7th Global Business School Network Annual Conference Hosted By IMT Ghaziabad Plenary Panel-Regional Trends In Business Education

Online, June 25, 2012 (Newswire.com) - Amongst all the sessions of GBSN's 7th Annual Conference hosted by IMT Ghaziabad in New Delhi, the one that stood out clearly for its remarkable insight into the way business education is influenced by regional and local factors, was the plenary session on 'Regional trends in Business Education'. Dr. Soumitra Dutta, Incoming Dean, Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornwell University (USA), who was the Moderator for the session, immaculately steered the proceedings, to bring out the essence that 'the world is not as flat as it is made out to be; Regional differences have their roles and needs, and it is important to incorporate learning from management practices around the world.'

While Dr Soumitra Dutta brought in the developed countries' perspective, the plenary session was intelligently designed to include stalwarts from the three different growth engines of the world - India, China and Africa - as the panelists.

On the unique aspects of business education in China, Dr Soumitra Dutta turned to Professor Steven Dekrey, Senior Associate Dean of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Pointing out the acute shortage of quality faculty, especially research faculty, in Asia, Professor Dekrey observe that China, which has a huge requirement of quality research faculty, answered this challenge by broadening its faculty model to include former executives as faculty and allocating Core faculty as Research faculty.

Observing that there was a lack of 'teaching the teachers' programmes globally, Dr Soumitra Dutta, the moderator for the session, then turned to Dr. Enase Okonedo, Dean, Lagos Business School, & Director, Association of African Business Schoolson the subject. Dr Okonedo apprised the participants that as the next big business destination of the world, Africa needed 'more managers, more business schools, and more Faculty'. As of now, there was a clear dearth of a practical faculty, dynamic curriculum and learning tools in Africa.

Dr. Dutta wondered if Africa could balance the trade-off between Academic rigor, and business practices, as establishing business schools is a complex procedure. Dr Okonedo said that a tradeoff between academic rigor, and business practices was not an option- "You can't implement things the way they are being done in the developed economies."

Dr Soumitra Dutta then turned to the third eminent panelist Dr. Pankaj Chandra, Director, IIM Bangalore on how the IIM's managed its regional challenges.

"The IIM's were always grounded to reality; in the Indian context, this meant Poverty. India's diversity provided a platform to understand difference between society and industries. IIM's participate with government elements. Unlike B-schools over the world, IIM's are schools of management rather than schools of business with growth and education at its center."

Dr Chandra was then asked as to how the needs of the Private enterprises, society and government have been accommodated at the same time by the IIM's and how did they adapt to the need of inclusive growth. Dr Chandra pointed out that the curriculum in Indian B-schools, included agenda likeaffordable healthcare, school, water etc.

All through the plenary session of the 7th GBSN Annual conference hosted by IMT Ghaziabad, Dr Dutta shifted gears with great fluidity, guiding the discussion from topics like, how various continents were dealing with the cost of management education, as the return on investment may not be as good as before? How is Inclusiveness being dealt with, in the classrooms? How is curriculum being made dynamic and still keeping students across the board involved? How to encourage research models? How to measure the impact of business Schools?How to address demand of education? How to scale up?

Having pooled in the knowledge of the finest minds from China, India and Africa, Dr Dutta, was able to derive a consensus that India has to be developed as the research paradise for B-schools. Having thus concluded, Dr Dutta decided to leave the participants of the plenary session not with the glum satisfaction of having arrived at a solution, but to rattle their brains with a teaser - how to open western research markets to our researchers?How to make western researchers take a look at our problems?

Commenting on the hour-and-half worth of the action packed plenary session, Dr Bibek Banerjee, Director, IMT Ghaziabad- the host for the 7th GBSN Annual Conference - remarked, "I'm almost breathless! I don't remember attending a plenary session as tightly moderated, with its path as clearly sketched out, as the one convened by Dr Soumitra Dutta."