evening program.

In addition, the Institute introduced an M Phil programme since 2014, and plans to commence a PhD programme, affiliated to University of Calcutta to match demands for higher/research studies in management, social welfare and public systems.

Our faculty is very actively involved in research and projects. We offer our expertise in number of projects for various government and non-government institutions. We also work very closely with NTPC, Adani and Reliance among others. We are also collaborating with the Reserve Bank of India as they want us to conduct a training program on induction, and mentor their senior as well as junior officers.

I have a different view with regard to collaboration. If we look into collaboration itself carefully, we will see that many foreign institutions are coming here for students and they try to use institutions as agents. But essentially what they do is that Indians and foreign institutions train the students for two terms each and give them a joint certificate. However, there are only a few who can afford it.

In my opinion, I would like to collaborate in terms of research, in terms of faculty and students exchange and not in terms of just offering a joint programme.

As a matter of fact, the collaboration that I'm talking about in terms of research has always been there. We share ideas, articles and invite each other, which is much more effective. Otherwise collaborations do not serve any real purpose. Probably, there is some flamboyance in collaboration, but if looked into carefully, it doesn't serve much purpose.

I believe that the distinction which we used to face three or four decades back, is not there that much. There's a usual kind of complaint that comes from the industry that our syllabus/ curriculum is often outdated; the curriculums do not match the industry requirements, particularly in India. But I don't think that's totally true.

I agree that it used to be like that a few decades ago but not any longer. I ask industry people whether they have actually taken a look at the curriculum and in most cases the answer is 'no'. 90 per cent of those who criticise blindly our education systems, saying that it is not up to the mark or lagging behind from what are offered abroad, particularly in the West, don't see them carefully. I know for a fact that there's no significant difference in the programmes.

The question should be about deliverance. They may have better teachers there or better systems of deliverance, or better students who can accept what is taught but we are no less. Yes, there are problems of delivery. Although I agree that it is acute in India, western countries also face this at some level or the other. Look at how eagerly they look for Indian software developers. Given the recent happenings, if all the Indian software developers have to come back, then I don't know what they will do. So this problem is not unique to India or the developing countries. Lack of funding also leads to several problems. Many colleges can't afford proper equipment at labs or other means of technology needed for better learning. But it is not that we do not know about these problems. I really hope people start looking beyond the surface level.

We have our new campus coming up in Rajarhat (Newtown). It's been a year that work has started and the entire foundation piling has already been completed. Situated in the so called academic hub, it will have a 12 storey academic building, separate girls' and boys' hostels, and staff quarters.

In fact, last week we had a meeting with HIDCO and it was decided that by 2019 it would be at least partially complete so that we start teaching some of the courses there. We would like to do it a bit sequentially. Of course the entire establishment is not going to shift at one go as it is neither desirable nor possible. Our USP is this location.