DIFFERENT SHADES

THE MBA PLATTER IS TRANSFORMING, WITH A VIBRANT CHOICE OF PROGRAMMES AND FORMATS FOR STUDENTS TO CHOOSE FROM. WHILE EACH FORMAT HAS ITS PLACE AND UTILITY, THEIR REAL VALUE WILL BE KNOWN ONLY LATER

- VIDYA S

With Covid-19 awakening B-schools to the benefits of flexibility in course delivery, and edtechs stepping in, management courses and formats have become even more diversified

Management education in India has evolved and how—starting off as a post-graduate diploma in the 1960s and ’70s, to getting a boost from the country’s economic liberalisation in the 1990s, to IIMs’ MBA degrees coming into play in 2017, to withstanding the Covid-19 disruption of the 2020s, to the current post-Covid-19 hybrid work paradigm that has shaken up the management education ‘industry’. Today, an MBA is not necessarily only a two-year programme. Why, you could even do it fully online, if you so wish, albeit its merits are yet debatable.

With Covid-19 awakening B-schools to the benefits of flexibility in course delivery, and edtech firms joining the management bandwagon, the already diverse universe of management courses and formats has further expanded. Today, a student can choose from a one-year MBA (a career pivot tool for a working professional); an executive MBA (shorter programmes designed for experienced professionals to move into leadership roles); a host of online certifications from edtech firms and, of course, the good old full-time two-year MBA. And these courses are being delivered in different ways—on-campus, hybrid, and even fully online.

And so it is that in this 24th edition of the Business Today Best B-schools ranking, done in partnership with MDRA since 2013, BT has introduced three new categories—India’s best one-year MBA programmes, best executive MBA programmes, and the best edtech platforms offering management programmes—in addition to the traditional ranking of two-year MBA courses. (