Planning MBA ?? Explore, explore and RUN from the only A+ Institutes

I am seeing an ad of an MBA Institute EIILM in Star Ananda and also in the Print media for quite some time with the claim that they are the only A+ Institute in Kolkata.

I am not sure who gave the rating and how many pegs he had before that, but whenever someone will make a similar claim, do not go away, RUN away – otherwise, meet your own waterloo in the Waterloo street.

The Institute is controlled by a Marwari trust, a purportedly non-profit one but that’s a good laugh if you know how the tax avoidance is done on the huge profit they make. The Institute is on the first floor with very narrow and serpentine passages, small rooms and chambers and lots of students. Teachers are low quality as they were cheapest available and some are fake, just lending their names (and qualifications) for some money so that these people can show that this and this people are attached with us. Infrastructure – I have told enough and about the claims of placements – my advice is not to believe a word.

They have, for good business reasons, opened up another Institute, Bangalore School of Business, in Gokul Boral Street, a dingy lane near Hind Cinema. The connection with Bangalore is a painful understanding, it is just to gain some respectability by the city name. This one is supposed to be the Kolkata campus of the same. I had the good fortune of taking a few classes in the same, and when I was already habituated with lecturing in a real high class Institute like ICFAI. The experience was shocking, but thankfully I lasted only for a couple of days only as they presumed I would agree to the Durwan’s pay for the classes (many other people supposedly accept that) and I simply refused to lower my rates and walked away, feeling utterly relieved.

The Campus was a total of 1500 sft, with 2 classrooms and the miniscule rooms for the center manager, Faculty room (but they use only one greenhorn faculty as full-time, rest are all people whoever will accept the Durwan’s pay) and the accounts and placement officer, beside a Computer room cum library (a few books and 10 PCs placed with 6 inch gaps with each other on two sides of the same table). There were 51 students, sitting cramped in the classroom, after which there was very little place for me to stand and lecture. The AC used to be off while the Faculty (Me!) was not in the class, almost leading to the “Andhakup-Hatya-II). The students, who seemed eager, were mostly B.Com, BA or B.Scs, and would be held sub-standard for top Institutes. Their fees are 3.2 Lacs per annum i.e. a total of Rs.80 Lacs per batch per year. The cost for teaching alone is 15 subjects (of which 12 are taken by guest faculty) in 2 terms are about 2 + 3 + 2*36*500 = 7.16 Lacs (includes salary of the Center Manager who is a non-teacher but is made to teach Computers, soft skills etc.). I calculated their total running cost will be to the tune of hardly Rs. 16 Lacs a year.

Now get my point of the Non-profit nature ? They are non-profit purely cheating organizations. No materials are there nor provided (just one textbook for each subject!!), teachers are sub-standard, infrastructure non-existent, placement forget it (they are for the advertisements), diploma and degrees of low standards and recognition levels. They spend on advertisements, for getting the new “Murgis” (as my friend described it) using all types of false claims and utter lies. I have nothing against them because they did never torture me in the Non-AC rooms, rest were fine with me. But you should be warned. Not only this one, nearly 90% of all the Institutes which advertise a lot of things are of the same type. For example, The Annex School of Management or something in Salt Lake, is another ghastly story. I wanted to provide you with one example, but many other small institutes have mushroomed who are almost of the same level.

Alas, they still get a lot of students, for the people like – or rather love to be cheated, after paying the fees they start looking for information and not before that. If you want to survive, learn to explore anything or anyone whom you are going to pay a lot pf money and even more importantly, two crucial years of your life and the huge opportunity cost of letting go the real good Institutes you could have tried for.

Education sector is booming right now, at least in India, some of which are as replacement of the foreign university needs (e.g. ISB, Hyderabad) and the spirally competition is pushing people to the brink that they will even prefer to go near-bankrupt to give some education to their children that they think everybody else’s son or daughter is getting. This hype has led to the springing up of many sub-standard fake organisations and the effect is big marketing scam by the social net. We are being trapped and devoured in this mega-scam, in the people’s minds.