IIMs urged to play a proactive role

THE 18TH annual convention of the Association of Indian Management Schools started off at IIM-L on Friday with a call to first maintain and then improve upon the standards of management education in the country.

THE 18TH annual convention of the Association of Indian Management Schools started off at IIM-L on Friday with a call to first maintain and then improve upon the standards of management education in the country.

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The main objective of this year’s AIMS convention — Management Education in Globalised Context: Opportunities for Corporates and B-Schools — is to bring together industry leaders, academicians and administrators for exchanging latest advancements in the field of management.

Discussing the difference between IIMs and other institutes, Dr Kirit Parikh, a pass-out of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), in his address, made a very interesting study.

“When I tell an IIM grad to report at 9 am with a solution to a complex problem, the grad does as asked. The ISI grad comes at 11 am with sleepy eyes saying that the problem is too complex and would need 6 months to solve! That is why IIMs are what they are,” he said.

Parikh also urged the IIMs to play a proactive role in a key area of designing the delivery systems in such a way that the government schemes benefit the common man.

“I think IAS officers won’t be able to do that. And politicians can only take policy decisions. That’s why schoolteachers remain absent from schools and doctors do not attend public clinics. This is why schemes made with good intentions fail in benefiting the common man. IIMs with their capacity to design effective delivery systems have an important role to play in ensuring proper governance,” he said. HTC, Lucknow