Unfolding of an educational revolution

View Source

Slowly but certainly a quiet revolution is taking place. India has experienced, encountered and lived with several revolutions. Beginning with industrial revolution about a hundred years ago, which today is thriving, to the green revolution, to the white revolution, to IT revolution to India standing at the threshold of educational revolution. Education for achievement and performance, to education as a means for job and occupation to now education as a learning process for a holistic development and growth of an individual.

In small ways beginning with and few learning institutions the focus is on perspectives in addition to skill building, philosophical understanding in addition to analytical abilities, a process of learning in addition to memorizing and exams and most important to engage and relate to the whole person. Here the student learns to integrate thoughts (knowledge) behavior (including emotions and feelings) and actions. (Educational institution of such a nature focuses on the processes of growth, makes the learning interactive and participative, involves the various constituencies viz students, teachers, administration, staff and the external environment in a coherence, convergent and vibrant setting. This means there is time space and people who discover values to live by, who engage with each other, groups and systems with respect and dignity, who learn to make tough choices and not compromises and who work with self discipline as well as rigor of learning which creates excellence in innovators and entrepreneurs. Such a process has begun in India.

Such learning institutions are taking small steps towards creating new knowledge relevant for times, evolving new frameworks and theories, understanding the global context and insights into the strengths of the socio – cultural collective psyche which can be mobilized for a learning process where the individual student and the teacher discover the magic of the learning experience and translate into wisdom.

CAT Cutoffs: What various institutes predict

View Source

Soon after CAT was out of the bag, India’s top-tier management entrance institutes like IMS Learnings, Career Launcher, TIME and Career Forum got busy in making predictions on what cutoffs are likely to get you a call from the IIMs.

Overall Cutoff
IMS Learning Center : 100+
Career Launcher : 102-107
TIME : 88-92
Career Forum : 123+
MBA Guru : 96
Professional Tutorials : 105-115

Read More…

IIM-B completes Summer Placements 08; over 110 students to go overseas

View Source

It just took four days for Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B) to place its batch of 249 students for summer internships in some of world’s leading companies.

What’s more, over hundred IIM-B students will go overseas for their summer internships.
Informs IIM-B, “The entire batch of 249 students was placed within a span of just 4 days with 132 students (more than 50% of the batch) being placed in Slot 0.” Slot 0 witnessed firms offering profiles in investment banking, management consulting, private equity and general management. Major recruiters on Slot 0 included investment banking giants like Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Consulting majors like Bain & Co, Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey & Co, AT Kearney, etc.

Across all slots, the sector-wise breakup for students is Investment Banking (19%), Private Equity (11%), Management Consulting (15%), Financial Services (16%), Marketing and General Management (28%), Systems (8%) and Asset Management (3%). A noticeable trend in the summer placements has been the number of students interning abroad with the number crossing 110 (101 last year) this year.

IIM-B says that a significant feature this year has been the entry of Private Equity players at IIMB. Blackstone Group, one of the world’s leading Private Equity firms recruited from IIMB for the first time. Other PE firms flocking to campus include ChrysCapital, Greater Pacific Capital, Goldman Sachs PE, IDG Ventures, Temasek Holdings, etc. In addition to these, Asset Management & portfolio management firms like Franklin Templeton, Lotus AMC, HSBC Securities & Roulac visited IIMB to tap the potential of the Indian market.

Consulting majors like Accenture, Deloitte, KPMG, PwC, CapGemini continued to visit IIMB. Arthur D Little visited IIMB for the summers for the first time. Strategic Management roles were offered by TAS, Lodha Group, Aditya Birla Group, Shell, IBM, etc.

Happy with summer placement results, IIM-B says, “The fantastic placements are a reflection of the diversity of students on campus. The institute boasts of students with prior experience in Investment Banks at foreign locations and leading consults like Bain & Co, Inductis, etc. Several students with prior entrepreneurial experience have chosen IIMB for honing their managerial skills. The recruiters were highly impressed with the entire placement process.”
Mr. Sharad, Managing Director of JP Morgan New York, commended the placement committee on the management of the entire process.

Stay-cool tips for all CATs

View Source

The rigour is over, now relax till you get the test paper on Sunday morning.

In the countdown to Sunday’s common admission test (CAT) — the entrance test for the six Indian institutes of management (IIMs) and a host of other B-schools — the training institutes have issued a chill pill advisory to students.

“We are asking our students to take it easy before the exam,” said Kaushik Kapoor of Erudite, a training institute specialising in B-school entrance tests.

As de-stressing is a must in the last hours ahead of the two-and-a-half hour examination, Erudite is screening films — primarily comic films — in its classrooms.

With complaints of sleepless nights and nervousness pouring in at various training institutes, the faculty members are dishing out de-stress suggestions to students.

At the Triumphant Institute of Management Education (Time), students have been specifically asked not to spend excessive time with books.

“A movie or a game of cricket are great de-stressing tools at this time,” Jaydeep Singh Chowdhury of Time.

Vijay Mishra, a B. Com graduate — set to take his first CAT on Saturday — is following the instructions of his faculty members.

“I did my revisions today. Tomorrow, I intend going out and watching movies,” said Mishra, all set for the toughest test of his life.

Richa Malhotra is aware of the degree of difficulty in the test, where she will have to compete with over 230,000 students from across country. Around 11,000 students will write the test in Calcutta.

“I have spent a year preparing for CAT. So much has gone into the preparation. Obviously, I am a bit tense,” admitted Richa.

Unnecessary tension may affect performance, warned Kapoor. “Every year, there is some surprise element in the question paper. It is impossible to predict the pattern change. So, the best strategy is to keep your cool and deliver your best,” he summed up.

Take account: CAs close in on MBAs in salaries

View Source

AHMEDABAD: MBA finance grads watch out, CAs are inching closer in terms of pay packages. In the latest round of placements of CAs, held last month, average salaries have shot up to almost Rs 6 lakh per annum. The average salary of CAs reached to a new high of Rs 5.94 lakh compared with Rs 4.79 lakh in February-March, 2007. Of late, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has been working hard to prepare its members to compete with MBA students.

The institute has also introduced changes in its curriculum to groom new students as per the changing scenario. In his recent message to its members, ICAI president Sunil Talati said, “I must say that the new breed of young students are so smart and intelligent that the number of students passing out in final examination and becoming our members is increasing every year. This is a good sign. It is not that the examination papers are easy, or results are liberal; it is in fact a sign that new young intelligent and talented students are joining our profession appreciating the new curriculum.” The campus placements were not limited to about 100-odd students like typical B-schools.

There were as many as 1,151 students recruited out of 1,823 students who participated in the September-October campus placements. There were 101 companies comprising 252 interview panels participated at 19 centres in campus interviews, organised by ICAI. “A number of students could not get the job profile and company of their choice since we do not allow students to appear in more than six interviews. However, they will be able to find the suitable opportunity through our online platform from where headhunters can access to our data base,” said ICAI chairman of committee for members in industry Uttam Prakash Agarwal.

Not only banks and financial institutes but a number of IT, energy, telecom, engineering, FMCG and aviation companies also participated. Landmark Gulf Group offered the highest package of Rs 12 lakh and recruited 17 CAs for international postings. Standard Chartered offered anywhere between Rs 7 and Rs 11 lakh to 11 CAs. Citi Bank, Britannia Industries, ICICI Bank and ITC too made some of the most attractive offers to fresh CAs. While ICICI Bank recruited as many as 303 students, Reliance Industries recruited 71, Infosys 47 and Vedanta 45 CAs. ICAI conducted campus placements at Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Vadodara, Bhilai, Chandigarh, Chennai, Coimbatore, Ernakulam, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kanpur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi, Pune and Surat.