IIMs’ blended-learning programmes are drawing international students

NEW DELHI: By 2023, Varsha Meher, an engineer with Accenture Japan, had already been working for two decades. Feeling that her career had stagnated, she decided to pursue an MBA. “I wanted to study management at a prestigious university and I was looking for programmes in a number of countries, including India,” she said. Finally, she decided on the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Sambalpur, Odisha “as the fee structure was very high in other countries.”.

Meher had graduated in electronics and communication engineering from Nagpur University and earned an MTech from Birla Institutes of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani before moving to Japan. While she was keen to get a management qualification and work her way out of the professional rut she felt she was in, she was loath to quit her job. The hybrid two-year programme came as a boon. It allowed her to study while she worked – an option that an increasing number of professionals are embracing each year.

Professionals working across the globe who don’t possess a management degree but need it to rise further in the workplace hierarchy are seeking hybrid, blended-learning programmes. Over the past few years, Indian business schools, including the premier Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) have launched a host of executive MBA programmes specifically targeting working professionals that are offered in hybrid mode and have drawn international students to them who were attracted by the ‘brand’ and the relatively low cost.

In most cases, 80% of the programme is taught online and for the rest, students need to be on campus. Meher intends to take a break from work for the on-campus immersion programme which lasts seven to 10 days.

Varsha Meher, student, EMBA, IIM Sambalpur

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MBA in blended mode

While most of the theory classes are held online, the few days of the on-campus module help students to interact with batch mates, teachers and business conglomerates – all critical for networking.

“Students can attend the classes online but to complete the programme, they have to visit for in-campus immersion,” said Shikha Bhardwaj, chairperson, executive MBA, IIM Sambalpur.

The on-campus requirements vary with the programme. “For diploma or degree programmes, campus immersion is mandatory because there are projects and project presentations and there are certain projects and lectures that can be given only during campus immersion,” explained Anju Sharma, general manager, executive education, IIM Lucknow.

Students are alerted in advance and are required to obtain no-objection certificates (NOC) from the organisation they are engaged with. For admission to the online MBA programmes, experience of six-eight years is typically mandatory.

Students of hybrid executive MBA programmes of IIM Kozhikode typically need to attend three on-campus modules. “We offer executive MBA and executive management development programmes,” said Deepa Sethi, dean of outreach, executive education and internationalisation.

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International students

The availability of hybrid programmes has also brought international students albeit a large section of them are non-resident Indians or holders of Overseas Citizenship of India (NRI and OCI).

“The major attractions of these courses are the brand, the format in which the programmes are offered, the faculty, the academic rigour and alumni,” said Sethi of IIMK. The institute is also working on specialised programmes for international students. “We will have the international immersion also at one of the campuses at one of the venues abroad. Partly it will be in IIM K and partly it will be online. The programme will be to attract international participants,” she said.

IIM Sambalpur has had NRI students from the very first year of its executive programme, 2021; they were settled in European and Asian countries including Japan, Germany and Singapore.

The institute is now working on offering the programme to international students after collaborating with international universities. “Putting ourselves into the international arena also requires collaborations with international universities. That is in the pipeline,” said Bhardwaj.

IIM Lucknow’s outreach programme for getting international students is three-pronged. One way is through flagship degree and diploma programmes are open to international students. “We also have a distance learning programme for working professionals that are managed in the online space with a campus immersive component in which anybody can enrol from any part of the globe,” said Sharma.

Deep Sethi, dean of outreach, executive education and internationalisation, IIM-Kozhikode

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MBA specialisations

An executive MBA programme involves less teaching and more sharing and learning from the experiences of executives. Most of the students are in mid-management or senior-middle management and are typically aspiring to go into senior positions.

“It is more like experiential sharing by different industry people – someone comes from teaching, someone from consulting, someone from manufacturing,” said Bhardwaj.

The students of an executive programme talk more about case-based studies. Looking at the experience levels of the participants and also their aspirations, IIM Sambalpur has started the immersion programmes for chief executive officers as part of which top executive, financial and experience officers interact with learners.

“We call CEOs from across India and domains. They interact with students, which actually allows the students to network with them, form a cohort and understand the leadership challenges and the way of going ahead”, said Bhardwaj.

This has helped a lot of participants to rise in their company hierarchy or get more challenging profiles. Most students have moved to a higher position in the company within the first two years of the programme, claimed the institutions.

The main discovery for Meher, in the first term of the programme, was that she still had many options left. “I can see that there are many more options left. I can start my start-up as well. I already have the technical expertise and now I will have the management experience. If I gain more knowledge, especially on the finance management part, that will be a good combination and I can come up with my own start-up,” she said.