Information Technology

September 21, 2006
Top Class Management Education - Right at Work Spot Desk

Rajendra Prabhu

NEW DELHI -- In one more demonstration of the transformation in professional education that is emerging due to ICT revolution, IIMs, the country’s prestigious management institutes, is now offering customised executive training programs in class room format at remote places and even at corporate offices.

The IT training major NIIT has tied up with IIMs of Ahmadabad, Calcutta and Indore to set up, under the brand name NIIT Imperia, “centers for advanced learning” in seven cities away from the IIM campuses. The centers are expected to be extended to many more cities.

The program contents, faculty and certification come from NIIT's academic partners-- the three IIMs. The design and implementation of the students' education experience come from Imperia's NIIT heritage. The academic programs on offer right now are Strategic Business Communication from IIM Ahmadabad, Applied Finance from IIM Calcutta and on Sales and Marketing Management from IIM Indore. The centers are located in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkatta, Bangalore and Hyderabad. These centers are especially designed to combine the benefits of synchronous learning with group-work and collaboration among students within a center. The student experience would be as if they are in a classroom with the IIM faculty in interactive learning.

IIM Ahmadabad director Prof. Bakul Dholakia explained at a media interaction that “with this initiative, we are taking the first step to address an urgent need, by offering a technology-based solution that is feasible to implement because it neither requires executives to leave their workplace while they upgrade their skills, nor calls for the creation of additional infrastructure in the premier institutes.”

With over one million working executives requiring constant update and skill development to manage the economy that has to be globally competitive, the program bites right into the high growth redesign of India's business.

“This is a unique example of public-private partnership,” said NIIT chairman Rajendra S. Pawar, “where India's premier institutes in the formal education space have joined hands with Asia's largest private sector training company to provide solutions the country will benefit from.” Prof. Dholakia termed it “a big step forward in implementing a dream that we visualised together months back.”

With professional education in class room format now becoming possible for remote learners, NIIT Imperia could be setting a trend that would help accelerate turn out of highly qualified people needed to man the leverage points of the economy. More important it could be used to improve the quality of the personnel already at work and who need skills upgrade at all levels without requiring them to be away from work spot for long periods.

NIIT Imperia's synchronous classroom are designed in such a way that the student first spends a week at the campus of the professional institute to familiarise himself with the faculty before he begins his learning at the remote classroom. There are for instance a million executives working in various corporate establishments who require constant skill upgradation to face global business challenges with even small firms exposed to global competition in the expanding economy.

There are other professionals also, in medicine, law, architecture, accountancy, etc., who also require skill upgradation on a continuing learning model. How to reach out to them has always been a major issue. The management institutes with NIIT collaboration might have shown the way.