AN EDUCATED BET

BLENDED MBA COURSES—DONE PARTLY ONLINE AND PARTLY ON-CAMPUS—ARE CHEAPER AND MORE TIME FLEXIBLE THAN REGULAR DEGREES WITHOUT COMPROMISING ON THE RIGOUR. BUT ARE THEY FOR EVERYONE?

- NIDHI SINGAL

• 38.5 MILLION The total enrolment in higher education in India in 2019-20, up from 37.4 million in 2018-19

• 11.1% SHARE OF Distance enrolment in total enrolment in higher education in 2019-20

NOT EVERYONE LIVED up to the typical Indian parental expectations of becoming an engineer or a doctor. Or even getting an MBA degree.

While it may be too late for the former two, pursuing an MBA is still on the cards. Even—or should we say, especially—if in a full-time job. And these are not degrees from some fly-by-night operators but from India’s premier B-schools, such as the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA).

IIMA’s e-mode postgraduate programme (ePGP) in management is, like most MBA courses, two years long. But it requires students to be on campus for just five weeks. The rest of the course is administered over more than 850 hours of live virtual sessions in designated classrooms across various cities (the programme shifted completely online during the pandemic).