Dr H. Chaturvedi has been Director, Birla Institute of Management Technology, (BIMTECH) Greater Noida, since 1999. As Alternate President of the Education Promotion Society of India, Dr Chaturvedi has also been at the forefront in dealing with issues confronting the education sector and in promoting the cause of quality programmes. In this interview Dr Chaturvedi elaborates on the plans for BIMTECH and the institution's efforts to deliver a contemporary management programme. Excerpts :
What would be BIMTECH’s key differentiators as a management school?
Taking a cue from our vision, our differentiators are that we are industry-sponsored, faculty-driven and student-centred. This defines our institution. We are proud that we have been set up by a premier business house of the country; that gives us a great deal of comfort. Second, we have imbibed the spirit of entrepreneurship and sustainability from the Birla group culture
How closely do you work with industry in developing your programmes?
Regarding introducing subjects and courses in our existing programmes, we follow a robust practice where there are three layers — the programme advisory committee, comprising industry experts and academics. We discuss the structure of the programme with the committee and then we go deeper into the subjects taught in different areas. Then there are area advisory committees, such as for retail, HR, and so on. We then plan a meeting in Mumbai where around 60-70 experts join our committee, we put up papers before them and debate on what should we add or delete and how should we teach the subject or course.
What are the new programmes you have launched of late?
Last year, we introduced some important courses, such as design thinking; one of our professors, who has experimented with many workshops along with industry, has designed the course. We have also been teaching digital marketing for the past two years. We have added new courses on experiential leadership, social enterprise, sustainability, and responsible business; so we have introduced around six to eight courses, both core and electives, this year.
It’s a gigantic exercise as faculty need to be trained and students need to be updated on the new course. We also introduced a course last year on managing one's self and future careers. It is a three-semester course and we have experimented with modules on how to manage yourself, time management, soft skills, your life and future career.
How are you using case-based pedagogy and other contemporary methods of teaching?
Around 2007-08, we took a decision to shift from a lecture-based system to a case-based system and we have trained our faculty in workshops and sent them to the IIMs and faculty development programmes. We decided that in the second year of the course, the case-based system will be used extensively. We have taken subscriptions to HBS cases as well. The first year is spent building up concepts as 70-80 per cent of students come straight from the campuses and have no industry experience; without that it is difficult to teach cases.
So in the first year it is concept building and in the second year, we use mostly case methods. Besides that, we use simulations, and a full course of four credits is offered in the second year, based on software that we have subscribed to from a US-based company. This allows students to work in groups and take decisions, breaking the silos of marketing, HR, and so on. They take decisions, record their outcomes and, after completion of the course, the final outcomes are given to them and they are evaluated on the basis of whatever how they have fared in the simulations.
What about experiential courses, which are talked about often now?
We have introduced many experiential courses; this year, one on experiential leadership, where there are no courses or lectures, but faculty observe how students work in groups and every student rates other students on how they behave in the group.
Our vision requires that we impart leadership skills to the students; so, instead of a lecture or case-based course, we offer them an experiential course. We ask every student to devote one day in the trimester to go door-to-door in a village and ask what is happening to different schemes of the NDA government. We collect data on whether these schemes are being implemented successfully or not. These are some of the experimentats we are carrying out. Our team is strong and we enjoy good management support.
You have extended BIMTECH to Bhubaneshwar?
I am proud that BIMTECH created another campus in Bhubaneshwar in 2013. The whole 30-acre campus has been designed with the efforts of the faculty and management. Now it has been converted to a university and we are proud of this. We believe that BIMTECH should go to all corners of the country. It is a multi-disciplinary university, with management, commerce, mass media, arts and culture. We plan to offer law and tech disciplines in course of time.